Minty Moore
Discuss the Importance of Eva Smith, In An Inspector Calls
Without Eva Smith, there would be no "An Inspector Calls', she is the reason for the appearance of the inspector and the whole play revolves around her and her life. Each character has some sort of connection with her and in the eyes of the inspector takes part in ruining her life by killing herself.
From the very start of the play it is clear that the inspector is trying to make the Birling family and Gerald feel guilty for the death of Eva Smith, he says that she had 'a nice little promising life', but 'a nasty mess somebody's made of it', he is predominantly implying that at least one person in the room had some involvement of the death of Eva Smith.
Eva Smith is a classic working class woman of these times, the use of the name Eva Smith is especially clever because Eva could come from Adam and Eve, meaning that Eva could be any women as Eve was the first women, the surname Smith was and still is an incredibly common surname, meaning she could have been anyone.
An Inspector Calls
Edna faces the crowd as her employers receive judg...
An Inspector Calls (film)Eva was used as a tool by J.B Priestley to represent this conception of women, he really wanted to highlight how each character in some way uses their power and social status against Eva, although there may be no actual character of 'Eva' the inspector used her to reveal all the terrible things that the family had done to women who would have been just like Eva. Eva was there to signify to the characters what they had done and make them regret it.
J.B Priestley was a great believer in socialism, and the whole reason why the character of Eva Smith may...