The opening stage directions and setting of scene states, ‘The dining room of a very large suburban house’, this helps the audience to acknowledge the wealth and relations between the characters on the stage and the audience themselves. The focus on wealth is repeated, a ‘decanter of [ports], [cigar boxes] and cigarettes’ are items which are stereotypically owned by a family of high wealth in 1912. Also mentioned are notes on lighting, ‘The lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives, and then it should be brighter and harder.’ Colours represent different feelings and emotions; ‘pink and intimate’, has a happy, comfortable effect, however ‘brighter and harder’ creates an uncomfortable, and tense, environment; this technique aids the audience into anticipating a negative scene which keeps the audience intrigued.
Mr. Birling is described as ‘a heavy-looking, rather portentous man in his middle fifties with family easy manners but rather provincial in his speech’, this suggests that he’s an arrogant, egotistic man who is however, unsophisticated. When Mr. Birling says to Gerald, ‘it’s exactly the same port your father gets’, we see Mr. Birling is attempting to impress Gerald, this shows that Mr. Birling is aware of his social superiors, and portrays Mr. Birling as someone who adulates his them. Mrs Birling is described as ‘about fifty, a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior’; this shows she is a braggart and similarly to Mr. Birling, arrogant. Tension is created through the use of characterisation; the audience will begin to dislike these two characters from the first scene.
Sheila, the fiancée of Gerald, tells him in response to his stories of him being busy with work during the summer, ‘Yes, that’s what you say’; this creates tension through the use of language, as it doubts her trust in him, and raises the question to the audience on the stability of their relationship. Birling gives a speech telling everyone how Gerald and Sheila are ‘marrying at a very good time’, and claims how, ‘We employers at last are coming together to see that our interests – and the interests of Capital – are properly protected’, this demonstrated to the audience how Birling’s precedence of the marriage to merge his families and Gerald’s families business’, which Priestly may have done to show a sign of ignorance in the upper-middle class. Birling then articulates a monologue, where Birling talks about the development of the world in the future. ‘...And I say there isn’t a chance of a war’, ‘the Titanic – she sails next week – forty six thousand eight hundred tons – New York in five days – and every luxury – and unsinkable’, ‘let’s say, in 1940 – you may be giving a little party like this...you’ll be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these silly little war scares’. As the play is set in the past, the audience is aware that the outcome’s on Birling’s prophecies are false, there have been two world wars since the play was written, the titanic is entirely sinkable and in 1940 World War II would have begun - this creates dramatic irony.
During a speech by Mr. Birling, he is interrupted by the door bell, ‘We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell. Birling stops to listen’ the use of an interjection and sound effect creates tension since the audience will be curious on the subject that has interrupted Mr. Birling’s speech. Tension is also created through gestures, when the Inspector asks if Mr. Croft will be marrying Sheila Birling, Gerald responds with ‘(smiling) I hope so’, adding a gesture such as a smile suggests that Gerald is trying to add a more positive atmosphere, however on the contrary is showing he has doubt about his marriage, this will intrigue the audience since they will try to foresee if Gerald and Sheila are engaged by the end of the play. The last line before Act 2 is said by the Inspector; ‘Well?’, the use of a slightly intimidating, short line is a dramatic climax, which builds up tension in preparation for the next act.
J.B Priestly creates tension through various different approaches in Act 1 of ‘Inspector Calls’, these include; through stage directions, such as lighting and setting; language, such as moods and irony; and actions such as gestures. I believe J.B Priestly has chosen Mr. Birling as one of his key access’ into expressing the flaws in Capitalism through language techniques, particularly dramatic irony. Mr. Birling also appears to, intentionally or unintentional, create tension between himself and the other characters, including Gerald, Sheila and Inspector Goole. The name ‘Goole’ sounds like the word ‘ghoul’, which I feel is a hint from J.B Priestly that the inspector is a ghost, or at least, a ghostly figure.
