These concerns are revealed by the Inspector who teaches this value to the Birlings and indirectly the audience. He interrogates them one at a time breaking them down until they release the truth unwillingly, and either take responsibility or deny they had anything to do with Eva’s death.
Priestley wants this play to show that those with power and influence should use their positions to benefit others. In this case the Birlings are the people with power because of the high place in society. However they do not use their power for good, Mr Birling uses his, to make money by paying little to his workers and upping prices. Sheila gets Eva out of their job and Eric uses his money and Eva’s need of help to use her and get what he wants from her giving her few choices. This divide in status is what Priestley wants to fill, the Inspector says, “Blood, Fire and Anguish” referring to the World War where people of all society came together to fight.
When the play was preformed and when it was set is also used to affect the audience so they can respond more to the play. In 1945 when the play was first preformed, people were recovering from two wars. Priestley used this hindsight to provoke a reaction from the audience, when Mr Birling shows his ignorance of war. Equally the titanic sunk in April 1912 when the play was set: a fact that Birling again cannot imagine which shows his closed mind. “The ships unsinkable!” This character reinforces Priestley’s views of society and the closed mindedness of the older generation.
The genre of the play is linked to learning from the past and of mystery and morality. The play is a modern fable teaching us a lesson about society, and how Priestley wants people to treat others as equals. He uses dramatic devices to teach or influence the Birlings and the audience of his concerns about society. The use of dramatic irony early on in the play allows the audience to relate to the play and become more involved with the Birling family. Like Mr Birlings ignorance on events to come, that the audience know that have happened when they watched it in 1945.
Equally the lighting helps signify the mood of the family. “The lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives then it should be brighter, harder.” At the beginning the Birling’s are celebrating the engagement of Sheila and Eric the lighting is pink and intimate, until the reality of the Inspector’s attitude turns the lighting harsher and how he casts light onto the secrets of the Birling household exposing them so they can’t hide or use their class to protect them.
Sound is also used as a dramatic device. The doorbell is a sound that draws the attention of the audience to the entrance of a new character. The Inspectors doorbell ring is described as “sharp” this symbolises the inspector’s sharpness and precedes the change in mood and lighting to a harsh and tense atmosphere. The effect of this is that when the doorbell is used again the audience anticipate and focus on the entering character and what this means for the rest of the characters.
The Inspector is used as the inspector voice he demonstrates Priestley belief that all people in a society are inter-connected. The Inspector displays this by saying, “may have determined what happened to her afterwards” and “ later he says, “a chain of events you see” meaning the Birlings could have influenced her suicide with a chain of events.
When Gerald and Sheila are talking about Gerald knowing who Daisy Renton was Gerald’s attitude is at first selfish and doesn’t want to admit how he knows her. This shows he already is upset with himself for having an affair with Eva or he doesn’t want Sheila to know about it. This shows another difference between the younger and older generation as Mrs Birling and Mr Birling don’t what the truth to come out because of how is will affect there social standing or money and not ashamed of what they did unlike Gerald. When the Inspector walks in he ends the scene with “well?” The audience start to anticipate the next scene.
To conclude Priestley changes the audience’s opinion of the Birlings from the selfish family in Act 1 to the difference of age and views and how these develop in acts 2 and 3. Priestley wanted people to leave this play with a different attitude on how we still have a class society today and that he feels that those in power sometimes abuse that power and this needs to change. The audience can learn to see how they are acting and if they themselves need to change.
