'An Inspector Calls' GCSE Coursework Essay
John Boynton Priestley was a socialist. He believed that whether we wanted it or not, we are in a community and have a duty to look after others. He wrote "An Inspector Calls" to emphasise these ideas and share them. In writing this essay, I want to show Priestley's aims in writing the play.
You can only guess the aims of an author in writing a play. In the case of "An Inspector Calls", a good guess would be that the author aimed to educate the audience through the characters' realisation of their role in Eva Smith's end and therefore their own responsibility towards other people.
Arthur Birling is the kind of character the whole play warns against. "A hard-headed business man", he believes that society is as it should be. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and there is a large gap between the two. He believes that "a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own". When put with other things Birling has said in the play, we see that Priestley's views do not concur with Birling's and he has added statements to make the audience see Birling's views as false. Birling's confidence in the predictions he makes - that the Titanic is "unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable", that "The Germans don't want a war. Nobody wants a war" and that "we're in for a time of increasing prosperity" give that audience the impression that his views of community and shared responsibility are misguided also. Every one of the predictions Birling makes are wrong; the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, World War one broke out two years after the play was set and the American stock market crashed in 1929, plunging the world into economic chaos. This leads us to regard him as a man of many words but little sense!
If we compare the character of Birling with that of the Inspector, we can see Priestley's aims showing. The Inspector is the opposite of Birling. Where Birling's predictions are wrong, the Inspector predicts that if people don't learn their responsibilities, they will be taught in "fire and blood and anguish". This prediction refers to World War I most obviously, but also can refer to World War II. The lessons of World War I weren't learnt so the same mistakes were made and another war started; and though Priestly was unaware of it when the play was written, sixty ...
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If we compare the character of Birling with that of the Inspector, we can see Priestley's aims showing. The Inspector is the opposite of Birling. Where Birling's predictions are wrong, the Inspector predicts that if people don't learn their responsibilities, they will be taught in "fire and blood and anguish". This prediction refers to World War I most obviously, but also can refer to World War II. The lessons of World War I weren't learnt so the same mistakes were made and another war started; and though Priestly was unaware of it when the play was written, sixty years on the same mistakes have caused war after war. This makes his message just as relevant to the audience of the 21st Century as to his intended audience. Another contrast to Birling is that while Birling seemingly knows nothing of his family's affairs, Sheila says of the Inspector "We hardly ever told him anything he didn't know".
At the end of Act Three, Birling seems not to have taken any of the lessons of the evening to heart. The demise of Eva Smith and the part each member of his family played in her death have not shaken his belief that "a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own..." and that "there's every excuse for what... (he and Mrs Birling)... did" In fact, he is more concerned with his own reputation than with Eva. "...who here will suffer...more than I will?" He says things that should have been said to him, "you don't realise yet all you've done...you don't seem to care about anything", yet when he says these things, he is of course talking not about Eva Smith, but about his own reputation and an upcoming public scandal. The attitudes of Mr and Mrs Birling, and to an extent Gerald, and their willingness to explain away the events of the evening to hoaxes and artfully crafted deception, all go towards the final plot twist - the inspector is returning to teach the Birlings their lesson again. This ties in with the idea that if you don't learn the lesson the first time, you will be taught it again, through "fire and blood and anguish".
The message of the play was particularly effective to the audiences of 1946. Priestley knew that the message of his play would reach the war-weary audiences of the era more effectively than it would reach the audiences of a different time. The "fire and blood and anguish" reference to the First and Second World Wars would be very influential to the audience. The setting of the play in 1912 allowed for predictions to be made by both Birling and Inspector Goole. The intended effect of the predictions was to make the audience see a glimpse of the kind of person the predictive character is. In the case of Birling, the audience would see him as a character whose opinion is not to be trusted, whereas the predictions made by the Inspector chill the audience and make them see that the lesson he speaks of has been re-taught through fire and blood and anguish twice already. The audiences had experienced the horrors of war and were not eager to experience them again, so they may think that if they followed JB Priestley's message, they would prevent yet another world war.
The play was set in 1912, and being set at this time, there was not only the opportunity for predictions, but also for a stronger look at the relationship between the rich and the poor. The class gap of 1912 was much larger than that of 1946, and so was more noticeable to the audiences. With the upper class, we have mentalities like that of Sybil Birling, who would seem to think that the people of the lower classes are beneath her and her family. She say to Birling "Arthur, you're not supposed to say such things," when he thanks the cook, the cook being a member of the lower classes. This shows that she believes that the lower classes are there to serve, not to be thanked. This is a strange belief for a "prominent member of the Brumley Women's Charity Organisation". With the lower classes however, we have Eva Smith, a young woman who is shown as the 'innocent victim' of the actions of the Birlings. This comparison is one of many in the play, set up to show one side to be better than the other. The Inspector against Birling, Eva Smith against Sybil Birling, Sheila and Eric at the end of the play against Arthur and Sybil, they all show examples of what Priestley viewed as the Right way against the Wrong way. The way the later parties in each comparison act in a way such as to cause the audience to see them as in the wrong, making the other party right. The other parties have views similar to Priestley, so Priestley was trying to get his message of the community across to the audience through the actions of the characters.
The character of Inspector Goole is mysterious. This air of mystery is intended. He is mysterious because of his character. The name Inspector Goole is an obvious pun (Goole - ghoul or ghost). We as an audience never find out who this Inspector is. There are many possibilities - he could be the ghost of Eva Smith avenging her death; he could be amass hallucination brought on by too much champagne of something in the food. He could be anybody or anything. Priestley left the character as a mystery so as to have a larger impact on the audience, making them think more about the play, and helping them think more about the messages the play brings. In other words, a cliffhanger. Through the Inspector, the people viewing the play are educated in their social structure and behaviour, seeing the examples of the Birlings and hearing Inspector Goole's guess.
The ending symbolises the fact that if you do not learn your lesson the first time, you will be taught it again and again, as the Birlings will find out. Priestley uses the dramatic twist of the Inspector returning at the end of the play to emphasis this point, and makes it more effective by placing it just as the characters are beginning to relax. It serves to 'prick' the consciences of both the characters.
The aims of Priestley when he wrote this play were to make us think, to make us question our own beliefs. He wanted us to ask ourselves if we wanted to be a Sheila or a Sybil, an Eric or an Arthur. Or, were we in-between like Gerald. Priestley wanted the audience to learn from the mistakes of the Birlings. I think that Priestley wanted to make a difference, not a world changing difference, but a small difference in the way people think. It would have changed people's views on society, however small those changes would be, and so Priestley achieved his aims in writing the play.
Richard Gamble 10LH 17/01/04
