How Priestly explores social and moral issues in 'An Inspector Calls'.

Throughout the play the Inspector is constantly trying to teach the Birlings several social and moral issues. The main issue the Birlings are faced with is collective responsibility. Each of the Birlings plays a part in the death of Eva Smith. Although they did not kill Eva Smith all of their individual actions all drove Eva Smith or Daisy Renton as otherwise known to her suicide. If we look at what the Inspector is trying to teach the Birlings individually one can find many social and moral issues. Arthur Birling is a prosperous factory owner whose first priority is to make money. He puts his work and business before his wife and children and strongly believes that a man has to ‘make his own way.’ By using the character of Arthur Birling, Priestly portrays how men though so little about women’s rights and feelings. Arthur Birling thinks of society as a hierarchy and any one below him should be treated with less respect and thought than him. When Eva Smith asks Arthur Birling for more money he dismisses her from her work because she dared to ask. This is one of Priestly’s main concerns about society. Every one should be treated equally whatever there wealth, gender, religion, ethnic origin and race.

At first Sheila Birling is considered to be a spoiled young woman who does not work and sponges off of her father. This becomes clear when Sheila goes shopping at ‘Milwards’ and Eva Smith is working as an assistant. She asks to try a selection of dresses on and Eva Smith is asked to model one of them. Sheila is drawn to this one dress that Eva models and tries it on herself. She does not like it on herself and becomes irate and struggles with the hat. Due to her jealously she claims she caught the girl ‘smiling at Miss Francis – as if to say: “Doesn’t she look awful.”’ Because Sheila is spoiled at likes to get what she want so she told the manager to dismiss Eva or she would not shop hear anymore. The moral issues behind this character are jealousy. The world is full of jealousy that leads to disruption in society. This is linked to the ideas of communism where everyone is equal and nobody owns anything. Communism was introduced to stop the disruption caused by jealousy.

Other characters represent moral and social like Eva’s unwanted pregnancy with Eric who is a reckless young man who could be considered an alcoholic because he drinks a considerable amount of alcohol during the family’s meeting with the inspector. Therefore the social issue about the over consumption of alcohol is explored and links in with the unwanted pregnancy possibly due to alcohol. Another character that represents moral and social issues is Mrs Birling. She is the head of a women’s committee who help women in trouble such as Eva Smith. Mrs Birling disbelieves Eva Smiths story and rejects her because she lied about her name. However her story was partly true and Mrs Birling had a responsibility to her charity cases. The issue of charity and women’s position in society is explored.

One can conclude that the playwright’s message is that society is full off disruption due to jealousy, dis-concern, recklessness and lack of respect to other people amongst the community. Everyone should be considered equal but not to the extreme of communism. Equal rights between women and men and those of different races should be the main concern of society and everyone should take collective responsibility to improve society. This is still relevant today because all of the issues explored in ‘An Inspector Calls’ are still happening at present.