Explore the ways in which the opening of "an inspector calls" sets the scene and prepares the audience for the downfall of the Birlings and Gerald Croft

J.B Priestley fought in World War I and had experienced life in trenches, which where hell, and was a victim of a gas attack. This might have been what formed his socialist view. He was not the only writer to have socialist views after WWI; there were others such as George Bernard Shaw. Priestley must have realised that if we don’t care for each other and take responsibility for our actions there will be more wars, so he wrote the play to send across the message that people they have to take responsibility for their actions.

The class your family was in, in Edwardian times was very important and Priestley makes it obvious that this family is an upper class family from the very detailed stage directions at the beginning of the play. “The Dining room of a fairly large suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer. It has good solid furniture”. From this quote we can tell that Priestley wants the family to look well off because he describes their house as fairly big, and calls Mr. Birling a Prosperous manufacturer which means he is a wealthy person and that he has a well established business. He also describes their furniture as good and solid. People in them days could not normally afford solid furniture, so shows again this family’s wealth.

The scene at the beginning is a dining room of a well off, upper class family. The family have finished their meal and there is alcohol on the table, which we find out is a decanter of fine port, this suggests that they are a very wealthy family. The apparently ‘perfect’ family dinner, is merely a façade and although looks nice, is not cosy and homelike. As everything is perfect fro the family at the beginning, this foreshadows that something bad is going to happen sometime later in the play.