The play begins with pink intimate light picturing a very warm and jolly setting, where Gerald proposes to Sheila and the whole family and Gerald are having a nice conversation. The light then changes when the Inspector arrives, and is brighter and harder. This shows that when the inspector arrives there is a dramatic change in the mood, changing from calm and happy, to dramatic and suspenseful. The hard bright light gives a pressuring dramatic look like it is concentrated on the scene and gives it a lot of intensity.
The use of a doorbell as a sound effect is very dramatic in the play. The sound of the doorbell interrupts the dinner where it is happy, and immediately brings in a very disturbing atmosphere. The doorbell in the script is described as “we hear the sharp ring of a front door bell”, which is a piercing sound, which is noisy and cuts in very sharply interrupting conversation very suddenly. This suggests something bad is about to happen, and that the mood is going to take a sharp turn.
Then the hard bright light and the piercing sound of the doorbell add up to the very important introduction of the inspector. This is very suspenseful, as the Birlings did not expect anyone to come, and ideally, it could be anyone. Edna then announces, “Please, sir an inspector’s called,” and Mr. Birling Replies “Don’t know him. Does he want to see me,” and Edna says “yes, sir. He says it’s important.”. The announcement is very suspicious and frightening, as he is a police officer and he says it is very important, suggesting the Birlings have done something very bad, and it heavily builds up suspense. When the inspector enters, he is described in the stage directions as being “The Inspector need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness” and at the second he comes in, he is seen as very intimidating even though he has not yet made a comment. The inspector immediately makes a huge change to the characters moods as he announces the death of a girl, and that he wants to question the characters, making them feel very frightened and bad about themselves for the death of the girl, and completely reverses the atmosphere from happy, to dramatic.
Mrs. Birling, Sheila, and Eric exit first, and leave Gerald and Mr. Birling to talk. Mr. Birling further engages in conversation of business, and keeps trying to make the opportunity to unite the two companies and become of much higher status. This reveals much more of Mr. Birling’s goals of this marriage, and in life, and shows that he is determined to become more respected, and that Gerald is of much higher class. This also shows the incredible amount of determination he has to get his goals and it depicts how great his desire of becoming upper class.
Mr. Birling exits next. At this point, he is annoyed with the Inspector’s questions and goes to see his wife. This pictures the transition that has taken place throughout the evening, and how happy they were in the beginning, and how, now it has turned into much darker. The last sentence Mr. Birling says is, “We were having a nice family celebration tonight. And you’ve made a nasty mess of it now haven’t you,” and the Inspector answers, “That’s more or less what I was thinking earlier tonight, when I was in the Infirmary looking at what was left of Eva Smith. A nice, little promising life there, I thought, and a nasty mess somebody’s made of it”. This shows how helpless Mr. Birling is to the Inspector and that Mr. Birling is actually in the wrong and cannot reply because the answer would not be correct. The Inspector also comments on how Eva Smith had a very precious life until they had screwed it up, and how tragic something like that has happened to somebody. What Mr. Birling does not realize, is that her life is very precious, and Mr. Birling should care for her.
Eric and the Inspector exit third, leaving Gerald and Sheila together, leaving them to discuss Gerald’s knowledge of Daisy Renton. This is the marking point where Gerald and Sheila realize that they do not know each other very well, and have not shown their true personalities to each other. I think here the Inspector and Eric leave on purpose to allow them to discuss it. This gives in-depth views of Gerald and Sheila’s true faces, allowing the audience to be fully introduced to them.
The end of Act 1 leaves the audience in a lot of suspense and with a cliffhanger. Sheila’s last words are “Why - you - fool he knows. Of course, he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don’t know yet. You’ll see. You’ll see”. This gives the audience the idea that they have yet to experience the questioning and the real story behind Eva Smith’s death. Sheila also knows the most and predicts what will happen and where it will lead, and yet she is still scared of what he will say, making it seem ten times more frightening.
Act 1 in retrospect is in a sense very ironic. The evening begins with Mr. Birling’s speeches about how all the countries are united peacefully and the titanic will make a grand voyage, of the first of its kind successfully. All the things he says about how perfect the world is, is completely wrong. There is a massive World War and the largest ever experienced, the Titanic is a horrible accident where thousands die. Compared to Birling’s speeches, the play is much the same. The evening starts joyous and wonderful with Mr. Birling getting his knighthood, and the marriage of Gerald and Sheila, however, once the inspector arrives all changes. The fact is that the Birling’s and Gerald together have killed someone and it is extremely tragic, and with that kind of scandal, Mr. Birling will not receive his knighthood. Sheila finds out that Gerald had been cheating on her, and that he is no longer trustworthy. The beginning of Act 1 is the fairy tale story, and the end is the cruel reality.
In the beginning of Act 1 the Birlings are regarded as being very high class, rich and their lives have been, so far, perfect. At the end, the Birlings have been revealed that they have been involved in the killing of someone. Mr. Birling’s reaction was shockingly bad to the Inspectors question, and it showed he really had no care for Eva Smith and that she was a nobody, he also accepts no blame for what he has done. Sheila is then revealed to have fired someone from her dream job, and punished her extremely badly; all because she was angry with them and that, she did not get what she wanted. After Act 1, the Birlings have been given a much more negative perspective, and it shows the actual reality, of how evil the Birlings are.
Priestley uses many different techniques to catch the audience’s interest and attention. Priestley catches the audience’s attention with a dramatic change of mood. He does this by changing, the brightness of the light, ringing the doorbell, and introducing the inspector. He also builds up suspense as the Inspector presses the other characters with questions, and the audience wants to know what happens next. Priestley also uses shocks and scares. Examples of this would be, when the inspector tells Mr. Birling how Eva Smith’s life was made into a nasty mess, or when Gerald recognizes the name Daisy Renton.
I think the play’s message is that: no matter how different someone is from everyone else, everyone is equal. Another thing I think Priestley wants to express is, that the world is not perfect and many people are still suffering and nobody is helping them, and Priestley wants people to care for each other. This is still relevant today, because people are suffering just like Eva Smith in the world of today, and all because people are not open–minded or do not care about other people because they are different and people are discriminated because of this, and it still goes on today.
