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Inspector calls inspector analysis
Inspector calls inspector analysis
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Mr Birling is the father, and leader of the Birling family. He is described by Priestly as a ''Portentous'' man. Throughout the first act, we see Arthur Birling being conveyed by the play write as a rather pompous and foolish character. He shows no remorse or concern for his wrongful actions, unless they affect his reputation. Birling is also portrayed as a defiant capitalist and extremely narrow minded. Priestly presents Mr Arthur Birling and a ignorant and foolish character with us use of Dramatic Irony. As Mr Birling was delivering his speech at his daughter, Sheila's engagement, he mentioned that the titanic, was ''unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable''. As the play was written in 1945, we know that this bold statement is far from correct.
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.
This caused workers to become better organised and strikes were becoming more frequent as they demanded better conditions and higher pay. J.B. 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.
Birling is the man of the house, and in the setting of the play, 1912,
Priestley explores the relationships between men and women as he shows that the Birlings look at people's gender to judge them. Sheila is a representation of stereotypical girls during that time period, who obsess over pretty clothing and expensive things. As when she gets the ring, she describes it as "a beauty". Moreover, Priestley shows that men have a higher status than women and they make all the decisions as Sheila asks Gerald "is it the one you wanted me to have?" Furthermore, in the play, it's shown that the expectations of women were to act innocent and pure and that they should seek protection from "unpleasant and disturbing" things.
The play starts with the Burling family celebrating Shelia Birling's engagement to Gerald Croft. Mr Burling speaks on this happy occasion about his daughter's engagement although he only touches upon the topic of his daughter's future and happiness he seems more interested in the business side of his daughter's engagement. This shows that he is money orientated as he talks about his daughters future as though ... ... middle of paper ... ... an see that J.B. Priestly was a very political writer who had very strong socialist views.
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.
Priestley presents Birling as an ignorant business oriented social climber, who is obsessed with bettering himself in the industrial city of Brumley. This claim is backed up by the fact that on page 7, act one, Birling says that war will be impossible, and the Titanic is unsinkable, which leads the audience of the 1940s to view him as a fool who holds forth about subjects that he does not know about. He is known to be a social climber as on page 8, act 1, he is talking to Gerald about his social status which he obviously cares more about than truth or law.
The tragic history of the Titanic, the sinking of the “unsinkable” giant of a ship shocked the entire world and contributed to important shifts in the mass consciousness of the people who lived at that period and assessed the achievements of new technologies and their role. However, one would have been hardly able to predict in 1912 that this tragedy, no matter how significant and meaningful, would leave such a deep imprint on the history of human civilization. The continuing interest in the fate of the great vessel has taken the form of various narrations and given rise to numerous myths enveloping the true history and, in this way, often obscuring the facts related to the tragedy. In recent years, this interest has been emphasized by the dramatic discovery of the wreck and examination of its remains. The recovery of artifacts from the Titanic and the exploration of the site where it had sank stimulated new speculations on different issues of the failure to rescue the Titanic and the role of different factors contributing to the disaster. These issues have been traditionally in the focus of discussions that caused controversies and ambiguous interpretations of various facts. They also often overshadowed other parts of the disaster story that were confirmed by statistical data and revealed the impact of social realities. The social stratification of passengers that reflected the social realities of the period and its class interests determined the chances of survival, with most of those perished in the Titanic disaster having been lower class individuals.
Goole is presented, by Priestley, as an intrusion. Birling initially has a sense of foolish optimism. Birling refers to the Titanic as ‘absolutely unsinkable.’ This single quote highlights Birling’s complacency and ignorance as the play was first performed in 1946 and so the audience know the outcome of the Titanic: due to complacency the captain abandoned the ships bow to take a drink in a bar whilst letting the glorious steamer power into an iceberg. Birling’s foolishness is reiterated when he refers to the, future, great war
In this section at the end of Act Two we find out that Mrs Birling
Arthur Birling shows confidence and arrogance at the start of the play, with some of his speeches he delivers in which he includes “the great war will never happen” and “the titanic is unsinkable”. His style of speeches clearly shows the theme of a complacent capitalist. The dramatic irony makes the audience think Birling is foolish and lacking in knowledge about the future. Priestley is showing an audience his concern that such idiotic people have some degree of power in this
In order to encourage the audience to apply their critical faculties, Priestley makes them feel superior to Birling.He thoroughly discredits and degrades Birling, and through him, the right wing philosophy. This tells us very early on that Priestley uses Birling as a diametric mouthpiece to voice his left-wing opinions and that the play is completely biased to the socialist perspective. The theatricality of the dramatic irony Priestley uses makes the audience think outside the proscenium arch, about the world and their relationships to it. This is all part of the non-illusory experience.
“Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” The audience should know the tale of the Titanic very well and this just demonstrates again how wrong Mr Birling can be. I think that the hindsight and the dramatic irony was used because it helps to better establish the time period of the play and it also shows that Mr Birling isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is.
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.
higher prices - meaning that he would have more money. This really highlights how greedy and selfish Mr. Birling is - he does not consider the impact higher prices would have on anyone else; he just wants more money. This is in great contrast to the inspector who believes that everyone should act as a community and all have responsibility for their actions against anyone.