Coursework - An Inspector Calls.

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Coursework – An Inspector Calls

             J.B. Priestly keeps the audience interested in a variety of ways and uses a lot of different strategies; he uses a number of things to build up tension and then brings it back down again. The first thing that builds up the tension is the doorbell ringing after the inspector has left. The person at the door could be the inspector back again but then the person walking in is Gerald coming back from his walk. After finding this out the audience would relax again, and the atmosphere is neither relaxed nor tense. Gerald seems to enter the room quite triumphantly and he is also being quite mysterious “Hm – hm! They all look inquiringly at Gerald” He then goes on to say “slowly that man wasn’t a police officer.” What is going through the audience’s head is a mixture of emotions, they are confused about what is going on, and why was the inspector a fake?  What was his purpose for mimicking an inspector? All of these questions that never get answered! Once Gerald has told the rest of the characters what has happened he goes to ring up the infirmary. After he has finished this phone call he tells the rest of the characters what he has just heard on the other end of the telephone “No girl has died in there today. Nobody has been brought in after drinking disinfectant...” This then relaxes the atmosphere, and everyone starts thinking that it was all a hoax, and nothing really has happened. Then Sheila starts it up again by saying “it was anything but a joke. You knew it then. You began to learn something…” The way that Priestly is doing this is keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
        He also interrupts the conversation with multiple ringing noises; the doorbell rings – but it is only Gerald, then Gerald rings up the infirmary, “No girl has died in there today. Nobody has been brought in after drinking disinfectant...”, then at the end the telephone “rings sharply”. This surprises the audience and holds them in suspense. As they don’t know who is calling until the call has ended. When all of the characters are back together at the end and they are all talking and they find out that no girl has died from committing suicide, they all begin to relax, the audience will relax too. Thinking that nothing happened, and then the play ends at a climax, and leaves you wondering.

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 “The telephone rings sharply. There is a moment silence. Birling goes to answer it.” After this Birling goes on to say, “That was the police. A girl has just died on her way to the Infirmary - after swallowing some disinfectant. And a police inspector is on his way here – to ask some – questions—“. Then the curtain falls, this leaves the audience wondering what is going to happen. As they leave the theatre they are thinking about the possibilities, maybe they are a little annoyed because they want to know what happened.

        J.B. Priestley was a socialist. ...

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