An Inspector Calls Essay Research Paper

An Inspector Calls Essay, Research Paper

............................................... ESSAY – AN INSPECTOR CALLSJohn Boynton Priestley was a socialist. He believed

that whether we acknowledged it or not, we are in a community and have a

responsibility to look after others. He wrote "An Inspector Calls" to

highlight these beliefs and share them. In writing this essay, I intend to show

Priestley’s aims in writing the play, how he showed these aims and how

successful he was in conveying his ideas.You can only speculate on the aims of a playwright

in writing a play. In the case of "An Inspector Calls", a valid

speculation would be that the author aimed to educate the audience through the

characters’ realisation of their role in Eva Smith’s demise and thus their

individual responsibility towards other people. ........... Arthur

Birling is the kind of character the whole play warns against. "A

hard-headed business man", he believes that society is as it should be.

The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and there is a large gap between the

two. He believes that "a man has to mind his own business and look after

himself and his own". When put with other things Birling has said in the

play, we see that Priestley’s views do not concur with Birling’s and he has

added statements to make the audience see Birling’s views as false. Birling’s

confidence in the predictions he makes – that the Titanic is "unsinkable,

absolutely unsinkable", that "The Germans don’t want a war. Nobody

wants a war" and that "we’re in for a time of increasing

prosperity" give that audience the impression that his views of community

and shared responsibility are misguided also. Every one of the predictions

Birling makes are wrong; the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, World War one

broke out two years after the play was set and the American stock market

crashed in 1929, plunging the world into economic chaos. This leads us to

regard him as a man of many words but little sense!... ........... If

we contrast the character of Birling with that of the Inspector, we can see

Priestly’s aims showing. The Inspector is the opposite of Birling. Where. Birling’s predictions are wrong, the

Inspector predicts that if people don’t learn their responsibilities, they will

be taught in "fire and blood and anguish". This prediction refers to

World War I most obviously, but also can refer to World War II. The lessons of

World War I weren’t learnt so the same mistakes were made and another war

started; and though Priestly was unaware of it when the play was written, sixty

years on the same mistakes have caused war after war. This makes his message

just as relevant to the audience of 2001 as to his intended audience. Another

contrast to Birling is that while Birling.

seemingly knows nothing of his family’s affairs, Sheila says of the

Inspector "We hardly ever told him anything he didn’t know". At the end of Act Three,

Birling seems not to have taken any of the lessons of the evening to heart. The

demise of Eva Smith and the part each member of his family played in her death

have not shaken his belief that "a man has to mind his own business and

look after himself and his own." and that "there’s every excuse for

what. (he and Mrs Birling). did" In fact, he is more concerned with his

own reputation than with Eva. ".who here will suffer.more than I

will." He says things that should have been said to him, "you don’t

realise yet all you’ve done…you don’t seem to care about anything", yet

when he says these things, he is of course talking not about Eva Smith, but

about his own reputation and an upcoming public scandal. The attitudes of Mr

and Mrs Birling, and to an extent Gerald, and their willingness to explain away

the. events of the evening to hoaxes and

artfully crafted deception, all go towards the final plot twist – the inspector

is returning to teach the Birlings their lesson again. This ties in with the

idea that if you don’t learn the lesson the first time, you will be taught it

again, through "fire and blood and anguish".The message of the play was

particularly effective to the audiences of 1946. Priestley knew that the

message of his play would reach the war-weary audiences of the era more

effectively than it would reach the audiences of a different time. The

"fire and blood and anguish" reference to the First and Second World

Wars would be very influential to the audience. The setting of the play in 1912

allowed for predictions to be made by both Birling and Inspector Goole. The

intended effect of the predictions was to make the audience see a glimpse of

the kind of person the predictive character is. In the case of Birling, the

audience would see him as a character whose opinion

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