An Inspector Calls was written in 1945 within a week of World War Two ending but set in the year of 1912. This was the author, J B Priestley’s way of expressing a sense of urgency which he thought necessary to pass on to society so that they would not forget what had just transpired and take heed. As the play was written within a week of World War II ending in 1945, but set in 1912, when Britain still had its Empire and was a wealthy country; the time span between these dates is to make us aware of what has happened and learn from the mistakes made.
An Inspector Calls’ genre would be classed as detective or mystery. Detective because of the inspector acting as a detective but also mystery in the sense that no one knows anything about this ‘inspector’ so a sense of mystery is created. ‘Whodunit’ is also a description of it’s genre by many readers.
Mr Birling is constantly making confident predictions on such events as the Second World War and the Titanic.
“You’ll hear some people say that war is inevitable. And to that I say – Fiddlesticks!” As the audience knows, everything Mr Birling was so confidently stating turned out to be incorrect and war did break out.
“A friend of mine went over this new liner last week – The Titanic – she sails next week – forty six thousand eight hundred tons – forty six thousand eight hundred tons – New York in five days – and every luxury – and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” Again, Birling made another confident statement. As the audience knows, The Titanic famously sank on her maiden voyage. All these false predictions create dramatic irony, leaving the audience with more knowledge than the characters in the play.
During the celebrations at the beginning of the play, the lighting could be pink and intimate, that is until the inspector arrives. At this point it should turn brighter and harder around most of the stage, apart from the inspector. The inspector should be surrounded my darker lighting, to help keep his full identity hidden, sparking the first sense of mystery about the man. This is of course symbolic. First it signals the change in mood of the play. With the arrival of the Inspector a note of tension and menace is introduced. Secondly, the increased intensity of the light suggests the inspector is going to throw some light on events in the past which have been concealed.
Celebrations are going well, all the family is chatting away with quite a lot of noise. The door bell should be very loud, stopping all noise or action in the house. This is an important part in the play as it is the point at which the inspector is introduced to both the characters on stage, and the audience.
The introduction of a new major character, the inspector, has a huge effect on the rest of the characters. As soon as the inspector makes his entrance, the mood changes dramatically. It goes from a cheerful celebration to an atmosphere of mystery and confusion as to the purpose of the inspectors presence. The introduction of the inspector is the first sign that something is wrong, and the play beings to unfold after this event.
At the end of each of the three acts is a climax. With every climax the girl’s relationship to the family becomes clearer. The first climax at the and of act one shows Gerald’s confession of an affair with Eva Smith and thus the betrayal of his fiancée Sheila. This puts the first suspect into the audiences head, pushing them to read on, trying to find out more about the families involvement in Eva’s death.
Conclusion
The audience’s interest is sustained not only by the progressive revelations but by their desire to find out who, ultimately, was responsible for driving Eva Smith to her suicide. Using his skilful use of climaxes within the carefully controlled plot and enduring that the audience are left on tenterhooks by each conclusion of every act, Priestly manages to heighten the audience’s suspense throughout the play.
I think the message JB Priestly is trying to get across in this play is about the responsibility of people, who separately inflict on another person offences, the sum of which drives that person to suicide. A theme that always applies.
