How Priestly conveys his socialist beliefs in An Inspector Calls

audience who listen to him, as he dismisses a conflict, that was to be the most terrible war up to

that point in time.

The second statement, made by the Inspector also draws on the war warning, almost knowing

that it will occur. The audience can look at this and ask themselves, " If we had looked could we

have seen the signs?" It is making the audience think about this question which allows Priestly to

get his socialist message across at this point.

Another aspect of the social and political climate which Priestly uses to get his socialist message

across is the class system. This was one of the main hatreds of the socialists of this time (1912)

and is therefore shown up throughout the play. The class system of 1944 was different in some

respects to that of 1912 but in many ways had not changed over the three decades and two

world wars which separated them. The only difference was the gradual introduction of the middle

classes, as up until that point there were only really two classes, upper class and working class. It

was to the former that the Birlings very much belonged. They represent the average upper class

family, safe in their comfortable lifestyles, most of the time blissfully unaware of how the rest of the

population was living. This is something that Priestly plays upon, the blunt refusal of the upper

classes to acknowledge the working classes as anything but cheap labour.

In the play, the character of Eva Smith/Daisy Renton represents those millions and millions of

working class people living in Britain at that time, who lived in the shadows of the capitalist

tycoons. A good example of this divide is on page six when Sheila asks the Inspector about Eva

Smith's death Mrs Birling says,

"I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why that girl committed suicide. Girls of

that class...". But it is important to remember that this is not just Mrs Birling's view being

expressed here by Priestly, but the view of the entire upper class. Mr Birling's view of the

working classes does not differ much from this either as he tells the Inspector that his only

involvement with Eva Smith was that she worked for him and that he fired her when she asked for

a rise in workers' wages. Having this pointed out was designed to get across an idea to the

audience of how bad the situation really was for the lower classes living in this period.

Priestly gives us the idea that none of this would even have come to light at all if the girl hadn't

committed suicide. In fact he is just stressing the ideology of capitalism, "a man has to make his

own way in life" when the Inspector arrives.

The role and purpose of the character of the Inspector within the play is evident from the minute

that he enters. He is the representative of socialism come to sort out capitalism and the problems

it causes for others. It is fair to say that the Inspector is the outlet in the play for the bulk of J.B

Priestly's socialist views. Although he never actually condemns capitalism or openly condones

socialism, the Birlings attempts at trying to intimidate him fail from the start, "how do you get on

with our Chief Constable... he's an old friend of mine... we play golf together" the Inspector's

response is simply, "I don't play golf."

Another important part of the inspectors role are his entrances and exits from the stage. He will

always enter just after one of the other characters has divulged an important piece of information,

leaving us in some doubt as to whether he has heard it or not. His exit is also very dramatic, with

his closing speech summing up all the ideas of socialism in two or three sentences. Abolishing the

class divide, collective responsibility and the inevitable problems if these issues aren't resolved,

"We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I

tell you that the time will come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in

fire and blood and anguish."

Yet despite this incredibly delicate position he holds within the play he remains completely calm

and relaxed throughout, except leading up to his exit when the Birlings try to use their social class

to prevent him from investigating further into the case; this evidently annoys him. This coolness is

no accident. Even his name G-O-O-L-E gives him an air of mystery and suspense which proves

to be very valid later in the play, when we discover that he is not who he claims to be at all.

Priestly sets up the character of the Inspector as one which will be respected by both the other

characters and the audience. This respect ensures that he is listened to and therefore gets

Priestly's socialist message across more effectively. However, Priestly tries not to depend too

heavily on the character to get his socialist message across as at the end of the play we discover

that he is not a real Police Inspector at all and he that he is in fact a paradox. Throughout the story

the character of the Inspector tells us that it is wrong to live a lie, yet in the end he is nothing but

one big lie himself. This says a very important thing about Priestly's socialist message. It is not

who delivers the message that is important but the message itself.

I will now study the reactions of two characters in the play, one younger and one older, to the

arrival of and the news brought by the Inspector. Firstly I will look at the reaction of Sheila Birling

to the Inspector's arrival and the news of Eva Smith's death.

One thing that can be said in Sheila's favour is that she actually seems to care that this girl has

died. Despite the fact that Eva Smith is from the working classes, Sheila still cares. Even Eric and

Gerald do not seem to care about the fact that a girl has died; until they realise who she is. Her

first stage direction rather distressed on page five shows us this. It tells us that Priestly intends

Sheila to be concerned.

Sheila also has almost instant respect for the apparent abundance of knowledge which the

character of the Inspector seems to possess. In fact when she first hears of Gerald's involvement

with Eva Smith her at the end of Act One gut reaction is to say to Gerald,

"Why - you fool - he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that

we don't know yet."

This respect for the Inspector seems to grow throughout the play until at times Sheila seems to

assume the role of the Inspector when he is not there, questioning and interrogating the rest of the

characters in his absence. This gets Priestly's socialist message across by saying that people can

and are allowed to change. Those who may be in the wrong now can still do the right thing by

changing their ways. It is in this willingness to change where Sheila is in all respects the complete

opposite to her mother, Mrs Birling.

Mrs Birling has no more compassion for this girls death than she does for that of the poultry she

eats at Sunday lunch. She merely enforces her already blatantly obvious opinions by reminding the

Inspector about "Girls of that class..."

She takes an instant dislike to the Inspector, seemingly from the minute that he fails to be

impressed when she tells him that her husband, "used to be Lord Mayor less than two years ago."

Despite his obvious disliking of being 'fobbed off' she continues to try and build a wall between

herself and the character of the Inspector. But it is when she hears that a man from her social

class had made Eva Smith pregnant and then left her that she really comes into her own. She

knows that she refused Eva Smith help when she asked for it, desperate and on the verge of

suicide and is possibly beginning to feel a twinge of guilt when she finds this scapegoat. She

demands that the Inspector do what is right and, "make sure that he's compelled to confess in

public his responsibility." It is only however, when the Inspector casually agrees to do this that she

twigs who the man is, Eric. Despite her best efforts she cannot now convince the Inspector that

he should be lenient with Eric.

One of the most important aspects of the play that J.B Priestly uses to get across his socialist

message is his use of dramatic devices. Throughout the course of the play Priestly uses several

dramatic devices. I am going to look at each one and see how it helps him get his socialist

message across.

Priestly uses dramatic irony quite extensively in 'An Inspector Calls' although its main use is whilst

he is showing up Birling when he is talking to Eric and Gerald about the unlikely-hood of war.

This gets Priestly's message across by portraying the capitalist as ignorant. The entrances,

particularly those of the Inspector's are timed to leave the audience unsure whether the

information being discussed prior to their entrance was relevant to them and whether they heard

what was said. This adds to the suspense of the play, keeps the audience interested and therefore

helps to get across J.B Priestly's socialist message. Splitting the play into three short acts but

having them performed as one long act allows Priestly to end certain realisations as a cliff-hanger

before allowing the audience to know what happens next. Again this adds to the suspense and

keeps the audience interested and listening. The play is very noticeably set in only on place, the

dining room of the Birling's home. This helps to get J.B Priestly's socialist message across by

allowing the audience to concentrate on what is going on in the story rather than where it is taking

place. Priestly deliberately changes the mood of the whole story line throughout the play to allow

a distinctive mood change whenever the Inspector touches a nerve or works something out. This

shows how contented the upper class capitalists could be when things were going how they ought

to be, but how grumpy and shallow they could be when things weren't going their way. This helps

to get Priestly's socialist message across by showing the audience how shallow and superficial the

upper classes could be. Finally the paradox at the end tells us that unlike capitalism, socialism

does not claim to have all the answers, nor does it want to, but that it can improve the current

situation that we have inherited from years of capitalists having power and surely that has got to at

least be allowed a chance to work.

The final aspect that I am going to look at is the ending of the play and how it reiterates and sums

up Priestly's socialist message. At the end of the play the Birling's begin to question whether the

Inspector was actually a real Inspector at all as they refuse to believe that a real police Inspector

would speak to them in the way which the character of the Inspector does in the play. As this

suspicion grows, they begin to relax. Birling feels that if the visitor was not an Inspector after all

then they are all off the hook, as he tells Sheila,

"...it matters a devil of a lot. Makes all the difference."

Sheila, who is now beginning to see what socialism means, disagrees with this though,

"But don't you see, if all that's come out tonight is true, then it doesn't matter who it was who

made us confess."

Gerald then has the idea of ringing the hospital to see if a girl has committed suicide, only to be

told that, "They haven't had a suicide for months." This seems to lift the tension from Birling, who

says to Sheila,

"The whole things different now. Come, come, you can see that, can't you?"

but she realises that everything is not different and that they have still done terrible things,

"It frightens me the way you talk...you're pretending everything's just as it was before."

It is then that the Birlings receive a nasty shock. A phone call from the police saying that a girl has

just died, after swallowing disinfectant and that they are sending an Inspector over to the house.

In short, with the possible exception of Sheila, the capitalists have refused to learn the lesson

which the character of the Inspector has tried so hard to teach them. Because of this, they must

start to learn all over again.

After studying the play in this essay, I believe that it conveys Priestly's socialist message by

simply saying that the capitalists will have to be taught their lesson again and again until they finally

learn it. That capitalism cannot work if any form of peace is on the cards, because so long as man

is looking out for himself and has no interests in making the world a community instead of just a

pile of money waiting to be divided up, we will never truly be able to be happy. This is portrayed

at the end of the play by the evident relief of the characters when they discover that the whole

thing has been a wind-up. However, I wonder whether it was just a test which they must continue

to take over and over again until they finally get it right.

Matt Pengelly 10H