J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls Essay

An Inspector Calls is a three-act drama, which takes place on a single night in 1912, and focuses on the Birling family, who live in a wealthy but not particulary homely house in Brumley. The story begins when the mysterious Inspector Goole calls unexpectedly on the prosperous Birling family. The idea of the play, and particularly the role of the inspector, is to try to bring the Birling family to understand that they have a moral responsibility for the death of Eva Smith, if not a legal one. In Act Three, the Inspector tells the Birling family: “The girl killed herself and died a horrible death. But each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it.” But who was really the

There are a number of suspects which in an inspector calls is the entire family on set. There are also red herrings and anticipations. The red herrings are created by the way the inspector conducts his interview. The inspector only focuses on one character at a time, starting with Mr. Birling. It appears early in the play that Mr. Birling is a major contributor to Eva smiths death, but then the inspector turns onto the next character Sheila. The interrogation of Sheila leads us to think that Sheila is now a major contributor towards the death of Eva Smith. Sheila's character turns out to be very different to that of her father who is very defensive and more worried about the bad reputation that this could cause the family, where as Sheila throughout the play starts to discover a moral and ethical side of herself. An example of this is in act two where Sheila says "It means that we've no excuse now for putting on airs and that if we've any sense we wont try. Father threw this girl out because she asked for decent wages. I went and pushed her further out, right into the street, just because I was angry and she was pretty. Gerald set her up as his mistress and then dropped her when it suited him. And now you're pretending you don’t recognize her from that photograph I admit I don’t know why you should, but I know jolly well you did in fact recognize her from the way you

The play ‘An Inspector Calls’ is set in the North Midlands, the industrial city of Brumley in 1912. The play revolves around the death of a young girl named Eva Smith and the wealthy, middle class Birling family. The Birling family consists of four main members. In addition, there is Gerald Croft who is engaged to the daughter of the family, Sheila Birling, and the maid Edna who plays a small role in the play.

In his play, An Inspector Calls, JB Priestley explores numerous ideas of responsibility. Priestley utilizes the setting of the play (1912) when socio-economic disparity between the upper and working class was high, and juxtaposes it with the social context of when the play was performed (1945), when aspects of socialism were growing rapidly in Britain. This creates dramatic irony and reflects the view of audiences first attending the play. He achieves this by using the mysterious nature of Inspector Goole, who pressures the upper-class Birling family to admit responsibility for the death of Eva Smith (a working class woman), to embody socialist Britain; exploiting the affluent and pompous Mr Birling to represent the unwillingness of Capitalism

are adverbs to tell the actor how to say the text. This can be slowly

You feel that the Inspector knows everything already, and that by telling him, you are not giving information, but confessing to what you have done- which he already knows. This makes Sheila and Eric in particular give a lot more information than is necessary to the questions that the Inspector asks. The Inspector sets up a scene, and then inserts snippets of information that two parties will both be able to individually interpret, and will reveal more than necessary. The Inspector makes the information he gives ambiguous in order to draw the largest reaction. In this way, he is able to play off their response and extract more information from them. In some aspects, Inspector's character seems to be ahead of his time. The manner in which he conducts his questioning seems to be more advanced than the way in which they are received. Also the way in which he conducts himself gives the impression of being ahead of the family that he is questioning. He also has the sensibility of someone who lived during the 1945/46, after the wars. The Inspector does not ‘fit' in with the way in which things where done during the time of this play. Priestley makes the Inspector seem ahead of his

J B Priestley's Main Ideas in An Inspector Calls In the play "The Inspector Calls" by J B Priestley many views are put forward for the audience to contemplate. Priestly uses the characters to portray the views and changes that were happening and going to in the time when the play was set 1912. Mr Birling & Mrs Birling are a classic example of the typical upper-class citizens.

Revealing truths that the younger characters couldn’t imagine .Or as The Inspector puts it to the Birlings ‘putting ourselves in the place of these women in their dingy back rooms’ which possibly demonstrates that the inspector thinks that the Birling Family could n cope with the conditions that these young women live in.

'An Inspector Calls' is a morality play - a form of play developed in the late middle ages in which a Christian moral lesson was brought out through the struggle between the forces of good and evil - set in 1912, and revolves around the questioning of a family by Inspector Goole about the suicide of a young woman (Eva Smith) that the family knew.The author, J.B. Priestley is trying to show us what some people's arrogance and selfishness can cause without them even noticing. Priestley was a socialist, therefore

An Inspector Calls is set in 1912 before World War One. The play is centred around, a wealthy family called the Birlings. The visit from the Inspector reveals that all the characters had played a part in the suicide of a girl called Eva Smith. In some ways, all the characters are responsible for the death of Eva Smith, each one of them did something that affected her in some way or another. Overall I feel that some characters were more responsible than others for many different reasons. In the book we see several different reactions from the characters when they find out that they are caught up in the suicide, some were upset and distressed and others just tried to pass the blame to others and tried to excuse what they had done. The characters selfishness was a huge contributions to Eva Smiths suicide.

the play is that it is a typical detective story. This is due to the

There is a power shift from Mr birling and inspector Goole I can tell this by the language that inspector Goole. A quote that supports my point is ‘nothing to do with you, Sheila. Run along’. The inspector says ‘no wait a minute, miss birling’. Mr birling says to his daughter ‘nothing to do with you’. This quote shows us that Inspector Goole challenges Mr birling by controlling his daughter Sheila. This quote is significant because it shows that inspector Goole can stop an order that was not given to him but to Mr birling’s daughter. The inspector Goole uses the word ‘No’. The inspector hold the most power by extracting information from others yet not giving himself away. He has the ability to make the birling family say thing that help solve the mystery of the death of Eva Smith. Priestley perhaps decided to include this into his play to show that the socialist majority should stand up to the capitalist minority. I believe he is trying to show this through the characters of inspector Goole and Mr Birling. Inspector Goole is socialist while Mr birling is capitalist; I think that J.B priestly want to see a power shift from capitalist to socialist, by showing it through the characters Mr birling and inspector Goole. This is very similar to ‘Of mice and men’ and it can be linked to the novella. There is a shift of power shown throughout the scene when Curley and Lennie

His wife disapproves and takes her two children, Sheila and Eric out. Mr Birling was having a chat with his son and Gerald, when the doorbell rang. An Inspector had come, and had urgent news to tell them. Gerald jokes that maybe Eric had gotten into trouble, only to receive a suspicious response from a nervous Eric. A man introducing himself as Inspector Goole had come to get information about a woman called Eva Smith, who committed suicide in an infirmary by drinking disinfectant two hours

Throughout the play, Eva Smith’s death is a sum of continuous bad encounters with the Birlings, a well-respected and upper class family. Each situation is on a whim or to the benefit of one of the Birlings. Eva is left unemployed, poor, almost homeless and pregnant with Eric’s child. In despair and with suicide as her only outcome, she dies. As Kennedy states: “…Some men are wounded and some men never leave the country.” Because Eva is a working class woman, she is used, discriminated against, looked down upon and alone. This is unjust and unfair as her social standing led to her own

Priestly wants the Inspector to be in this position. By surrounding the Inspector with power and mystery, it makes the Inspector a plethora of ambiguity, adding to the intrigue of the play. This can be found in the Inspector’s name: Goole. It may be a pun on the word “ghoul”, which is a spirit, which is said to take fresh life from corpses. Otherwise, in a metaphorical context, a person who is obsessed, or has a morbid interest, with death. This is important, as it can be the reason why the Inspector is haunting the Birlings and Gerald with what they have done to Eva. It seems that he is intent in teaching the Birlings a lesson, a sort of moral juggernaut. One may argue that the Inspector’s presence is because of the girl’s death.