An Inspector Calls

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                                   GCSE English Coursework                                                         ‘An Inspector Calls’

In Act One of ‘An Inspector Calls’, how does J. B. Priestley use dramatic devices to convey his concerns and ideas to the members of the audience, as well as interest and involve them in his play?

‘An Inspector Calls’ by J. B. Priestley is a play about a girl who commits suicide and a police investigation into this suicide. The play can be placed in the detective thriller genre because it shows things that are present in this genre, such as the fact that someone dies, the police investigate the death, and we find out the cause of death. In addition, as the play progresses it becomes a ‘Whodunit?’ because, as the audience slowly learn, all the characters in this drama had a part to play in the girl’s suicide. This whodunit style keeps the audience interested in the play by building up suspense and keeping the audience guessing. However, the play is more than just a detective thriller or whodunit? It is also a morality play because the main theme is responsibility and how our actions can cause a chain of events that affect other people. Priestley uses the seven deadly sins – pride, sloth, gluttony, envy, covetousness, lust, and greed – to show how the Birlings have done morally wrong and how they need to take responsibility for their actions. I feel that, among other things, morality is one of Priestley’s main concerns for this play. His other concern is how higher social classes had power over the lower social classes as Priestley feels that this is wrong and voices this opinion through Inspector Goole by teaching the Birlings and Gerald Croft, high middle class people, the error of their ways towards Eva Smith, a working class citizen. The play was first performed in 1945, yet the play is actually set in 1912. These dates are important because the dates coincide with World War 1 and 2 and Priestley’s audience would have known the effects of war and the unfairness of rich and poor. They would have also seen many changes and Priestley seems to be encouraging them to work on these changes and build a morally responsible and caring world. Furthermore, as I will show in this essay, Priestley also uses the date 1912 for dramatic irony. Irony is just one of the dramatic devices Priestley uses to convey his concerns to the audience and by looking at Act One of ‘An Inspector Calls’ I will also show the other dramatic devices Priestley uses.

At the very beginning of Act One, Priestley has given stage directions that set the scene, mood, and atmosphere for the entire play. For example, Priestley begins his directions by describing the setting, ‘The dining room of a fairly large suburban house’. This room reflects privilege and success because the stage directions describe expensive furniture and says that the maid serves up the people, who are all in evening dress, champagne and port. In addition, the lighting for the play is set out in a certain way in order to create an aura of intimacy and contentment around the family as Priestley states it ‘should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives and then it should be brighter and harder’. Here, Priestley controls the mood with this lighting and changes the mood from intimate and romantic to tense and very in-your-face in order to show that something is not quite right. For instance, when people are being interrogated by the police they are normally sat in a dark room and a bright light is shone in their faces, and here Priestley has used the lighting to get this mood of interrogation. By using the lighting in this manner, it may cause audience to draw links between the two and automatically assume that some sort of questioning of the Birlings is going to occur before it even happens. Therefore, in the stage directions, Priestley uses the lighting as a dramatic device to help the mood and build tension.

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In the opening of the Act One, there is a happy mood on stage as the audience learn that the Birlings are celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling to Gerald Croft. The characters are shown to us very quickly and we can straight away get an idea of what the people are like. The characters come across as a together family where everyone looks out for one another and each person knows their roles in the family. For example, Mr Birling is the man of the house, nonchalantly ordering people about, whereas Eric is treated as the child and ...

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