J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls was written in 1945. It was set in the dining room

of quite a large suburban house belonging to a wealthy manufacturer in

Brumley. It is an industrialized city in the North Midlands. This play

An Inspector Calls is set in the year 1912. The Birling family Mr and

Mrs Arthur Birling, Sheila, Eric Birling and Gerald Croft are having

dinner together due to a special occasion. Then the doorbell ring.

It’s Inspector Goole, who shocks the family about one of Arthur

Birling’s ex employees’ death. Eva Smith.

Back in 1912 people were split into different classes depending on how

wealthy they were, their place in society. There were high class,

middle class, and working class. Classes were treated with different

respects. Most businesses and companies were shut down so it was hard

for people to find work to make enough money to live and survive,

especially for a woman. Even if a woman did get a job they would get

half of what a man would get. Priestly is trying to show that all

members of a society have responsibility to care for everyone in that

society (e.g. the rich should take off the poor).All actions have a

consequence (e.g. an individual’s action affects other individuals and

our society as a whole).

Mr Birling is a heavy looking, somewhat significant man in his mid

fifties. He is a high class business man who is quite confident and

thinks that his wealth and status mean everything to him. Mr Birling

believes a man must look after himself and his family and that

everybody else can look after themselves. (“The way these cranks talk

and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else

as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive community and

all that nonsense”). Mr Birling’s only interest is making money. His

workers mean nothing to him, and refuses to take responsibility for

what happened to Eva Smith after he sacked her. (‘Still I can’t accept