J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

J. B. Priestly was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, 1894. After

surviving the First World War, he went on to study literature, history

and political science at Bradford and at Cambridge. Priestly wanted to

ensure life after the First World War was better than before and he

hoped that through his writing he could influence people's ideas and

change society. ‘An Inspector Calls’ is a play set in 1912 about the

capitalist Birling family who are visited one night by an Inspector,

Inspector Goole, who reveals that a young woman, Eva Smith, has died

after swallowing a lot of strong disinfectant. He questions all the

Birling family who are all revealed to have played a part in Eva’s

downward spiral of depression and ultimately, suicide.

J. B. Priestly wrote ‘An Inspector Calls’ in 1945 but deliberately set

it in 1912, a time where socialism was often losing out to capitalism.

He was particularly concerned about the living conditions of the lower

classes, represented by Eva, and the way the upper classes behaved,

represented by the Birlings’ and Gerald Croft, Sheila Birling’s

fiancé. Priestly believed that we should all help each other, which is

the total opposite from what the Birlings believed. Priestly set the

play 33 years after he’d wrote it, this gives the audience a knowledge

that the characters don’t have. Priestly often uses this to make

certain characters appear stupid and foolish. For Example, Mr Birling

talks about "a time of steadily increasing prosperity." He also

mentions that the Titanic is “unsinkable… absolutely unsinkable,” and

that there will be no war in Europe. He was of cause wrong about all

three of these statements. Mr. Birling is the most 'stupid' character

in the play. Priestly portrays Arthur as a man who is very confident

in his own beliefs, when we see Birling make these statements which we

know to be false, the audience distrusts Arthur and all his views and

beliefs. Priestly used his characters to show his own personal views.

Through the dialogue and actions of the Birling family we, the