How does JB Priestley Use the Inspector to Comment on Social Injustice
“An Inspector calls” - Coursework
Introduction
The play “an inspector calls” is set in the year 1912, the same year that the great ship Titanic sunk. The author of this play John Boynton Priestley has used this time to show how social classes worked and how bad it actually was.
The play itself is set in a large house owned by a rich factory owner, Mr. Birling. Mr. Birling has a wife and two children, Sheila and Eric. The family are having a small party because they are celebrating the engagement of Sheila, Birlings daughter, to Gerald Croft. Gerald is the son of a great man who also owns a factory and Mr. Birling sees this as a chance to get into the big money.
The party carries on into a happy mood when suddenly an inspector calls. He tells them of a girl who has killed herself and soon everyone has something to do with this inquiry in one way or another, but did this suicide really happen.
My view of the class system as a whole is that it’s pointless and breeds. Yet then it was considered...
He tells the family that a girl has committed suicide and that in one way or another they are responsible. Mr Birling was responsible for sacking the girl from his factory. Sheila Birling was responsible because she got the girl sacked from a shop where she works. Eric Birling was seeing her but the broke it off, and Gerald Croft was having an affair with her
Sheila says this to Eric at the table. As we can see this is quite a
The play "An Inspector Calls" was written by J.B Priestley in 1945, when the British people were recovering from over six years of constant warfare and danger. As a result of two world wars, class distinctions were greatly reduced and women had achieved a much higher place in society. It was due to this and a great desire for social change that Labour's Clement Attlee won a landslide victory over the conservative Winston Churchill. He nationalized the gas steel and electrical industries, established the NHS and introduced the Welfare State. The play was set in Brumley, a fictional industrial city, in 1912.The playwright believed passionately in the left wing perspective and his message is overtly political. He uses techniques such as "dramatic irony" and "direct mouthpieces", which define the genre of the play as non-illusory, to impart his left-wing message.
· The social class system at the time when the play is set, (rich and
The characters in ‘An Inspector Calls’ are mainly upper-middle class (Mr and Mrs Birling, Gerald, Sheila, Eric), but the Inspector is middle class and Eva Smith is working class. Most of the characters in ‘An Inspector Calls’ have varied opinions about social classes, but there are mainly two sides. The first main opinion is that the upper-middle class are the most important and the lower working classes are not important and that it doesn’t matter what happens to them (this is the view of Mr and Mrs Birling and Gerald). For example Sheila and Mrs Birling need to be protected from the horrid things such as Eva Smith’s death because they are upper-middle class, whilst Eva Smith doesn’t need to be protected from horrid things in life because she is working class. The other opinion is that although they are working class, they should still be treated fairly even if they are different classes and that Eva Smith’s death is very tragic even if she wasn’t upper class (this is Eric, Sheila and The Inspector’s...
J.B. Priestley's Motives Behind An Inspector Calls J.B. Priestley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1894. His mother
The Reflection of J. B. Priestley's Political and Philosophical Beliefs in An Inspector Calls In 1945 J. B. Priestley wrote the play "An Inspector Calls". It is a very tense play; the audience are always on the edge of their seats. It is didactic as it conveys a social and moral meaning to the play.
The Birlings are holding a party to celebrate their daughter’s engagement with Gerald Croft. The pleasant scene is interrupted when a rather shady looking Inspector gives them a visit, investigating the suicide of a young working-class girl in her middle twenties. Each family member is interrogated and they all find out that they are somehow linked to the girl’s death.
As a socialist J. B. Priestley expresses his opinions through this play, in the time politicians were hated so Priestley used the play as a device to put his points forward. The play was not just a political view; it was his personal dream and passion to write an entertaining play. He created it as a detective play because they were interesting, popular and the audience could also try to crack the mystery themselves, this was a very intelligent and unique way of expressing his opinions, as he knew they would be heard this way. J.B. Priestley starts the play by introducing the Birling family. He starts with an engagement party between the Birling’s and Crofts.
Examine Priestley's use of dramatic techniques to create tension in the play. Priestly was a socialist writer, and 'An Inspector Calls' is one of the plays in which he tried to display his socialist ideals in. The play was written in the 1940's, a little after the end of the Second World War, and it was first performed in 1946, in Russia, then later in England. Priestly had served in World War 1, and the terrible scenes he saw lead to him having socialist views. He was inspired by other writers whose views he shared, especially George Orwell and H.G.
Priestley's Social Message in An Inspector Calls The play an Inspector Call’s was written at the time of 1945 but is set in 1912. Priestley conveys a lot of social and important messages in this play. He conveys the messages through the character of Inspector Goole. One most important message that Priestley conveys is about Socialism.
Written in 1947, J.B. Priestley's didactic murder-mystery, An Inspector Calls, accentuates the fraudulent Edwardian era in which the play was set. Britain in 1912 was inordinately different to Britain in 1947, where a country annihilated by war was determined to right the wrongs of a society before them. In 1912 Britain was at the height of Edwardian society, known as the "Golden Age". A quarter of the globe was coloured red, denoting the vast and powerful Empire and all Britons, no matter what class they belonged to were proud to be British - the "best nation in the world".
century. They had saved the world and did not want to return to a life
An Inspector Calls is a play with lots of political messages as well as social messages. J. B. Priestley believed in socialism and he used large amounts of his plays to try and convince people to his way of thinking. It was written in a time when Britain was ruled by a Labour government and socialist policies were seen to be a good way to go. It was a common way of thinking at that time so Priestley's aim for the play was to influence the unconvinced in society.
written in 1945 after World War 2 but is set in 1912 before World War