J.B Priestley use of Sheila Birling to Convey His Message to the Audience in An Inspector Calls
In An Inspector Calls, Sheila Birling is an important character, used
by J.B Priestley to put across his message to the audience.
I am going to talk about socio-historic content, Sheila at the
beginning of the play, Sheila’s reaction to; finding out the girl had
died; finding out her father sacked the girl; finding out she
contributed to the girl getting fired; finding out that Gerald knew
the girl and finding out that her mother refused to help the girl. I
will also talk about how Sheila reacted to discovering; Eric was
involved with the girl; the Inspector was a fake and overall, how much
Sheila changed through the play and how much she learnt.
An Inspector Calls was written in 1945, just as World War II was
ending. The play is set in 1912, which was known as the Golden Age,
the period before the First World War when Britain flourished. Winston
Churchill, the Conservative leader, was engaged in an election battle
with Clement Attlee, the leader of Labour. Churchill wasn’t a good
leader for poor people as the Golden Age was all about rich men.
Attlee wanted to change this with the Welfare State, which pledged to
look after the working class. An Inspector Calls is a play about the
good old days when poor people had no choice in how Britain was run
and rich people lived their lives with no regard for others.
As the play opens, the first impressions of Sheila Birling are of a
spoilt, immature young woman who was involved in an arranged marriage.
As the play went on, Sheila came across as s naïve selfish person who
cared little for anyone other than herself. Sheila shows signs of
intelligence occasionally, but soon reverts back to childish silly
comments, “Don’t be an ass, Eric”, probably designed to antagonise
her younger brother. Even though the dinner party is in aid of her
engagement to Gerald Croft, Sheila doesn’t seem mature enough to marry
one page 11) this indicates that he is a selfish man and cares for his
J B Priestley clearly had a strong moral conscience which led him to hold socialist beliefs wanting to bring about change against the capitalists who were exploiting the poor working class. In 'An Inspector Calls' Priestley cleverly uses dramatic techniques, lighting and stage directions to produce an emotionally charged setting to bring home a very important message to the correct society of his day and remains a challenge to the society in which we live in now.
Priestley shows that the tension is within Birling’s family in many ways. He has created the setting of the play in Birling’s dining room where all the traumatic situations occur, it’s also where they hear unpleasant news from Inspector’s arrival. This setting also makes it seem claustrophobic where the audience are controlled by Inspector’s enquiry which heightens the tension of the play between the exit and entrance in the play. An Inspector Calls starts off calmly with ‘pink and intimate’ lighting which once after Inspector’s arrival the atmosphere becomes ‘brighter and harder’. Priestley here is showing us the warning of the forthcoming quandaries. This could also mean the calmness will no longer last as the play goes on just as how Mr. Birling’s optimism is short-sighted.
Eva and his son Eric is annoyed by this. He seems to be a very hard
she needed more money. So she said to him give me 25/6 because of that
Originally published in 1747, Benjamin Franklin wrote the speech of Miss Polly Baker as a work of fiction, this work indicates Franklin’s usually progressive views of women for his time period. Although for many years some did believe the story and speech to be true, the character of Miss Polly Baker, and anything that concerned her was completely made up. While some praised the speech, acclaiming its message and welcoming it into the canon of modern American Literature, others saw it as it would question the traditional life as so many people of this time knew. Despite these objections, the speech of Miss Polly Baker remains widely read today by reason
A Comparison of Characters of Mr. Birling and Inspector Goole in J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls
Drama in J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls J.B. Priestley is the author of 'An Inspector Calls', he wrote and published the play in 1945. The play he created was set in an industrial town called 'Brumley'. In 'An Inspector Calls' there are six main characters, one being an inspector who goes by the name of Goole. Inspector Goole questions the five other characters about a young working-class woman's, named Eva, death. During questioning, each of the Birling family, Sheila, Eric, Sybil and Arthur, all reveal that they have a secret connection with Eva, along with Gerald Croft, who is engaged to Sheila Birling.
J.B. Priestley's Motives Behind An Inspector Calls J.B. Priestley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1894. His mother
The Reflection of J. B. Priestley's Political and Philosophical Beliefs in An Inspector Calls In 1945 J. B. Priestley wrote the play "An Inspector Calls". It is a very tense play; the audience are always on the edge of their seats. It is didactic as it conveys a social and moral meaning to the play.
Examine Priestley's use of dramatic techniques to create tension in the play. Priestly was a socialist writer, and 'An Inspector Calls' is one of the plays in which he tried to display his socialist ideals in. The play was written in the 1940's, a little after the end of the Second World War, and it was first performed in 1946, in Russia, then later in England. Priestly had served in World War 1, and the terrible scenes he saw lead to him having socialist views. He was inspired by other writers whose views he shared, especially George Orwell and H.G.
world wars. The first believed to be the war to end all wars and yet
Priestley's Social Message in An Inspector Calls The play an Inspector Call’s was written at the time of 1945 but is set in 1912. Priestley conveys a lot of social and important messages in this play. He conveys the messages through the character of Inspector Goole. One most important message that Priestley conveys is about Socialism.
Through his play Priestley endeavoured to convey a message to the audiences, that we could not go on being self obsessed and that we had to change our political views. He used the Birling family as an example of the Capitalist family that was common amongst the higher classes in 1912, who took no responsibility for other people and he showed this with the power of Socialism, represented by the inspector; the uneasy facade put on by the Birling family to cover up their real flaws and how they have treated those whom they considered to be lower class could not stand up to any scrutiny without shame for what had happened, showing that they know they have been wrong.
Sheila Birling is another character in ?An Inspector Calls? who also points this out during the play, ?You fool- he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don?t know yet. You?ll see. You?ll see.?