The Importance of Birling's Interaction with the Inspector in Act One of An Inspector Calls

The Importance of Birling's Interaction with the Inspector in Act One of An Inspector Calls

'An Inspector Calls' was written in 1945 by J.B Priestly who was a

socialist. It was written to make people recognise that capitalism is

incorrect and socialism is correct.' An Inspector Calls' was set in

1912 which is immediately before the First World War. Priestly was

writing in this period to inform people of the consequences of self

confidence and selfishness. In this play Birling represents all the

capital views and Eva, the workers and the Inspector represent the

socialist views. The Birling's are all of high class and the majority

of the family assume they deserve better treatment than the lower

class. The capitalist view is when the community are more concerned

with money and profit and the socialist view is when the community

believe in equality and caring about each other more than money.

Priestly was born in Bradford, Yorkshire on the 13th September 1894.At

the age of sixteen Priestly decided to leave school, rather than

working towards his university scholarship Priestly decided 'to

write'. Priestly grew up into his father's circle of socialist friends

and found himself joining in with their political arguments 'he was

politically-minded to some extent, but never able to put politics

first. These discussions also influenced and framed the values which

were later to predominate in Priestley's writing' (Introduction, An

Inspector Calls).

Eva is an example of a typical lower working class person she is used

to show how workers were treated in that period which is shown by her

being treated badly and fired because she requested an ...

... middle of paper ...

...ped that the

audience would also agree with his socialist views and disagree with

Birling's capitalist views. Priestly highlights the difficulties of

workers as this time in the play and through the death of Eva Priestly

is showing that capitalists cares more about profit and money than

they care about each other. This also shows how those of the higher

class would rather lose a 'good worker' than help them if it meant

that their labour costs increased, this is shown by Birling dismissing

Eva.

Luckily the society did take notice of the consequences of an

egocentric society and began taking other views into consideration and

people started to be treated equally and there were organisations

being set up to help those less fortunate such as the National Health

Service (NHS) which offered free medical care to anyone.