Change in Sheila's Character throughout An Inspector Calls
J B Priestly ‘s ‘An Inspector Calls’ is set in 1912 and was first
performed in 1945. This mean there is Dramatic Irony over Birling ‘s
comment about war. The plot concerns Eva Smith a working class girl
who commits sucide. She used to work in Birling ‘s factory and every
family member affected her life. An inspector comes to their house for
investigation. Priestly message to the audience is that everyone in
society is responsible for their own actions and the way in which they
affect others.
At the beginning of the play, Sheila is a pretty girl in her early
twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited. She is getting
married to Gerald Croft. “Oh – it’s wonderful! Look Mummy – isn’t it a
beauty? Oh darling (she kisses Gerald Hastily)”. After the inspector
arrives she wants to know what is going on and when she founds out she
is shocked.
“Oh how horrible! Was it an accident?” Sheila accepts that she is
partly to blame for Eva ‘s sucide because she got her fired from
Milwards shop. The audience fee...
In the act the actress who plays Sheila is told to act as though the
and how she was worried of what she would be in for later on that night,
An Inspector Calls was written in 1945 but set in 1912. The play shows the stark difference between 1912 and 1945. J. B. Priestley reveals the errors of society and the faults of capitalism as well as the bias of the upper class and social status. As a firm believer in the concepts of socialism, he uses this play to expose society’s poor attitudes to the working class of the period. The way they treat Eva Smith reflects on how many of the working class may have been treated by their social superiors. Eva was a victim in society as she was very low in the financial hierarchy as well as in reality where she was at the bottom of the classes. Women at that time were seen as being delicate, obedient to their husbands. The inspector is used to correct the
meantime she goes through a series of maturing experiences. She learns how to see her
Do you agree that Eva Smith is presented as a victim in the play ‘An
and Arthur Birling, a man who has worked his way up from being one of
but she seems to be a person who would only marry for love and not for
"And be quiet for a moment and listen to me. I don't need to know any
comes to attack them in order to even the score for the killing of her son. Then she leaves taking
in his amazing portrayal of what could happen if we do not act as a
the world in which he grew up. He became a spoilt brat, spurred on by
Bly, she starts noticing the appearances of a woman and a man. When the governess confides
J.B. Priestley wrote the play "An Inspector Calls" in 1945 and set it in 1912. These dates are both relevant because he wrote his play in a world emerging from the Second World War, at a time when people were getting nostalgic about pre-world war one. Priestley used his play to try and show people that the idea of a community in 1912 was gradually being washed away by the upper classes and that the world needed to change rather than return to the egotistical society that existed in pre war England.
who wanted to enter her life, she is left alone after her father’s death. Her attitude
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by