Examine the dramatic impact of the Inspector final speech and explain how Priestly uses his entrance to convey the central message of his play.
An Inspector Calls is a play inspecting the death of Eva Smith who from a terrible life ended it by swallowing a strong disinfected that burnt her insides out, as the Inspector stated she felt like she couldn’t go on much longer. The play was set in 1912, two years before the war began. During the play Birling says that the war won’t begin and that the titanic is indestructible. The importance of the play being set in 1912 is to warn the people of 1949, to show how far we have gone 33 years later. Priestly was clever in the way he wrote A Inspector Calls to warn people not to make the same mistakes that was once made and not to go back to how society was, where men had power over women and people were unfairly judged by what social class they were/are in.
Before the Inspector enters the room - all four of the Birling’s and Gerald Croft were in the dinning room. Arthur Birling at one end and his wife Sybil Birling at the other, Sheila and Gerald seated upstage at and Eric is downstage. Edna the parlour maid is just clearing the table of dessert plates and champagne glasses, and she then replaces them with decanter port, cigar box and cigarettes. Effects of this are showed by the champagne glass and everything else is that they are a wealthy family able to afford such luxuries such as alcohol and cigarettes. They is pink an intimate lighting that will soon change when is Inspector come to show the change in mood. The table is not fully dressed but because of the wealth of the Birling’s it will not be because they are poor. “Which has no cloth” maybe because the table is so grade and fancy that they wanted to show it of with the family being is rich this table will help so off their wealth and look more rich.
Everyone is jolly and is celebrating the engagement of Sheila and Gerald; they all are pleased with themselves. Showing the Gerald is happy he politely compliments dinner. “Absolutely first class.” He is very pleased with dinner and agrees with what Birling said earlier about the dinner. “Very nice. Good dinner too, Sybil. Tell the cook from me.” Effect of Gerald saying what he did straight after Birling may apply that he is sucking up to Birling because he wants to stay on Birling’s nice side so that he accepts and respects Gerald’s more. Birling being happy about this goes against what his wife Sybil about not saying such things cause as higher class people they shouldn’t compliment lower class people that are also working for him. Birling’s says “Oh come, come – I’m treating Gerald like one of the family, and I’m sure he won’t object” Gerald gets what I think he wants when called one of the family, even though he isn’t yet a part of it, he doesn’t object because he want to say on good terms with the Birling family especially with some of the things that is later revealed in the in the play. Not only does Gerald want to say on good terms with Birling but because the Croft family owns the bigger factory Birling would like to stay on good terms with Croft so that he can get a share of the fund. Probably because Birling in is ways is greedy and cares more for himself than anyone else. “He is a heavy looking, rather portentous man.” When Birling talks about the future he is very serious and significant and believes strongly that WW1 won’t start and it’s all just rumours. “...fairly easy manners but rather provincial in his speeches.” In his speeches Birling empathies how happy he really is about his business and the engagement.
