"Pretending" in An Inspector Calls
The words "pretend" and "pretence" appear 12 times in An Inspector Calls.
JBP uses them to reflect the insincerity and moral failure of the Birlings' society.
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The words "pretend" and "pretence" appear 12 times in An Inspector Calls.
JBP uses them to reflect the insincerity and moral failure of the Birlings' society.
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"Pretend" is first used by Gerald, where it neatly highlights Mr Birling's ham-fisted class pretensions:
Mr B: It's exactly the same port your father gets.
Gerald: [...] The governor prides himself on being a good judge of port. I don't PRETEND to know much about it.
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Mr B: It's exactly the same port your father gets.
Gerald: [...] The governor prides himself on being a good judge of port. I don't PRETEND to know much about it.
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Which is a nice swipe at Mr Birling, who is of course pretending to know something about port as one of the credentials for entry into a higher echelon of the middle class.
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In the same part of the play, Mr Birling tells Gerald "frankly, without any PRETENCES, that your engagement to Sheila means a tremendous lot to me. [...] You're just the kind of son-in-law I've always wanted."
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It's quite telling that Birling's insistence on authenticity and a lack of "pretence" is just the setup for hollow platitudes and insincerity. Gerald is the "kind of son-in-law" that Birling craves because of his business connections, not his match with Sheila.
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Later in the play, the word "pretend" is most often used by Sheila, who learns that the Birlings' respectability is a facade, and that maintaining it is a moral failure in the light of the Inspector's visit.
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For example, Sheila tells her family: "We really must stop these silly pretences. This isn't the time to pretend that Eric isn't used to drinking."
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"Pretending" is what Mrs B says about Eva/Daisy -- "She pretended" that Birling was "the first name she thought of". And it's what Gerald says of the Inspector -- "pretending to be a police officer".
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Significantly, "pretending" appears multiple times towards the end of the play, used in the same way by both Sheila and Eric:
SHEILA: I behaved badly too. I know I did. I'm ashamed of it. But now you're beginning all over again to PRETEND that nothing much has happened.
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SHEILA: I behaved badly too. I know I did. I'm ashamed of it. But now you're beginning all over again to PRETEND that nothing much has happened.
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ERIC: You're beginning to PRETEND now that nothing's really happened at all.
SHEILA: You're just beginning to PRETEND all over again.
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SHEILA: You're just beginning to PRETEND all over again.
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The repeated use of "pretend" by Sheila and Eric is interesting and levels a severe charge at Gerald, Mr B and Mrs B. They have had a truth about their society and their morality revealed, and they see it too, but they're *choosing* to ignore it.
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We might say that the Birlings begin the play in a state of ignorance about themselves and their world, but JBP is clear that ignorance is not innocence.
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To the Birlings, of course, it's the Inspector who is pretending. But what JBP wants the audience to grasp is that the truth of his social message is more urgent than the "truth" of his story about Eva/Daisy.
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Any pretence on the Inspector's part is secondary to the greater, far more damaging pretences on theirs.
And that was a thread on "pretending" in AIC.
Thanks!
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And that was a thread on "pretending" in AIC.
Thanks!
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