I’m treating Gerald like one of the family. And I’m sure he won’t object.
Here, he is showing how he admires Gerald. He feels that he is a member of the family and to be treated with respect, unlike Eric.
You’re just the kind of son-in-law I always wanted.
This is more of a genuine remark of liking to Gerald than it is a mocking of Eric. If it had said
‘...kind of son I always wanted.’
Then it would have been very harsh on Eric and maybe a bit too mean, even for Mr. Birling, so this shows that he has still got compassion for Eric.
Nearer the end, once they have all told their own stories, the family starts to blame each other for the death of Eva. This is another example of family conflict. At the very end of the play, it is the older generation members of the family who take the events in their stride and the younger members are shocked and quite disgusted.
Next, there is conflict between the family and the inspector: Mr. Birling gets quite angry with the inspector:
(Angrily) Look here inspector, I consider this uncalled-for and officious. I’ve half a mind to report you.
This is showing how Mr. Birling does not like the inspector at all and that he doesn’t want to disclose any more information about the matters discussed. Mr. Birling feels that the inspector is putting the blame of the death of Eva upon him alone. He obviously doesn’t like this as he feels that he had to fire Eva, that he had no choice. All the way through the play, Mr. Birling dislikes the inspector. Later on in the play, Sheila and Mrs. Birling also dislike the inspector.
This is Sheila’s remark:
No, he’s giving us the rope – so that we’ll hang ourselves.
She can tell that the inspector is just trying to make them all feel bad and like they were all to blame for the death of Eva. She knows what he is trying to do.
This is Mrs. Birling’s remark:
(With sudden anger to Inspector) Well, come along – what is it you want to know?
At this point Mrs. Birling is getting annoyed at the inspector’s tiresome attempts to get more information out of the family. She is fed up with his attitude.
The next conflict is a class conflict. Almost all the characters are prejudiced towards Eva in some way somewhere in the play. When in Milwards milliners, Sheila uses her power as a citizen of higher class to get Eva fired from her job just because she smirked at an inappropriate moment. Sheila didn’t realize this would ruin Eva’s life, and may well not have done so if she had not been in such a bad mood.
Gerald uses his money and power to get Eva to have sex with him and then he just leaves. He uses her as a mistress. He used his money to get her the flat and some food and make her feel good. He does treat her as though she is incapable of doing so herself.
Next is Mrs. Birling. She refuses Eva money because she is of a lower class and not worthy for money.
...a girl of that sort would never refuse money.
What this is saying is that Mrs. Birling thinks of Eva as inferior to herself and quite stupid to turn money down. She thinks Eva is being facetious.
The final class conflict is between Eric and Eva. Eva didn’t want to marry Eric because he was a higher social class than she was. She says she didn’t love him and that he didn’t care, but she couldn’t fight the social gap between them and consequently decided to not marry him.
The second creation of tension is through Dramatic Irony. A lot of the dramatic irony is from Mr. Birling when he talks about World War 1 and the titanic:
...you’ll hear some people say that war’s inevitable. And to that I say - Fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war. Nobody wants war...
The Titanic...unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.
Here are two examples of dramatic irony. The audience know how wrong he is, but no one on stage does and this just makes him look stupid. Because of these examples of him being wrong, this might suggest that he was wrong about firing Eva. The next example of dramatic irony is in the chain of events:
Mrs. Birling digs her own grave when she says about the father of Eva’s baby being put to blame for her death. She says how it is Eric who killed Eva. But she doesn’t yet know that Eric is the father, so she is saying all these bad things about the father of Eva’s baby without knowing that she is talking about her own son.
The third creation of tension is through the interrogation techniques of the inspector.
One of the techniques used by the inspector was to pause frequently to allow the characters’ guilty consciences to speak out. This is not particularly moral as it pins moral guilt on the characters. However, it is quite effective as it works well.
The other interrogation technique used is to ask many factual questions to gain more trust and mainly to get more information:
But what did Sheila do?
And why did you do that?
Where is your father, Miss. Birling?
He is there to ask the questions, which will make their stories have more sense and to ultimately make them confess. This is however moral, he is just asking questions, but the way he does it, and the effect he is trying to gain isn’t really moral. He is getting the characters to confess to things they may not have wanted to confess and makes them fell bad and quite angry. He is also quite blunt, assertive and to the point:
(Harshly) Yes, but you can’t. It’s too late. She’s dead.
This shows that the inspector has a dry sense of humour. Whether or not this line was meant to be comical when the play was written, it is humorous now. The inspector is not the sort of man that anyone in the family would really get too acquainted with and henceforth, he doesn’t have much respect from the family.
For all these creations of dramatic tension to work, there must be dramatic relief. This comes when the inspector has vanished and Gerald phones up and finds out that this has all been a supposed hoax. There is no Inspector Goole. No suicide girl. The family has just told secrets to the rest of the family without really needing too, secrets that they wouldn’t have told if it hadn’t been for the Inspector asking all the questions.
Shortly after the relief of finding out that it had been a hoax, the family is left with the creation of doubt and mystery surrounding the disappearance of the inspector and including the whereabouts of the inspector. Where did he come from? Why did he come? Was he real? Was he just their consciences speaking out? They are left with many of their own questions to answer.
Shortly after the doubt and mystery surrounding the inspector, the family gets a phone call, which Mr. Birling takes. The phone call is the police and they say that a girl has just died from swallowing disinfectant and an inspector is coming round soon to question them all. There is now great shock because the family has just been convinced that it was all a hoax, which consequently it had been, but it no longer is. What just happened before has now come true. Again, the family can start to question themselves: Is this Eva Smith who has died? Was it because of them? Who will the inspector be? This must have been very scary for the family and they must be totally dumbfounded as this point. Was Inspector Goole a ghost/ghoul? It is a great mystery and there is a lot of tension at this point in the play.
Another method of creating dramatic tension is through the chain of circumstances. Firstly, Mr. Birling fires Eva, and because he fires her, she has to get a new job. She does so at Milwards milliners. When she gets fired from there, she became a “women on the town” and hung around in the bar of the Palace Variety Theatre, where she met up with Gerald. Gerald had sex with her and dumped her and consequently, she went back to being a “women on the town” and this is when she met Eric. Eric gets her pregnant and then Eva leaves him, which is when she goes to see Mrs. Birling to get money to help with the baby.
All of the sequences connect well and very neatly which helps to give the play more tension; because of what one person, the next thing can happen, and because of what they did, the next thing can happen and so on. This makes the play more exciting and helps it flow better, which shows it is professional and well written.
In conclusion to the question, J. B. Priestly creates tension through Conflict, Dramatic Irony, Interrogation Techniques, Relief, Creation of Doubt, chain of consequences and Mystery, and Shock. These methods of creating tension are very effective and ultimately there is a lot of tension in the play. The play can get exciting in certain places due to the tension of what will happen next; what effect will one thing have on another? All in all, the play is Very well written and the dramatic tension is excellent.
By Scott Humm
