At the beginning of the play, Priestley sets out a wide range of stage directions. He applies them effectively as a dramatic device. By doing this he shows the audience that the Birling family are unsociable, distant people and how capitalism has corrupted them as a family. He illustrates how the family are very well off, alluding to ‘dessert plates’ and ‘champagne glasses’ as well as other luxurious items. However there is also a sense of formality and distance between the family members as he writes that ‘not cosy and homelike’. He also emphasises the class distance between Mr and Mrs Birling by positioning them at opposite ends of the table. Priestley tries to show the audience, that if inside the home a happy family life can’t be maintained, then how will the society act upon this?
The disregard towards Eva is the most negative point in the whole play. This disregard moves the genre of the play from a murder mystery to a deep ethical play.
He uses many devices such as, dramatic irony, lighting, sound, character introductions, character entrances and exits to show his main concerns on how society works in its deficiency of responsibility.
Priestley uses many different dramatic devices to involve the audience into his moral concerns. Priestley uses dramatic irony in the timing of the production of the play and the time the play was actually set in, 1945 and 1912 respectively. By using dramatic irony, Priestley immediately persuades the audience of the Birlings’ ignorance. When Birling expresses his opinions about the future, the audience prove them wrong because the audience have experienced both the incidents that Mr Birling said will not happen. “You’ll hear that war is inevitable. And to that I say fiddlesticks.” Birling will not accept that there is a chance of war which proves him ignorant and foolish to the audience. The audience have just experienced two wars and immediately they start to understand how Priestley wants to convey his concerns about Birling and how he revolves around his own world of high class society. “Why a friend of mine went over this new liner last week - The Titanic…. and unsinkable”. The audience again are given an insight of Priestley’s feeling towards Birling. By the time that Birling concludes with “There’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere”, the audience has fully acknowledged the dramatic irony that Priestley has used to his advantage to convey his moral message.
Priestley’s use of stage directions interest the audience throughout the play. Firstly, at the time when the family is celebrating the engagement the lighting is pink and intimate, attracting the audience towards the happy mood and occasion, carefully setting the atmosphere. However, when the Inspector arrives the light becomes brighter and harder. This excites the audience with the Inspectors immediate powerful nature.
It may not seem a major effect, but the doorbell is in reality a very effective dramatic device. It has a very critical effect on the mood of the play. The description of its ‘sharp’ emphasises to the audience the importance of this doorbell. The sharp effect is used as a symbolic sound effect. Before the doorbell rang, the Birlings life was going as normal, but as soon as the doorbell rang, the Inspector makes his mark and changes everything. The momentum of act one changes here; a subtle stage direction enticing the audience with the Inspector and his mysterious character.
The character of the Inspector has also been used as en effective dramatic device. He is used to convey his message, as a speaker to Priestley’s views. He makes it seem as though socialism is the honest and true way to live. The Inspector does not use euphemisms and instead uses graphic imagery in order to shock the Birlings into giving him information. His strong character does not beat around the bush and gets straight to the point.
‘She’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her insides out, of course.’ He has an almost ghostly presence. The Inspector is used to ‘correct’ the capitalists.
In my opinion, the most influential dramatic device of act one is the introduction of the Inspector. Priestley uses the stage direction to impress the audience with this new character: ‘The Inspector need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness…He speaks carefully, weightily and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person before actually speaking.’
Priestley shows the Inspector as all-knowing, due to which he delivers huge interest within the audience. The new major character has a huge effect on all the characters as he becomes a powerful and intimidating character. However, every character reacts in a different manner. Mr Birling attempts to impose his ‘authority’ on the Inspector, ‘I was an alderman for years - and Lord Mayor two years ago’ before protesting his side about Eva’s suicide. ‘If I’d agreed to the demands I would have added about twelve per cent to our labour costs.’ Priestley conveys to the audience that Birling is selfish and is the high-class ignorant offender in our evil society. The other characters however react differently. Sheila shows the guilt that Priestley is trying to receive from the characters, ‘I felt rotten about it at the time and now I feel a lot worse’. Here the conscience of Priestley is punishing the characters for their ignorance and their own selfish perspective about society and because of this, a poor innocent working class girl had to endure.
Priestley tries to extract the deeper meaning of all the characters and I think the Birlings can be symbolised by the seven deadly sins; Mr Birling being greed for sacking Eva Smith, just to save a few shillings, or pride for boasting about his wealth and high status. Mrs Birling could be wrath for being angry with Eva Smith over calling herself ‘Mrs Birling’. Sheila could be envy for being jealous of Eva in Milwards and Gerald could be lust for having an affair with Eva. The fact that they can be seen as sins shows how Priestley emphasises the immorality of capitalism, placing an Inspector Calls within the genre of a morality play.
Exits and entrances of the characters become a significant part of Priestley’s dramatic devices as he builds tension. Every time a character enters and the Inspector turns to them, the audience anticipate something must happen. An example of this is when a Sheila walks in and she, after a while, is shown the photograph of Eva. Priestley is building suspense, leading to the unwinding plot which leaves the audience asking ‘Who else is involved?’
Priestley also uses cliff-hangers to create tension. When Gerald admits to Sheila that he had an affair with Eva Smith, a cliff-hanger is being used and the tension automatically builds. The Inspector then enters the room and merely says ‘Well?’ This interests and involves the audience, as they want to find out what happens next in the play, keeping them in the edge of their seats.
Act one is deliberately made so that the end has a significant impact on the audience, as Priestley finally brings Gerald into the calamity of Eva’s suicide.
Throughout the play, tension is continuously building up both between the Inspector and the Birlings as well as within the Birling family. An example of this is when Sheila asks about where Gerald was ‘last summer’ and Gerald tries to cover it up. This shows how underlying secrets within the family create lots of tension. Another example of this is when Arthur Birling tells Gerald about his possible ‘knighthood’, then refuses to tell Eric about it when he enters.
Nevertheless of the Birlings hostile response to Eva’s death, Eric and Sheila’s positive response to the Inspector’s message, compared to Mr and Mrs Birling’s negative response, is also greatly symbolic. Priestley uses this generation gap to show that the younger generation symbolise hope and faith for the future. The fact that they are remorseful of what they have done suggests that they will make an effective effort to improve and stabilise relationships. Unlike their parents, who are only interested in wealth and materialistic items, Priestley shows that the younger generation will try to perform their moral duties towards their fellow citizens such as Eva Smith.
In retrospect, Act One is actually ironic. At the start of Act One Priestley manages to describe in detail about the Birlings upper-class life, in particular the celebration of Sheila’s engagement until the Inspector comes in, where the light changes, the doorbell sounds, the characters personalities change and suddenly from a great occasion that the invincible ‘respectable citizens, not criminals’ are celebrating changes, after their shameful secrets start to be revealed by the conscience of Priestley. By revealing their secrets Priestley is attempting to convey what he wants to teach the Birlings. ‘Sometimes there isn’t as much difference as you think. Often if it was left to me, I wouldn’t know where to draw the line’. I believe he is referring to how we must not use the ‘heirachy’ to divide society, as we can all be good or bad irrespective of our class.
Priestley’s messages are still relevant today. In his ‘morality’ play he teaches the Birlings, stereotypical upper class about their abandonmen of responsibility for Eva Smith. The Inspector also teaches the audience, as Priestley’s voice, that due to people like the Birlings we live in a selfish society, a society where we CHOOSE to act selfishly rather than how Priestley believes we should. I have learnt that we should live in a society where we have a collective responsibility, where we have more regard for people and Priestley wants us to continue this duty today, because like in the house of the Birlings, the younger generation are the society’s step forward to a better society.
This is the aim of the play as Priestley attempts to captivate the audience through dramatic devices. For example his use of dramatic irony, lighting, exits and entrances of characters, stage directions, and the end of the act manipulate the perspective of the audience in their ideas of society and to underline is point on how we abandon our responsibility. The Inspector is also a vital device and influential in portraying Priestley’s views. However, he is not only the conscience of the play, searching for moral justice but he also acts as a voice to convey the thoughts of Priestley. Nonetheless, he is extremely important because as a character he captivates the interest of the audience, who by the end of the act, should be asking, can we really break the shackles of our meaningless hierarchy of society to consider our collective responsibility that we owe to each and every member of that society?
