Also he wanted to get across that if people hadn’t been so arrogant maybe the war wouldn’t of broke out or maybe the Titanic wouldn’t have sank. These were issues brought up in the play as part of a careless conversation.
An Inspector Calls was first performed in the theatre in 1946 and the above things had already happened, so this makes the main characters of the play, the Birlings, look almost stupid with arrogance.
An inspector Calls is a naturalistic play which is set in the dining room constantly through out the play. Keeping in the same room gives a feeling of no where to escape, to or hide and makes it very claustrophobic.
In the first act, Mr. Birling is sat in the room with his daughter Sheila and her fiancé Gerald.
Mr Birling, who is a pompous and arrogant man, is carelessly chatting away, talking about port and Sheila’s engagement to Gerald, as if there wasn’t anyone else outside their home and comforts.
Then when the conversation turns towards the war, Birling won’t have any of it and is convinced that there won’t be a war, “…fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war…there isn’t a chance of war... there’ll be peace.”
Mr Birling thinks he is right but the audience know clearly he is wrong because when the play was performed the war had already happened, so this makes him look stupid.
Then he makes a similar, narrow minded comment about the great ship Titanic. This great ship sunk after hitting an iceberg in 1912 so the audience knows about this and makes Birling even more stupid. “…unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.”
There was a lot of arrogance surrounding the Titanic at that time, with many people like the Birlings claiming that it was indestructible. Due to this there were a lack of lifeboats and lack of safety procedures leading to total disaster. Priestley uses this to show the audience, that even if you are sure about something, you should always take precautions.
Gerald, who is in his thirties and works with Mr Birling, agrees with a lot of things that Mr Birling says. This may be to do with keeping on his good side for work or for marrying Sheila.
Sheila is in her twenties is pleased with life and excited about her marriage. There is no tension in the play up until she says, “Yes- except for all last summer when you didn’t come near me.” This was when the family and Gerald are talking about him trying to be a part of the family. Then she makes this remark. It makes the audience suspicious and makes them think that there is more to it and that he may have been doing something that he shouldn’t have.
Other comments from the family were like,
“…A girl of her sort.” Sheila said this when she was referring to Eva Smith as an unimportant lower class girl.
Priestley, being a socialist, didn’t like the idea of the class system and wanted all people to be thought of as equals and this seems to one of the main morals of the play.
Priestley wanted the play and its messages to cut deep in the audience’s consciences, about how they treat other people and how it can lead them into depression and even suicide.
Then Mrs Birling, who is just as pompous and as arrogant as her husband, leaves the room with Sheila, while Mr Birling talks with Gerald and Eric.
The atmosphere is calm and onstage there is a soft pink light but when the inspector comes into the room, there is a harsh white light instead, as if they are under interrogation and so changes the mood.
The inspector is a clever man in the way that he speaks, and he unease’s people by staring at them for a while before speaking to them.
Mr Birling says that he doesn’t know the name Goole, so this puts another question into the audience’s mind; is this a genuine inspector or is he a fake?
Then the inspector starts to question Mr Birling. The inspector goes into great detail of the incident but as he hasn’t yet told Me Birling what he is involved for he starts to get impatient.
Priestley wanted to show that Birling didn’t care about the girl and not the slightest bit concerned about the dead woman.
Then the inspector shows him a picture of the girl but makes sure that Gerald and Eric didn’t see it. The inspector continues to do this throughout the play, showing the picture to certain people at one given time.
This puts a big unanswerable question in the audiences mind, is it the same picture the same time, or is he doing what he said, using one person at a time? If they are all different people is the inspector there just to show them a lesson?
Then the inspector says, “I think you remember Mr Birling now don’t you?” as if he was reading his mind or already knew the information that Mr Birling knew.
The play begins with Birling giving Eric and Gerald advice and then the inspector comes in claiming that a girl of the name Eva Smith had just died by swallowing some strong disinfectant.
One by one the inspector explains to each of them that they are involved in the woman’s death. Everyone finally tells the truth but it is Sheila and Eric who seem the guiltiest.
Then the inspector leaves, leaving a lasting impression on the family.
The play ends just after the Birlings get a phone call from the police,
“A girl has just died in the infirmary after swallowing some strong disinfectant.”
They all decided to tell the real inspector different things so they didn’t get put in prison. This gives them a second chance but most people wouldn’t have this, so it makes the audience think carefully about treating people now.
After the inspector leaves, he has left a lasting impression on Eric and Sheila, who also try to get the older members of the family to realise their wrong ways.
As Mr Birling starts to talk about how they can cover up what they have done and how their stories should be, Eric lectures him for, “starting to pretend that now that nothing's happened.”
Eric has now changed. He is no longer just a loving son who shares his father’s views but he is his own person and realises the error of his ways.
Gerald, who didn’t have any real important involvement in Eva Smiths death, didn’t really have a lesson to learn for how to treat lesser people than himself. Although he needed to realise what he had done to Sheila and their relationship, as it was revealed earlier that he had had an affair with Eva smith.
This is another lesson of Priestley’s, it is about how the actions you make can effects other people and can hurt them. Also the lesson is about taking responsibility of your actions.
Due to this, he kept on agreeing with Mr. Birling’s views about the whole investigation and I think this is because he wanted to gain back respect from the family to mend his engagement with Sheila.
This was typical of these times, which you had to impress the parents more than the potential fiancé to get married to them.
By this point in the play Priestley has showed a lot of his views. Mr Birling is obsessed with the community and how it is run and this is a reflection on Priestley’s father. As he was known be a socialist and to be continually share his views with friends and family. This had a lasting impression on Priestley.
The class systems, which socialists were against, are hugely involved in the play and are the main point. This is because Priestley grew up while people were treating the lower classes as dirt and not people.
Priestley leaves a bias view about this and is trying to get the audience to think the same as him and almost urges them to start having socialist views.
