It is most likely that J.B. Priestley will have been a democratic socialist, so he will have wanted slow but gradual changes in society which will have been brought about through the government. However, this sort of change will also have required the majority of the population to agree as well as it would be they whom will be changing. And this is probably why he wrote the play, to inform, and hopefully change people’s opinions about the way in which they treat each other. Political propaganda, for all of the left-wing parities perhaps.
The play was written at a time of national equality because the war was winding down and the population of Britain had pulled together as a community in order to defeat the Germans in the second episode of possible German occupation. However, Priestley thought that this wasn’t enough he believed that there needed to be a much better social equality in the country and felt that people needed to be educated in the way in which they should change there views about and towards each other. And Preistley was not alone in his socialist beliefs; from Leon Trotsky to Juergen Habermaus, and Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) as well as Oscar Wilde. Not to mention John Lennon, Martin Buber, and Albert Einstein.
Preistley used as a theatrical device to influence the way in which people saw there own lives, and how they could change. There is a lot of emphasis placed on the audience and how they are behaving in their lives, and almost how they have had a visit from the inspector themselves. Priestly decides to play with time in this play, and at the start of the modern version by the Royal National Theatre, the inspector comes from the audience, and walks onto the main stage this means that he is coming from us, our time and dimension. Which means he is in our time frame, and therefore must travel back in time in order to get to Brumely. When the inspector arrives the lighting changes from the beginning of the play. This tells us of a change in mood and sets a new frame of mind, for the equilibrium of the dinner to be destroyed. The play was written at the end of the second world war, yet Preistley still decided to write it in the past, and set it in 1912. This is because he believes he needs to show us how we were wrong, naïve, and arrogant. This comes across mostly from one of the main characters Mr Birling. It also hints at how perhaps if we all had seen at this early stage that, perhaps the two word wars could have been avoided. The fact that Preistley is a socialist does not dominate the play to a point it can be noticed at first glance. But when contemplated we can see definitive political morals. He is perhaps concluding that if we were socialists then there would have been no world war. But no learning from those wars either.
As we are thrown into the beginning of the play we are invited to celebrate the possible marriage of two of the younger generation. This straight away strikes us as a very right-wing marriage that is meant for the rich to become richer. Just as her father married into a richer, and possibly even a higher class which is also the aim of his daughter Sheila. Thus creates a point of interest for the audience to latch onto at the beginning of the play at which point equilibrium is also formed. This aspect is then ripped away from the audience; this creates more interest, and a hint of mystery and tension to create a thriller like atmosphere for the inspector to enter into. The inspector is used as a theatrical device not only to create mystery, but also to literally “inspect” both all the characters, and the audience. And this is how Preistley intended the play to focus people’s views on society, so it wasn’t just looking at fictional characters, but the whole audience as well.
As a possible social deduction, it is pretty simple, and doesn’t have many complex views on how he thinks the society of the time should change however I believe the message is much more effective as it is easier to understand and fully comprehend. Furthermore, it is more personal then just a social change, it is about peoples individual ethics and morals, which is not only much more personal, but a lot different to telling how a whole nation to get back to a normal routine after the second war. He also introduces the characters very well, in order for them to be slightly interrogated. He also manages to set up the characters ethics, and morals, very strongly, yet they seemed to be futile when refereed to at the end of the play.
