An Inspector Calls was written by J.B Priestly in 1945.

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Philip Matthews

An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls was written by J.B Priestly in 1945. John Boynton Priestly was born in Bradford on the 13th of September 1884. The play is set in the spring of 1912 in the Birlings house in Brumley in the North Midlands; the whole play takes place in one evening.

An inspector calls begins with the a celebration for the engagement of the rich and upper class business man called Gerald and his soon to be wife, Sheila the son of Arthur Birling who owns Birling and Co, which is a rival company to Gerald’s fathers company entitled Crofts Limited.
The atmosphere starts very happy and lively and Arthur Birling is delivering one of his long speeches where he is more talking about how happy he is because the engagement could lead to Crofts Limited and Birling and Co joining. “And now you’ve brought us together” when there is a knock at the door.
When inspector Goole enters the atmosphere is immediately changed, the inspector makes such a big impression by the way that he speaks, looks and stares at people. He speaks with not much tone, feeling or expression and says things rather coldly “Yes she was in great agony”. When questioning the family he does it in such a way that it is like they are interrogating each other while the inspector sits back and watches. Sheila is pleasant and obedient towards Gerald and she is the most truthful to the inspector, because she knows that the inspector will get the truth anyway, but Mrs Birling is very uncooperative, she is a very snobbish and uptight person and we see this all throughout the play, she refuses to answer questions properly, and then she drops Eric, who is the immature and irresponsible son of Mr and Mrs Birling, right in it by telling the inspector whoever the person was, which we know is Eric, deserves everything he gets “And he ought to be dealt with very severely.”
When Gerald was being questioned, the truth was brought out of him by Sheila, “Well Gerald?” Mr Birling refers to Eva Smith as “the wretched girl” possibly implying she was no use to the world anyway so what does it matter if she’s dead? Mr Birling is indeed an upper class person, however he is ‘new’ money, so he has not long been rich, and he feels that his high status and his powerfulness allows him to look down on lower class people such as Eva Smith.

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When the inspector leaves the family are worried about what will happen until they find he wasn’t a real inspector, where Mr Birling goes back to how things were at the start before the inspector arrived with a cool head, feeling quite satisfied that there is no need to worry now, but Sheila and Eric who are the two youngest remind him Eva is dead. Then Mr Birling had to find a way to prove she wasn’t dead so they could go back to how they were. After Gerald rings the hospital Arthur sees no reason to not go back ...

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