In order to establish Preistley's main aim, in the play 'an inspector calls' it will be necessary to look at and understand the aims of any dramatist.

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In order to establish Preistley’s main aim, in the play ‘an inspector calls’ it will be necessary to look at and understand the aims of any dramatist.  The first aim is to entertain.  All dramatists wish to entertain so that they can proceed in their careers well.  Preistley was no exception to this he aimed to entertain and he did so very well.  To keep the audiences interest and attention is a rare skill and involves twists and mysteries throughout the play.  Interesting characters and views or opinions must be displayed which will involve the audience so they become entertained.  Twists, arguments, emotions all have a part in the play, which makes the play more exciting and interesting.  Another aim of a dramatist is to preach a message.  Most plays have a moral to the storyline.  These messages are usually displayed through the characters in either their lives or through argumentative comments.

Priestley is definitely no exception to these common aims.  He kept the play ‘an inspector calls’ mysterious, and full of shocking twists that nobody in the audience would think.  It made the play very interesting and satisfying.  The use of guilt, love, time and mystery are all used well in the play.  The love of Gerald and Sheila broken, the guilt Eric portrays, the mystery of the inspector and the mystery of the time loop are all important factors to what makes this play very entertaining and pleasing.  Also the inspector adds comments when questioning or receiving answers from the family.  This hints at messages against the middle class family.  All these small comments add up to an important message put across as the inspector leaves.  It forces this middle class family to look at themselves and it puts them back into their places.  

The play is based on a detective thriller, a who-dun-it type of story.  The genre being a detective thriller sets the play of with lots of questions.  As the play progresses on, the inspector’s questions and points are put across more and more forcefully.  The tension between the characters build, as one leaves another shocking fact is revealed and, what will they think? How will he/she react when they find out? What about her? Are examples of questions, which appeared in my mind, and this makes the play more enticing to carry on watching so that you are satisfied when finding out the answers.  All the questions appear to the audience as the gradual revelation of events takes place.  As the play goes on the audience is discovering new faces about this family, but also the Birling family is learning new things about each other.  The characters are revealed through what others say about them as well as what they themselves say and do.  This makes the audience feel like they are involved.  For the end of each act there is a cliffhanger.  This gives every part or section of the play a dramatic ending and makes the audience involved in the play more and more.  Once the dramatist has gained the audiences attention, which he will have by this stage he will now have the perfect time to start conveying his message.  Preistley did this with no falter.  He gained the audiences attention and then he preached his message through the inspector.  Preistley was a socialist but the character of Mr. Birling was a capitalist.  Priestley used the inspector as his mouthpiece to convey his own feelings about soicialism and he used the character of Mr. Birling to prove capitalists wrong.  

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This play was written in 1944 after two world wars but it was set in 1912 before either of them happened.  The audience that the play was aimed at had experienced the horrors of two world wars, the horror of general strike of 1926, Jarrow march, the depression of 1930’s and the unemployment, hunger etc that happened.  But the characters in the play had not experienced a war of a strike so the views of the two are very different and this was a very deliberate act.  The audience had a slight feeling that they were no longer willing ...

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