Is 'An Inspector Calls' Primarily A Detective Story or A Social Critique-Speak from the Point of View of Audiences in 1946 and Today's Audience?

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Is 'An Inspector Calls' Primarily

A Detective Story or A Social Critique-

Speak from the Point of View of Audiences in 1946

and Today's Audience?

An Inspector Calls includes aspects of a detective story and a social critique. I believe when J. B. Priestly set out to write this play, he wanted it as a didactic (educating) play and a social critique that implied "we are responsible for each other" and we should all learn form our mistakes. However he knew that the 1946 audience would not want to watch a play telling them about social issues as it would not be of interest and for this reason, I believe he chose to embed a social critique within the very popular detective story to give it a twist and make the play more entertaining for the audiences.

The play begins as a social critique.

An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1946 and the play was set in 1912. This means that when the play was first performed, although Mr. Birling considers himself as "hard-headed", looking at the facts and speaking the truth, in reality today's audience recognise Mr. Birling as quite naïve, when making comments like "the Titanic…absolutely unsinkable". This would be found ironic by today's audiences as well as the 1946 audience, as they would have experienced the sinking of the titanic later in 1912. Some of the 1946 audience may have been offended by this quote as they had lost people in the sinking of the "unsinkable" and people in today's audiences would find it ironic to see someone of his class, speaking as if he knows everything but misquoting occurrences several times in his speech.

Mr. Birling was also incorrect in quoting that in twenty or thirty years' time people will "have forgotten Capital versus Labour", i.e. no more employers versus employees, no more "agitations" and no more strikes, however strikes still occurred and still occur. He also suggests that around that time "there'll be peace and prosperity" but the 1946 audience had just experienced two World Wars and the 1936 depression.

This whole speech teaches everyone to only speak the facts, and not to be complacent. In 1946, the speech would affect the audience as they would walk away and reflect on how things should have been according to Birling and how things had turned out. They would then perceive that because of people with attitudes like Mr. Birling, believing things will get better but not helping to make things better, life is as it is. Some of the audience would turn around and begin to do things with their lives, and try to make a difference or a mark in the world to show how things should be done and speak their minds as to how they want things to be done. They could gain supporters and maybe due to their courage things are as they are today. One idea could have been fighting for women's rights. This way when people like Mr. Birling said women would have the right to vote, women would actually have the right to vote. However today's audience may turn around and do the same but we would do it as we wouldn't want things to return to the way things used to be at the time of the 1946 audience but we are more likely to walk away and think to ourselves we could achieve the peace and prosperity that hadn't been achieved by 1946 on a small scale. In that we would treat our neighbour as we would like to be treated to achieve peace which could possibly lead to prosperity.

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Birling believes that you "can't let these Bernard Shaws and H.G. Wellses do all the talking" as being very conservative and believing he is a "hard-headed, practical business man", unlike Bernard Shaws and H.G. Wells who are socialists, he doesn't want socialists to dictate his life. He doesn't want things to change, as he is of a high class, and therefore wealthy and happy.

In 1946 the audience would see Birling as a selfish character, as although he has everything, there are people out there who needed things to change. It would help them see that a ...

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