how does Priestly explore the theme of social responsibility

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We Don’t Live Alone, We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.

How does Priestley explore this theme of Social Responsibility?

How effective is he at getting his Socialist message across to the audience?

This play is set in 1912 just before the First World War. It was written in 1946 and was shown in theatres. Priestley wrote this play because he felt that everyone should help each other and be responsible for one another during this time (during the Second World War). So if they didn’t care about anyone but themselves then later everything will come back on them, which happened in this play.

Out of all the characters I have comprehended I think that the Inspector is one of the main characters, that Priestley used to get the message across to the Birling family and the other characters. Priestley showed this by the following method. The Inspector (who we think is fake) asked the Birling family and Gerald to prove to the audience how high classed people should have more responsibility. To show that, the quote from the play says, “Public men, Mr Birling have responsibilities as well as Privileges.” This quote has an affect on the audience as it suggests how such a powerful man as Mr Birling thinks he is, is being put down by the words of the Inspector who is not even real. So the audience would think what an irresponsible man Mr Birling is, thinking he is the best but told how low he actually is. This will also make the audience laugh as Mr Birling will be seen as a little child getting told how useless he is. The writer Priestley wanted this affect because he would like to show the reader/audience how social responsibility was at the time. How Mr Birling only cared about himself and his own privileges and how he had no responsibility over anyone else but himself.

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Another character that Priestley used to get the message across was Mr Birling. This man passed on the message to the audience by the following method. He showed how poor his responsibility was when he sacked Eva Smith because she asked for a pay rise because she didn’t have enough money to feed herself or pay the rent. So Mr Birling just said that people like you are privileged to have a job and get money. Eva being leader of her protesting group came forward to Mr Birling, he gave the others their jobs back but at the old ...

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