An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly, is the story of the visit by an Inspector to an apparently normal family, the Birlings.
An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestly, is the story of the visit by an Inspector to an apparently normal family, the Birlings. They are celebrating Sheila Birling's engagement to Gerald Croft, when the Inspector arrives telling them of the suicide of a young girl called Eva Smith. At first they deny any knowledge of the girl, but as the play goes on the Inspector manages to show that they all helped kill her. Mr Birling had her dismissed from his factory for demanding a small increase in wages; Sheila ordered her to be dismissed from her job in a shop simply because of her pride; Gerald Croft kept her as his mistress before leaving her suddenly; Eric Birling also had an affair with the girl and stole money to keep her living; and Mrs. Birling used her influence to deny help to Eva Smith when she needed it most, driving her to suicide. After the Inspector's visit we can see which of the characters have learned their lesson from what the Inspector has said and which are steadfastly clinging to their old beliefs. The differing attitudes between the older and younger characters are shown by their conversations following the Inspector's departure.
It is Birling's speech in Act 1 that sets the scene for the action in the play. Birling is confidently talking to Eric and Gerald about what he thinks about the future. He thinks of everything in business terms, he says to Gerald that he hopes that his firm and Gerald's father's will become partners) and also thinks that a man should make his own way in life and he does not believe in living in a community.
"Community and all that nonsense."
He disregards the people who preach this philosophy of everyone living together and looking after each other as cranks.
"But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you'd think everyone has to look after everybody else."
It is at this point that the Inspector enters the play, interrupting Birling in his speech. In this way he can be seen as Priestly's response to Birling's opinions and he begins to tear down the ideas that Birling thrives on. On hearing of Eva Smith's death Birling is at first dismissive of what has happened, saying that he does not see what the events have to do with him.
When asked why he dismissed Eva Smith for asking for a relatively modest wage increase, Birling tries to defend himself by citing financial reasons. He is surprised when the Inspector asks why he refused the increase as he is sure the Inspector will agree with him. Birling again shows his disregard for other people when he says that if Eva Smith did not like working at his company she could "go and work somewhere else - it's a free country". This view is undermined when Eric points out "it isn't if you can't work somewhere else".
As ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
When asked why he dismissed Eva Smith for asking for a relatively modest wage increase, Birling tries to defend himself by citing financial reasons. He is surprised when the Inspector asks why he refused the increase as he is sure the Inspector will agree with him. Birling again shows his disregard for other people when he says that if Eva Smith did not like working at his company she could "go and work somewhere else - it's a free country". This view is undermined when Eric points out "it isn't if you can't work somewhere else".
As the Inspector's interviews with the other characters Birling becomes more and more agitated and stage directions to describe his mood such as "bothered, angrily and sharply" show that he is not in a good frame of mind. He appears to be slowly learning his lesson but is getting very angry as he sees that all he believes in is wrong. As he discovers about Eric's theft of the money he becomes more and more desperate, and just before the Inspector's departure he says he will give "thousands" to keep the story quiet. Birling is told by the Inspector that he is "offering the money at the wrong time" and Eva Smith will make him pay "a heavy price" in terms of emotion, not money.
After the Inspector's departure Birling admits that he has learnt a lot from his visit. However, he immediately singles out Eric as "you're the one I blame for this the scandal", so he still seems to have little notion of community as he should, if he had learnt anything, be saying we're the ones to blame for this. As the story unravels he becomes excited on discovering that the Inspector is not real and soon he has managed to put the whole episode out of his head, despite protests from Eric and Sheila who try to tell him that "you still haven't learnt anything" Birling is far more concerned about what may happen if the news comes out in public than whatever he did to Eva Smith and makes fun of Eric and Sheila for "not being able to take a joke". However, the phone call he receives at the end of the play is not at all funny to him.
In the initial stage directions, Mrs. Birling is described as a rather cold woman and that she is her husband's social superior. She therefore has a high point in life where she looks down on others, whilst never having experienced the life that they lead. This means that Mrs. Birling is immediately prejudiced against Eva Smith, dismissing her death with the comment "Girls of that class..." and she ignores Sheila's warning about building up a "wall" between herself and the Inspector. Further examples of this snobbery are shown when she tries to impress the Inspector with the positions that her husband holds:
"You know
of course that my husband was a Lord Mayor only two years ago and he's
still a magistrate"
When Mrs. Birling is questioned on her conduct in regard to not giving Eva Smith/Daisy Renton any charitable money, she is still unsympathetic towards her, saying "she only had herself to blame". She still maintains that she has done nothing that she is ashamed of, even though the Inspector warns her that she will "spend the rest of her life regretting what she has done. Finally, she states that, "you have no power to change my mind", showing that she has learnt nothing from the interview. She tries to shift blame onto others by blaming Eva and the young man who was the father of the baby.
Mrs. Birling is shocked when she discovers that this young man is actually her son Eric and when he screams at her she begins to waver for the only time in the play. The stage direction describes her as "very distressed" and she begins to moan, "No - Eric - please - I didn't know..." However, she soon recovers and joins Birling in condemning Eric, saying that "I'm absolutely ashamed of you"' to him. She also, like Birling, is delighted when the Inspector is exposed as a fake and even tries to pretend that she knew all along that this was so. This is absolutely untrue as she was as taken in by the Inspector as much as all the others.
When the whole story about Eva Smith is shown to be untrue, she is able to believe that the whole story was a joke, and is most grateful to Gerald for showing her that the Inspector was not real, showing that she has learned absolutely nothing from the night's events.
Sheila is distressed that her parents do not seem to have heeded the Inspector's warning, whilst Eric is angry that the actions of his parents have led to the death of the woman who was to have his child and is understandably upset at their don't-care attitude. This drawing together of ideas is ironic as in the first scene Eric and Sheila spend most of their time annoying each other.
Gerald is a character whose opinions are difficult to judge, because unlike the other characters he has a motive for stating ideas that are different to what he actually believes. Generally, Gerald attempts to do and say what he hopes Mr & Mrs. Birling will agree with and he also attempts to please Sheila, though he is not particularly successful.
Gerald comes out of his interview with the Inspector better than any other character, because he did not do anything to Eva/Daisy that harmed her in the way that the other characters. Indeed, had he not been engaged to Sheila his conduct would have been entirely acceptable for a normal relationship.
We feel that Gerald feels the same as Eric and Sheila, but he cannot afford to agree with them if he wishes to get back in favour with their parents, as this is the only way that he can hope to re-start the engagement with Sheila. This is shown in his systematic destruction of the Inspector's story, in which he is constantly prompting Birling to cast doubt on each part of the tale. He is also not afraid to telephone the infirmary to confirm that there was no dead body there, despite Birling's reservations about it being rather late to be doing this. Another example of Gerald's wish to avoid upsetting Birling further is when he refuses Sheila's offer to tell him about, as Sheila puts it, "our crimes and idiocies." Consequently Gerald's conduct is probably biased and hiding his true opinions.
Initially, the Birling's all feel very secure and believe that they can do no wrong. The opening stage directions state that they are all "pleased with themselves." Later on, in his speech to Gerald and Eric, Birling states that he is sure he knows what he is right because of his experience.
Birling at the beginning makes lots of statements about the war and The Titanic that his friend is sailing on. These grand predictions would have seemed particularly bitter and ironic to the audience. During this period the world was going through a disastrous war and Birling's wildly over-optimistic prophecies would be seen to be totally wrong. The audience knows that, with hindsight, all that Birling believes in is about to be torn down.
Birling predicts that in twenty or thirty years' time that there will be peace, greater prosperity and happiness everywhere. In fact, the world was about to be plunged into the carnage of the First World War - the chances of which Birling dismisses as "fiddlesticks!" followed by another war twenty-five years later. Birling's comment that "the Germans don't want war" would seem particularly ironic because Germany was heavily involved against Britain in both of these wars. Birling also thinks that Britain is in for a time of "increasing prosperity" when in fact in a few years the economy was to be devastated by the Great Depression with thousands of job losses.
Birling also has a misguided faith in the progress of the future and its creations. He claims that the liner Titanic - designed and built by people like Birling - is "absolutely unsinkable" and stresses the size of ship, 46 800 tons. However, a few weeks later, the "unsinkable" ship was at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean with the loss of 1600 lives. Again Birling's visions have been shown to be totally incorrect.
In summary, An Inspector Calls details the differing attitudes of the Birling family to the events leading to Eva Smith's death and how they accept the responsibility for their actions. The older characters are too rigid to change but the younger ones are able to see their faults and accept what they have done is wrong.
