Priestly helps the audience look forward into the rest of the play, by giving them ideas of what characters are like. And example is when the family is sitting around the dinning table celebrating and Sheila brings up the fact that Eric has drunk rather a lot and says, “You’re squiffy”; this is a hint about Eric’s drinking problem, which develops later into the play. His drinking problems play a big part in the plot of the play, and peoples opinions on him, as his drinking problems may of caused the death of Eva Smith. There fore the way Priestly uses prophecy and visions in the play helps us to get an understanding, and is very important at the beginning of the play.
We also see at the start that Priestley sets the scene for the characters relationships at the start of the play. Just from reading the first few pages, we can see how certain characters are going to treat each other and talk to each other. For example right at the start, when the doorbell has just rang, and Eric has entered the room again, Mr. Birling is talking to Gerald who says; ‘…only something we were talking about when you were out. A joke really’ and Eric replies uneasily ‘Well, I don’t think it’s very funny.’ This shows a lot about the interactions between these three men. We can see how Gerald looks down on Eric, and how this makes Eric feel insecure at times. Also I think that the audience can see as well as Eric can that Gerald had a better relationship with his father than he actually does, this again would make Eric feel insecure and uneasy about his relationships with his father and also Gerald. Mr Birling treats and talk to Eric in a very patronising manner, and later on this leads to tension between the two, which is one of the factors that shows us how little the bond is between them, and as the play goes on you see them drift further and further apart from each other. Eric mainly feels excluded from the social interactions that go on between Gerald and Mr. Birling. This does eventually lead to a rift between Mr Birling and Eric, which we see later in the play lead him to turn on his father at points.
Within the main plot around Eva Smith and the fake suicide (as well as in the opening) we can gain a lot of insight to what the life was like socially and economically in 1912 (which is when the play is set). We learn how the Birling’s become adrift from the rest of the community, and this is a lesson, which the inspector is trying to teach them (about community involvement), and the importance of how Mr Birling became very self centred, leading to a lack of responsibility, which is seen well in the quote: ‘...you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive – community and all that nonsense.’ This is ironic as their involvement within the community – or lack of it – is the main theme throughout the play, but they do not yet know this. Mr Birling often adopts and takes up the ideas of capitalism, looking after his concerns and no one else, ‘higher prices, lower wages’, this shows Mr Birling as the typical factory owner who is only bothered about the money he makes and not about his workers, this also helps us to see how Mr Birling is seeing the engagement as a great business opportunity. Capitalism was the most established way of life in 1912, (although Priestly was a socialist) the time the play was set. Where as when it was actually shown in 1944 the new political ideas were socialist ones, where workers received a share of the profit, which the company had made. I think that Priestley would have had this view, and he uses the inspector to get his point across, as I think this is the view he tries to show the inspector as having. We can see the evidence that Mr. Birling is a capitalist throughout the play but it is reinforced when he talks about Russia (which was a socialist country), which he criticises about being behind the times.
The most powerful dramatic method Priestley uses dramatic irony which is just irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play. Writers use this technique to highlight their message to the audience; Priestley uses it throughout Act I to convey an idea of the characters. An example of this is when Mr. Birling is sitting around the dinner table with his family and he starts to mention the possibility of a war: “...you’ll hear some people say that war’s inevitable. And to that I say – fiddlesticks!” This is a good example of dramatic irony, because the audience would know that they are talking about world war one, and know that world war one would happen, but they don’t so at this point they are absolutely oblivious. It also shows Mr. Birling’s arrogant attitude, he thinks that he knows best and what he has been told will always be right. The dramatic irony helps the audience to see how arrogant Mr. Birling is, as they know he is completely wrong, but still completely unwilling to listen to any other suggestions. It makes them see him as a man who doesn’t look far enough ahead and is far too self-opinionated.
Priestley looks at the position of women, and men in society also, and the standards expected through out the play. For example when Gerald was supposing away at ‘the works’, Mrs. Birling says ‘…men with important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all there and energy on business.’ This not only brings out the tension and doubt into the audience between Gerald and Sheila’s relationship and future but also the inequality that women face and how they have to accept it, where as men have freedom to do what the please. The social difference is also shown when the women are asked to go to the drawing room while the men are left to there port and cigars, this shows the difference’s in the sexes clearly. We can see though from just at the very start of the play that Mrs Birling is the woman in charge, at least in terms of social status. She is always interrupting and correcting Mr Birling for example- “Arthur, you’re not supposed to say such things-“. This shows she is always looking down on Mr Birling as he is lower in the social order than her, and she wants her whole family to be seen like her, this is vital to the play as it really shows the idea of class and how people from different backgrounds with a high social class are sometimes seen as better people, and feel the right to look down on other people.
It is not only the dramatic methods, which show us how Priestley shapes the audience. We can also see hidden meanings in his writing, in terms of ideas, themes and language. For example, the name of Inspector Goole, ‘Goole’ is said the same as ‘Ghoul’ which has the definition ghost or apparition, this is particularly interesting as we find out at the end of the play that he is fact a fake inspector like a ghoul is not real. He is a dramatic method in himself, a catalyst who brings about a new self-knowledge in the characters and carries Priestley’s message of social responsibility.
Priestly uses all of the techniques which have been talked about to give the play an air of suspense, and he writes in a way which makes the audience want to ask questions about not only the plot but the characters in the story, like Mr Birling and his capitalist ways. You can see how Priestly wants to shape the audiences expectations for the rest of the play; he wants people to know that Mr Birling is a narrow-minded ignorant businessman, who has no idea about the future, which is shown well by the dramatic irony. He wants to show how there was a big social divide between the men and the women, and he also wants to show how Eric would become to be looked down upon at all times by his father in a patronising manner. I think in particular the use of irony brings out the worst in Mr Birling, and this is a good way of Priestley showing Mr Birling’s true character with out telling the audience straight out, what kind of a man he is. He wanted the inspector to have an air of importance about him, which is why he used such dramatic methods to introduce him, as soon as Edna introduced him he was to be known as the domineering character, with the way the lighting and sounding changed to bring an air of tension about the set in particular. It is easy to see how the more times you watch or read this play you understand it better, as it is so well written that it may take a few times to truly discover all the hidden layers of meaning.
Mark Butcher.