J.b. Priestley 's The Inspector Calls

Writers do portray characters in several way; some are portrayed as bold and courageous while others come out weak and gullible. This essay focuses on the play ‘An Inspector Calls’. This is a play written by J.B. Priestley. It gives an account of how an inspector known as Poole investigates the apparent murder of a young working class woman known as Eva Smith. When the Inspector Poole visits the Birling family, he slowly reveals how every member of that family might have taken part in the murder of Eva. The main issue under discussion is how Priestly strikingly portrays Birling in Act 1 of the play. The main argument is that the author portrays the Birling as a self-centered, selfish and hardheaded businessperson, who does not take care of social responsibility and thus is anti-socialist.

rest of the family had known about it, or heard about it in some way

Social responsibility is one of the main themes in ‘An Inspector Calls’ play. J.B. Priestly wrote the play in 1945, but set it in 1912, at the time when there was a strong class division within the society which affected attitudes towards social responsibility. Priestly portrayed this in his play through different characters and differences between lower and upper classes as well as the younger and the older generation in the play. Priestley and the character from the play, Inspector, were in favour of socialism while in contrast, Mr Birling represents capitalism which affects his sense of responsibility.

see that this is true by looking at his speech and at the manner in

How does JB Priestley present the older and younger generations differently throughout the play ‘An Inspector Calls’ (45 mins)

In the play An Inspector Calls, Priestley uses different characters to portray women. At the start of the play, Sheila is seen as fragile, materialistic and inferior to the men in her life, which is typically the view of higher-class women. This is followed by the perspective of lower class women having excellent morals yet being disposable, which is seen through Eva Smith’s character. This contradicts to Mrs Birling’s control on others and her strong social class views.

you turn in, you might have to turn out again soon." This is giving a

This is more of a genuine remark of liking to Gerald than it is a

This was written in 1945 but was set in 1912. The play is written about a girl called Eva Smith who dies of a suicide consequently, The Birling family are questioned about her death. Mr Birling is shown as a capitalist because he only cares about himself and his business rather than his workers and his community around him. 'An Inspector Calls' is a play about morality which teaches the character and the people who are watching or reading the play, not only to care about themselves and how to treat others around them. J.B Priestley uses An Inspector Calls play to show how in 1912 the class system was very strict and always associated with the higher classes.

This essay will analyze Eric, a character who is shown in a play/book 'An inspector calls', written by J.B Priestly. The play was performed for the first time in 1945, but The book takes place in 1912. The book takes place in a fictional town called "Brumley". The plot of this book is to show how women were treated at the time and how people didn't really act towards this unfair treatment against women. World War II had just ended and Europe had to rebuild all of it again. Assuming by the storyline of the book, J.B priestly seems to have a very strong view and option on social inequality in Great Britain. He was not afraid to share his opinions and thoughts publicly.

Mrs Birling is one of the principle characters in An inspector calls – she is used to portray the idealistic views held by the upper-class at the time. Mrs Birling is presented by Priestly as the body of Capitalism – by portraying her in a negative light allows the reader to draw assumptions between the negative characteristics portrayed by Mrs Birling and the negative aspects of a capitalist society, which is what Priestly intended to do.

J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls I think that an "Inspector Calls" is about the discriminations between different classes and sexes, it conveys a lot of messages about these topics and uses An Inspector - a mysterious, curt individual who makes an unexpected call on an upper middle class, very opinionated family named the Birlings. The inspector seems to invade their own little world - upsetting a celebration of theirs, forcing them to realise the truth - they all contributed to the death of a young, working class girl with what should have been years ahead of her, instead these were snatched away by a greedy, insensitive and selfish chain of events, all down to the Birlings. The girls name was

The complete disregard directed towards the workers in the pre-war society (manifested in the character of Eric), arguably stems from the childhood that was spent within the upper-class bubble. The absolute willingness of these upper classes to maintain their utterly destructive practices on the workers, who practically provide the platform for them to stand on is shown by Priestley’s representation of the Birlings and Crofts as being robotic and directly bound on creating a legacy that is infrangible due to their egotistical and autocratic nature. Mrs Birling enunciates to Eric when outlining why she refused help to Eva in her committee: “But I didn’t know it was you – I never dreamt. Besides, you’re not the type – you don’t get drunk.” This shows the considerable ignorance of the oblivious upper classes, whom reside within their spheres of influence and thus begin to believe whatever they desire. This is demonstrated again when Mrs Birling exclaims: “(shocked) Eric! You stole money!” The irony in this is immense. Eric had just admitted to having

Priestley uses Mr Birling to show the audience the arrogance of the upper class “I say there isn’t a chance of war. The worlds developing so fast that it’ll make war impossible.” Priestley uses dramatic irony to show the audience how Mr Birling believes his world can’t change that there won’t be war because that doesn’t fit in with his world view while another character trait of Mr Birling is that he only feels bad if he thinks something he’s done will affect his reputation or the reputation of his family “But the whole thing’s different now.” Birling’s very happy to go back to his old ways once he found out the Inspector was fake and continue to believe in his capitalist

The writer J.B Priestley clearly showed audience about the difference of their social class, by only showing people from upper class; Gerald, Mr.Birling and his family. From the opening of the play we can see the class of Mr Birling and his family. For example, the quote by Mrs Birling “ Edna. I’ll ring from the drawing room when we want coffee” is one of the examples showing the class of Birling family. In this quote, we can see the person called Edna, who is made, serving drinks or food if they want. Also, Mrs Birling mentioned about place called “drawing room”. Normally, drawing room is place in mansions for meeting with important guests. This shows how rich the family are (it means that they have more rooms) and also shows the social class of Gerald who are treated equally as their family. Also, this play was set in 1912, when the taxes kept increasing by the arms and naval race between Germany, and when many people were searching for jobs and suffer from poverty. However, when we look at Mr Birling’s family, we cannot see any suffering or poverty, we can see foods being left out, ports, and full of drinks. Also, in 1912, before the both wars, WW1 and WW2 ended, women were not treated equally with men. However, when we look at the opening of the play, Sheila says to Eric “Don’t be an ass”. And also Mrs.Birling says, “Now stop it, you two. Arthur, what