Review of J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

Review of J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

Inspector Calls, is a play set in the fictitious North Midlands

industrial city of Brumley in 1912. The wealthy industrialist Arthur

Birling and his wife Sybil Birling are holding a dinner party to

celebrate the engagement of their daughter Sheila, to Gerald Croft.

Gerald is the son of a successful business rival, Sir George Croft.

Whilst preparing for dinner, they are interrupted by a police

Inspector who is investigating the suicide of a young working class

woman. The inspector shows them a photograph of the girl and they all

start to recognise who the girl is. Eva Smith. They all reveal their

involvement in the death of Eva, but do not blame themselves for

causing the death of Eva Smith. The Inspector tells them that they are

all partly to blame for the girl's suicide and then leaves. The family

then begins to suspect that the Inspector was not genuine. They

eventually find out that the Inspector was lying about the death of

Eva Smith and they congratulate themselves on exposing the hoax. But

soon a telephone rings, and they find out that a girl had just died

and an inspector was coming round to question them.

In his play, "An Inspector Calls", Priestly has created three

different women. They are Mrs Birling, Sheila Birling and Eva Smith.

The main differences between them are that Mrs Birling is a well-off

lady who can't control her temper and doesn't feel sympathetic towards

others. She also doesn't want her family to get a bad reputation, so

she denies any allegations made towards her family. Sheila is the

daughter of Mr and Mrs Birling. She is a much calmer and sympathetic

lady...

... middle of paper ...

...he poverty level. Priestley was writing the play for a middle class

audience and was trying to speak up for the working class by showing

how the Birlings and Gerald Croft were all involved in making a young

working class girl's life a misery. Priestley wants to show us that we

have a responsibility to others to act fairly and without prejudice

and that we do not live in isolation. Our actions affect others. This

is the concept of collective responsibility. Priestley says, 'things

could really improve if only people were to become more socially

responsible for the welfare of others. We have to confront our

mistakes and learn from them. He uses Mrs. Birling as the higher class

and Eva as the lower class. He shows us how the rich mistreated the

poor and what respect the lower class people got from the higher class

people.