How Does Priestley Create Tension In An Inspector Calls

The play ‘An Inspector Calls’ written by J.B Priestley mainly to express his own opinion. The family of the Birlings, Gerald Croft and Inspector Goole are set in the 1912 (just before the First World War) but was written straight after the bloody Second World War - taking this in fact the audience is well known and experienced with the bloodshed. In the play Priestley has used various techniques to show and express the thought of society. Priestley has developed the character of the inspector cleverly to proclaim the main concerns of this play: responsibility and socialism.

“An Inspector Calls” - The play set in 1912, written in 1945 by the socialist writer J.B Priestley to express his own feelings of communities responsibilities and his own word challenge to the capitalists of that time. This challenge can be seen very early on in the play with the characters of Mr Birling and use of dramatic irony: ‘the Titanic - she sails next week - … and unsinkable’ on page 7 shows that writer is provoking the stubborn attitude the capitalist had in the time.

Priestley presents the inspector as a mysterious character:

This gives us a impression that he is not a normal person or is here to bring a big impact. As the lighting changes from pink to bright and harder colour, this would make me think the play will turn more serious when the inspector arrives. The fact that the colour is pink before the inspector enters makes me think that the scene is like a dream as it is not like a realistic to have that kind of lighting; and when the inspector arrives it can be seen as if you woke up from the dream - the current time is real and is happening