Priestley uses a 'Whodunit' genre to explore social problems. How does he do this in 'An Inspector Calls'?

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Priestley uses a 'Whodunit' genre to explore social problems. How does he do this in 'An Inspector Calls'?

'An Inspector Calls' is a “Whodunit” written by J.D. Priestley in 1945 and was first shown in Britain at the new Theatre on the 1st October 1946.Priestley was a socialist and in 'An Inspector Calls', the main theme explores capitalism versus socialism. This play is a morality play. Priestley communicates his message to the audience by representing capitalism by the upper class and the Birling family and socialism by the lower class and the Inspector and Eva Smith/Daisy Renton as this related to real life during this time. Priestley presents his arguments clearly through interesting characters, with very different views and a powerful story line with major consequences to individual actions. He presents this morality play within the “whodunit genre”.

Priestley uses a whodunit genre to demonstrate his social message for various reasons. The message is directed to the upper class so Priestley needed to make sure they saw it. Going to the theatre was popular with the upper class until 1939 when cinema became extremely popular, so as an attempt to retain a theatre audience Priestley used a detective thriller as these genres were clearly popular at this time as many people enjoyed Agatha Christie and Emlyn plays. They were popular detective thriller play writers. Another reason for using a whodunit genre would be that in the play most of the characters are usually thoroughly questioned by a detective so their actions, thoughts, and opinions can be explored deeply through the question and answer process. Also this would be perfect to demonstrate a social message as actions and consequences of a crime are shown and would make the audience think twice about making the same mistake.

A detective thriller conventionally uses a number of elements that Priestley used. The victim in this play was Eva Smith and later on Daisy Renton, who was of the lower class. The crime Priestley uses was a murder as it was extreme and would catch the audience's attention. But it wasn't literally murder, Eva committed suicide. The suspects were not actually murderers but were questioned to find out who was responsible for Eva killing herself. They were the Birling family and Gerald Croft. The witnesses were also the Birling family and Gerald Croft who witnessed Eva's life. Other elements of a detective thriller are the detective who was Detective Inspector Goole, clues, which included a photograph of Eva/Daisy. This photograph was very important as one person at a time looked at it so near to the end the question whether it was a same photo came up. There is also a twist in this play and it is that the inspector is not real. This element is also important as it shows how the characters react and whether they leant their lesson once they knew they were not in trouble. Also, this has a message for us: do we have time to change?

 Despite the story having all the elements of the 'whodunit' genre the main purpose of this play is to highlight two opposing views, that of a socialist who believes strongly in the sense of community, i.e., Inspector Goole, also that of a capitalist who believes that caring for himself is the best way to live life and sneers at the sense of community - Birling. Birling is the first person who was interviewed.

Birling is the father of Sheila and Eric Birling, and the husband of Mrs Birling. He is a businessman and is upper middle class. At the beginning of the play the Birling family celebrates the engagement of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft. This first scene shows the Birling family and Gerald seated around a table enjoying an after dinner conversation. Here Priestley illustrates to his audience that Birling's opinions are flawed by having him make statements which they know are definitely wrong. E.g., "The Germans don't want war"; also "The Titanic is unsinkable". (Page 6). Priestley wrote this speech to influence the audiences' views on Birling from the outset so they would have a negative impression of him even before his strong capitalist views became apparent. In doing this Priestley aimed to make the audience think that if Birling could be wrong about the other matters he could also be wrong about the importance of capitalism. After Birling's speech Priestley ensures that the audience knows he is a capitalist through the following lines "community and all that nonsense...a man has to look after himself and mind his own business". At this point Inspector Goole is at the Birling’s front door; Priestley introduces the character through the use of a very significant chime of the doorbell. The chime is sharp, sudden and interrupts Birling at that particular moment in his speech. It almost tells the audience that something is going to prove Birling wrong and that something is literally on his doorstep.  After Priestley has shown a capitalist's side of how society should live, he immediately brings in Inspector Goole, the socialist to show his views on how society should live and to prove Birling wrong and try to improve the whole Birling family, as how Priestley wanted society to change.

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After the doorbell rings, the maid opens the door and the Inspector Goole walks in very calmly and introduces himself and the crime of the story. He explains to the Birling family that a girl called Eva Smith committed suicide by swallowing disinfectant and he's there to investigate why she killed herself. He first questions Birling who is totally oblivious of doing anything wrong to this girl. After the inspector thoroughly questions Birling he discovers that Eva Smith worked for Birling, Eva asked for a small pay rise, as she could not afford to live properly on her salary. He ...

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