"Public men, Mr Birling, have their responsibilities as well as their privileges." Show how the Inspector attempts to teach this moral to the whole Birling family.

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Nicola Simms    Mr Dale 11W   GCSE English Literature  C20th Drama coursework  

An Inspector Calls by J.B Priestley

“Public men, Mr Birling, have their responsibilities as well as their privileges.”  Show how the Inspector attempts to teach this moral to the whole Birling family.

        John Boynton Priestley was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in the north of England.  His father, Jonathon Priestley was a prosperous schoolmaster, his mother died when he was an infant.  Priestley attended Bradford Grammar School, but instead of going onto a university scholarship he decided to leave education to pursue his passion for writing and literature.  In 1910 Priestley got a job and worked as a junior clerk in a wool firm.  It was then that Priestley began to write poetry for his own pleasure and contribute articles to local and London papers.  He gained a good reputation as a journalist, but in 1914 at the age of 20 he was called to fight in the First World War.  

        The years he spent on the frontline changed Priestley into the ‘politically charged’ writer he is famous for being.  The traumatic experience Priestley must have had would have made him contemplate the state of society and the way the social system worked.  While he was there fighting for his life, the people who send the soldiers off to fight would have been enjoying their lavish lifestyle with not a single fear for their life.  This made Priestly wise up to how the British class system worked.  Priestley believed it was wrong and unfair.

        An Inspector Calls was written in 1945, a week after the Second World War finished.  This highlights the urgency he wanted his message to be heard.  The play, explores the concept of time and how someone’s actions can affect someone else’s life in the long run.  In this situation, it is the misuse of the Birling family’s power. Priestley hoped the play would create unity amongst the public giving society the chance to look back on what had happened and learn from it.  For example, two world wars, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and an atomic bomb.  Priestly believed that society shouldn’t carry on in the same way, as before, otherwise everything that had been fought for would have been in vain.

        The play is set in 1912, just before the First World War had started.  Edwardian society at that time was strictly divided into social classes and over two-thirds of the nations wealth was in the hands of less than 1% of the population. Below the upper class were the middle classes (doctors, merchants, shop workers and clerks), after that came the craftsmen and skilled workers.  At the very bottom of the social ladder was the largest class of all – the ordinary workers and the poor; many lived below the poverty level.  The men of the industry treated the workers very badly and they were paid pittance.  This caused workers to become better organised and strikes were becoming more frequent as they demanded better conditions and better pay.  

It centres on the wealthy Birling family and mysterious suicidal death of a poor working class girl called Eva Smith.  Priestly tries to show us that we have a responsibility to others to act fairly and without prejudice.  Priestly attempts to convey his attitudes and ideas through the characters in the play.  He uses the inspector to voice his own opinions and the 5 members of the Birling family are used to show to Priestley’s audience, how not to behave.  Mr and Mrs Birling, their children Shelia and Eric Birling, and Sheila’s fiancé Gerald Croft all make up the Birling family. All of them are upper class citizens and believe themselves to be somewhat a part of the social elite.  Priestly believes the upper class attitude is wrong and uses this play to show his anger at the way Britain’s system worked.  Priestly is clever in the way that he produces this concept into the play, he knows that mainly upper class people will see the performance therefore getting the message across to the very people who need to change their ways.  

The play begins in “the dining room of a fairly large suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer” “The general effect is substantial and heavily comfortable, but not cosy and homelike” The lighting also has an important part in setting the scene, according to the text: -

The lighting should be pink and intimate until the inspector arrives, and then                  it should be brighter and harder”

This sets the scene well; we’re in 1912, at the home of a wealthy high-class family.  The intimate family atmosphere is initially apparent and everyone seems to be having a happy gathering at the start. The Birling’s seem to live in luxury, with good solid furniture and a table laid with champagne glasses, port glasses and after dinner cigars.  The family is obviously well off and appear to have a nice life.

The play starts off with the Birling family celebrating their daughter Sheila, on her engagement to Gerald Croft.  As they commence in conversation, Mr Birling engages in his series of confident ironic speeches filled with dramatic irony.  Birling preaches: -

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              “ The Titanic, unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”

   “They’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere”

                   “Russia will always be behind naturally”

Priestly emphasises to his audience just how out of touch Birling is and that he really knows nothing about politics. The irony is that the Titanic sinks and very soon Russia will show its true political strength in 1914 when Britain in plunged into World War One.  Yet Birling believes he to be “a hard-headed practical man of business”. These blind ...

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