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The portrayal of the inspector in an inspector calls
The portrayal of the inspector in an inspector calls
How and why is the inspector presented as a dramatic and powerful figure in an inspector calls
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The play ‘An Inspector Calls’ is set in the North Midlands, the industrial city of Brumley in 1912. The play revolves around the death of a young girl named Eva Smith and the wealthy, middle class Birling family. The Birling family consists of four main members. In addition, there is Gerald Croft who is engaged to the daughter of the family, Sheila Birling, and the maid Edna who plays a small role in the play.
Throughout Priestley’s play, ‘An inspector calls’, a main theme runs about responsibility and differentiation between classes. Each character is accountable of doing something that brought about the death of Eva smith. All the characters contribute to her death in one way or the other, and all of them are at fault for the death of Eva Smith, however, I am going to examine who is most to blame for her death.
Mr Birling is a contributing factor to why Eva Smith killed herself. He is responsible in one way because he was not able to ‘accept any responsibility’, and this shows he is to partly to blame because he isn’t tricking anyone, but he is taking the two generations and backing up differences between them according to how responsibilities are taken. As well as that, he fired her from his factory due to campaigning for higher wages. He says it was his duty to cut down labour costs, therefore this shows that he considers his factory workers as people who limit him from raising his profit. In order to justify this, he says ‘If you don’t come down sharply on these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth’. From Mr Birling’s character we can see that he is mature and believes in self-responsibility. He clearly states that ‘A man has to look after himself and his own’. He doesn’t think he is liable for his workers. All these...
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...e partly to blame, but their actions reflect upon their parents, so they are a shadow of their parents. They both realise what they’ve done wrong and accept their mistakes. The inspector in the play tries to show the Birling’s that their wrongdoings bring them to situations in which the lives of other people are affected, regardless of what their status is. Sheila is also to blame as Eva had an opportunity of living and earning money, however she was fired by Sheila. The rest of the characters played a part in leading Eva to death, but not as serious as the four main characters. All characters contributed to the leading factors of Eva Smith’s death. They were all involved, and all showed faults in their actions, however Mrs. Birling was most at fault. If Mrs Birling helped Eva, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did, and Eva may not have committed suicide.
Priestley mainly uses the characters in the play to present his views, especially Mr and Mrs Birling, to present his ideas about class and society. In the Birling family, Mrs Birling is the most upper class, and is always referring to the lower class female factory workers such as Eva Smith as ‘girls of that class’. She seems to think that working class people are not humans at all.
He was particularly scathing about the class system and the extreme contrasts of wealth and poverty prevalent at that time. He also disapproved of the selfishness within the individual and the fact that many people were only concerned with their own power, profit and gain. Priestley powerfully highlighted the exploitation of women and through the character of Eva Smith, he illustrated the rights that women were beginning to voice in society. Finally, Priestley used the different characters in his play to show the how the sins of greed, pride and selfishness have so corrupted society that the individual has become oblivious to the consequences of their actions, in this case culminating in the death of Eva Smith. Although 'Inspector Calls' is set in 1912, it was first written in 1945 and produced on the lst October 1946, just after World War 11.
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. The play starts off with the Birling family celebrating their daughter's engagement to Gerald Croft. The family included Mr Birling, Mrs Birling, Eric Birling, Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft.
Do you agree that Eva Smith is presented as a victim in the play ‘An
An Inspector Calls' is primarily focused on he attitudes surrounding the higher classes in 1912, and how these attitudes can lead to actions with potentially devastating consequences. The attitudes are particularly aimed at women, especially those of working class status. In the play women are portrayed as second class citizens, after men. However the difference (e.g. in independence) between upper class men and women is greater than that of working class men and women.
JB Priestley’s intent in ‘An Inspector Calls’ was to convey the attitudes of socialism to the minds of the society in the Edwardian Era as he was a passionate believer of the concept. Priestley has attempted this through the employment of ‘Inspector Goole’ in the play. In the play drama is displayed through a variety of methods for the interest of the audience and the communication of personal views from JB Priestley.
Priestley's Use of Characters to Send a Political and Social Message to the Audience in An Inspector Calls
The whole family’s actions are the cause of Eva’s death however the message about responsibility the Inspector presents is only take on board by Eric and Sheila. In conclusion, Priestley clearly gets across his message of responsibility towards others in the play. A clever script cunningly executed points out Priestley’s views to the audience. ‘Responsibility’ is the focal point of the play and is consistently addressed at the end of each interrogation, but the Birlings fail to recognise this.
The history of the time the play was written helps us to understand the views and the feelings expressed by Priestley in the play. The inspector transfers Priestley’s views and he shows the difference in social classes at the time. A gap which he wants to diminish. He illustrates the reason for this in the play, via the inspector, where he outlines the ways each of the Birlings have influenced someone from a completely different background and social class. This is the way Priestley viewed pre-war England.
Mr Birling, a wealthy capitalist man, and a "rather portentous man," is an ignorant, over-confident, arrogant man who finds it difficult to think about other people. He doesn’t believe in "community and all that nonsense". Birling has a narrow perspective of the world and says that "a man has to make us own way". After Eva had lost her job, he expected her to fend for herself, which was an unfair judgement. Birling dismisses the idea of social responsibility and he calls people like the Inspector "cranks". Birling didn’t care about his workers and proudly says "I have a couple hundred workers under me, who keep changing," which further iterates the idea of him being arrogant and boastful.
In this section at the end of Act Two we find out that Mrs Birling
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.
... At the end of the novel Mrs Sybil Birling has to come to the truth that she declined Eva Smith who needed urgent help and her daughter want marry a good man and Mrs Sybil Birling does not accept any sort of responsibility for Eva’s smith death.
The first impression of Arthur Birling is in the initial stage directions, when he is described as ‘a heavy looking, rather portentous man in his fifties.’ The fact that he is described as ‘heavy looking’ and ‘portentous’ suggests that he has a fairly comfortable lifestyle, and has an inflated opinion of his own importance. Priestley has done this to fit the typical man of the house during the 1910’s.
and Arthur Birling, a man who has worked his way up from being one of