An Inspector Calls

JB Priestley

What dramatic devices does JB Priestley use to expose injustice in his play?

An Inspector Calls is one of the most famous and well respected plays ever written. It was written by JB Priestley in 1945, although it was actually set in 1912.

The play is about a pretentious, upper class family called the Birlings, who are presented at first to have a lack of respect for other people’s feelings and anybody not as wealthy as themselves. This lack of respect is depicted to us so dramatically that it shows an inequality in there society.

However, one evening when the Birlings are happily celebrating the engagement of their daughter, ‘Shelia Birling’, to her fiancé ‘Gerald’ they are interrupted by a knock on the door. It is an Inspector. The plot then unfolds, when the Birlings are told that a girl has died in the infirmary due to drinking a bottle of disinfectant. Nevertheless it leads to a long and heated interrogation with each person until it becomes clear that the ‘all so innocent’ Birlings do have to take some blame for this poor defenceless girl’s death, as she was practically driven to suicide by the ignorance and selfishness of the Birlings.

After all of the Birling family and Gerald are proven guilty of something, that could have pushed the girl/Eva Smith over the edge, they find out that the inspector is a fake and is not really any kind of policeman. The Birlings also call the infirmary to check the details of the girl’s death, but they are astonished to find out that there has not been a suicide in months, let alone that day. So they know that the Inspector must be some kind of power freak or somebody who thinks of himself as a kind of Good Samaritan.

Priestly sets his play in 1912 opposed to 1946 for two very good reasons.

One reason was that he wanted to get social morals across, to do with the hierarchy in the class system, in order to show the disparity between the rich and poor. This could only be shown before the social welfare system was put in place, or it wouldn’t have the same effect because the difference between the rich and poor wasn’t so drastic after the system was introduced. In 1912 the only type of aid for the lower class was charitable organisation and even that was a lost cause, as proved in Inspector calls. This is when Eva Smith went to a charitable organisation for money so she could look after her baby properly. However Mrs Birling (who works at the organisation) takes this case personally, because Eva came to them under a fake name of ‘Mrs Birling’. This offends Mrs Birling and she ends up becoming abrupt and biased against Eva Smith. Buy showing the power that Mrs Birling has, a huge social disparity is shown between them. This really shows how much power people like Mr and Mrs Brisling had in the early 1900 hundred’s and how little people in the working class like Eva Smith had. The power diversity shown here is a typical display of injustice.

Another reason why Priestley set the play in 1912 was because he wanted to show how rich and snobby the Birlings really were. Because the play was released in 1946(the year the war ended) people had not had many luxuries and nice food for quite some time. However in 1912 no time of struggle was upon the nation therefore food and luxuries were as available as ever. So when the first scene depicts a family stuffing themselves with food and whiskey like pigs, people got an immediate impression that these were extremely wealthy upper class people who were being ...

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One technique which Priestley uses as a dramatic device to display injustice is the use of stage directions, lighting, scenery, character positioning and gestures. He uses them very effectively when he needs to emphasise something dramatic by creating a huge build up to it. Priestley also uses very sudden changes in lighting or movement when he needs to emphasise that there is an atmosphere or tension in the room.

The first example of this is when we first meet the inspector. The lighting in the room before the inspector comes is a light pink colour to show how happy everyone is, but when the inspector walks in to the room the lights change to dazzling white light. Priestley does this to emphasise the power of the Inspector so that we almost see him as a god like figure when he first walks into the room. This dramatic device works so well because it makes us as viewers concentrate intently on the Inspector, which allows Priestley to build a complicated and interesting plot through the Inspector.

Priestley uses the stage set in the opening scene to build up an atmosphere and to show how it was in 1912. E.g; good solid furniture of the period and all characters elegantly dressed.

The furniture alone really shows the wealth and opulence of this upper class Edwardian family. The furniture and clothes also develops trust between the audience and characters as it gives off a cosy home feel.

It is obvious from when you first read act one that JB Priestley has made a deliberate effort to change the tone from how it was at the beginning (relaxed) to how it ended (tense). When we read the play for the first time, we get the impression that for people as superior as the Birlings to take any notice of somebody in a lower social class than them, somebody such as Eva Smith actually has to die. This shows huge injustice and makes us feel very sympathetic for Eva Smith.

The main way he achieved this is by the use of the plot. This is because they are having a nice relaxed dinner party, and then an Inspector who they have never meet before knocks on their door, and begins to interrogate them about a suicide. This puzzles them as the police officer openly says that it was definitely a suicide, therefore what crime could they have committed.

Although this is the main reason for the drastic change in tone, Priestley does many other things to show this change.

One aspect of his writing which does this is the way in which he wrote the inspectors lines. The inspector’s lines are all written so that it sounds extremely aggressive from the Birling’s point of view. One example of this, is when Shelia is being extremely honest, and is telling the Inspector how she got Eva Smith sacked. Shelia really shows how guilty she feels, how deeply sorry she is and how she would behave differently a second time. However the Inspector very bluntly says “Yes but you can’t. It’s too late. She’s dead.

This is an extremely upfront and abrupt way of saying it. So he changes the mood from relaxed/happy to almost awkward and upsetting.

Due to this aggressiveness which the Inspector shows from the moment he walks in the door, Mr Birling almost tries to fight back which results in both of them almost competing in a childish game, where they keep trying to get one up on each other. E.g. (who’s the bigger man)

This is shown by Mr Birling consistently mentioning that he has friends in high places. He does this in a very subtle and sly manor. At this point both of them know the involvement Mr Birling had with Eva Smith. Mr Birling remembered Eva Smith because he fired from his company her due to a campaign she led for higher pay. Therefore he last meet Eva Smith under unpleasant circumstances. This secret that both the inspector and Mr Birling had was probably what sparked off this aggressiveness.

The first time we see this happening is when Mr Birling says “Perhaps I ought to warn you that he’s an old friend of mine, and that I see him fairly frequently. We play golf together at the West Bromley”. The “old friend” being the inspector’s chief constable. In a way Mr Birling is trying to tell the Inspector to tread carefully, by letting him know he has friends in high places.

This aggressiveness certainly demonstrates how Priestley changes the tone so drastically and so effectively. It also keeps the audience gripped making it very exciting.

All of the characters in this play have very strong personalities one way or another, and all of them represent some kind of portrayal above everybody else in the play.

Shelia, for example, shows that she feels more remorse than anyone else by far and seems truly hurt and guilty by the whole thing. For example when the inspector asked Shelia “And was it the girls fault?”

Shelia replies “No, not really. It was my own stupid fault”.

She has shown her honesty by owning up to it unlike her self obsessed father who would argue everything until he was proved completely wrong. She also displayed remorse by ridiculing herself, saying “It was my own stupid fault”.

Again she shows that she is sorry when she says “Oh-why had this to happen”. Rather than saying something like Mr Birling would say e.g.: “Well it was her own fault in the first place”.

Shelia plays the kind understanding character to the play, who comes across as more innocent than anybody else. She brings reason to the equation and we probably feel the more sympathy for her than anyone else. This is because when she tells her story, Priestley writes it as if it was from the bottom of her heart/sincerely. Another reason we feel this sympathy for her is because we feel she has been conned out the most, when we find out that the inspector is a fake. This is because she seems to have poured her heart out more then everybody else and after she finds out that the inspector is a con she still defends the morals the Inspector was saying even though the entire Eva Smith scenario, was completely false based on the knowledge they had at the time. This happens in the 3rd act when Shelia says to Mr Birling “It doesn’t matter now of course, but was he really a police inspector?”

Mr Birling then replies “Well if he wasn’t, it matters a devils lot. Makes all the difference.”

Shelia then snappily responds “No it doesn’t”.

She says this meaning that just because the Inspector is gone nothing is changed because what he was saying was correct even if it was fictional. However Mr Birling cannot understand that the message has not changed, now they know the story was fiction and just says “Don’t be so childish, Shelia”.

This is another event in the play which supports Shelia’s kind, understanding and more mature than her father’s personality. She represents a possibility of social change and seems to have some basic morality.

Mr Birling however is unlike his daughter and is a narrow minded man who has not a care in the world for anyone else but himself and his business. He proves this on many occasions in the play but a lot of the time he just makes extremely subtle remarks which tend to belittle anyone in a lower class or to knock down his children Eric and Shelia. He represents a stereotypical 1900’s man who was still under the impression that women should still just be at home washing up and doing the house work, and would never cope with any kind of cultural change.

One of the first reasons we have to think some of the previous is when he is first talking to the Inspector about him sacking Eva Smith. Mr Birling says that he sacked her because she asked for a pay rise from 22 shillings to 25 shillings a week, but he sacked her immediately even though she was one of the companies best workers. He said that he sacked her without any thought because he wanted to keep labour costs down which is very incompetent of him considering that he could have just denied her the pay rise rather that proving his power by sacking her. This proves that he values his business above people in a lower class than him. He also does not ever think about the consequence of his actions, just what he wants, and worse he doesn’t have to think about the consequence of his actions because he is such a powerful man. This represents a massive injustice in the play.

Another example of Mr Birling’s arrogance and narrow mind is when he is making a long speech to Sheila, Gerald and Eric, towards the beginning of the play. He first says “the Titanic is unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable” he then says “Rubbish, there will be know world war. In 1940 we will all be living in peace and prosperity”.

Just in that speech he makes 2 hugely false statements as we now know that the Titanic sank on its first voyage and in 1940 we were in the middle of the biggest war the world would ever see.

However his ignorance is almost amusing as both Gerald and Shelia try to argue the two points he made but Mr Birling just talks over them and shouts them down when they actually prove him wrong in a situation.

This evidence clearly proves Mr Birling as a pompous, arrogant old man. He is presented to have the stereotypical arrogance of the upper class and is an exaggerated figure of the 1900’s upper class man.

Eric appears to be the ‘odd one out’ or ‘the runt of the litter’ in An Inspector Calls. He is always depicted doing something childish or making an immature comment and is soon put in his place by his over whelming father. This is because Mr Birling is not proud of Eric as his wild cat personality doesn’t look good from a business or a family reputation prospect.

The first impression we get to think this is when Eric finally has to admit that he has been out drinking a lot. Shelia finally says “I won’t defend you anymore Eric. Go on tell them.”

He is then forced to explain that he has been drinking and then finds himself explaining that he got Eva Smith pregnant. He is then interrogated further until all of the truth comes out that he stole money from his father to pay for the baby.

Everyone is very disappointed in Eric but not surprised which gives us the feeling that he is a bit wild, and can’t control himself, as the Birlings act as if he has been pulling stunts like this his entire life. These acts of Eric’s, all have an involvement with people in the lower class e.g.; getting Eva Smith pregnant, out drinking etc. This is why his family are so disappointed with him, as they see it as extremely wrong to be socialising with people inferior to them. This shows a huge amount of injustice.

This play has many good aspects to it from an audience prospective of how funny and entertaining it was and from a reviewer’s point of view of how it symbolized the social defects in 1912.

But can we get both of these things (entertainment and morals) at the same time?

I think we can get both things at the same time.

This is because the play has a great plot and is very entertaining whoever you are, but even if you don’t break down the points in the play and assess the moral values, you are still left with an impression that the Inspector wasn’t actually that bad after all and he did the Birlings more good than bad. You are also left with a thriller aspect of “who did it”.

This means that the effectiveness of the play is absolutely brilliant because you don’t even realise the morals you are picking up from the play as they are hidden between the lines.

Therefore the play can be both didactic and entertaining and the main way he achieved this is by Priestley’s use of dramatic devices.