An inspector Calls

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An Inspector Calls

To what extent can the characters in Priestley’s An Inspector Calls’ be seen as symbolic?

“An inspector calls” is a well known British play written by J.B Priestley in 1946. Priestley has always been politically aware with what was going on in Britain, and in 1930 he became very concerned by the consequences of social equality in Britain and in 1942 Priestley and others set up a new political party called, the Common Wealth Party. The party argued for greater democracy, ownership of land and a new “morality” in politics.

To understand the background of the play we must delve deeper into the economic and social structure of Britain. At the time the play was written the Nazis had just been defeated during World War Two and there seemed to be a great deal of optimism in the air. The future seemed very bright to a country which had struggled through the days of capitalism; in fact it now looked like Lloyd George’s wise words about Britain going to be “a land fit for heroes” was turning into reality.

        At the time it seemed like there was a new feeling abroad in the land and as if to emphasise this, Winston Churchill was defeated in the 1946 general election and Cement Atlee found his way into the political representing the Labour party. Britain now had a Socialist government which set out to reform the country with eagerness and zeal. The Socialists wanted the country to place emphasis on collective responsibility rather than the self-aggrandising ethos which is the central tenet of conservatism. In other words there was a shift ‘leftwards’ in general philosophy; because of this there was a massive investment in all the industries designed to make Britain a more equal society.

        Huge building programmes were designed to build new ‘council houses’, which were good quality but affordable homes to the society. Over new concepts were been introduced round about the same time such as the National Health Service (NHS) a health system based on fact that you did not have to pay; this became the envy of the world. New comprehensive and grammar schools were being introduced and were seen as a measure to give all children an equal opportunity.

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Priestley was a socialist at the time when the middle-class believed socialism was the only way forward for Britain; they also felt that they had waved good-bye to the terrible, old way of living under capitalism.

In this play Priestley constructs a microcosm of the world to show us how the horrid days of Capitalism were, and that we shouldn’t return to the old days. To accomplish this Priestley sets the play in 1912, which incidentally was just before the First World War. The characters in this play hold the vital key to this play’s purpose of being ...

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