The structure is that it consists of three acts and it is set in real time, so the time it takes for story to unfold is the same time it takes the audience to watch the play. It also has a unity of place and action, so it is all in the same place (the Birling household) and so is the action. I think it is set like this to give the audience help in understanding the morality of the play, which is ‘We are all members of one body, we are all responsible for each other.
Priestley’s main aims about responsibility is that he is saying everyone is responsible for everyone else, and that you cannot just care about yourself, the opposite of what Arthur Birling thinks. He demonstrates this by slowly making all the characters partly responsible for Eva’s death, and as a whole all the characters drove Eva to her death. So Priestley is teaching the characters a lesson as well as the audience watching. At the beginning of the play Priestley makes Arthur say ‘a man has to mind his own business and look after himself’ but after the play the Inspector comes in Priestley contradicts what Arthur said by making all the characters partly responsible for Eva’s death. Priestley sets the play in real time so both the audience and characters can experience the feelings and emotions of the play at the same time.
In the play, Priestley has made Arthur a man who believes in only looking out for yourself and your family only. Arthur makes out to be a man who can do as he pleases just because of his social and business position. Priestley also makes Arthur say things like ‘-the Titanic- she sails next week-forty-six thousand eight hundred tons-New York in five days-and every luxury-and unsinkable’ Priestley made Arthur say this knowing full well that the Titanic was sinkable and did sink! I think Priestley is trying to make out about how wrong Arthur is on many aspects of life and that he is also wrong in thinking ‘every man for himself.’
Mrs. Birling forces herself away from the family and acts distant, like she doesn’t want to be there. She tries to make herself free of guilt from Eva’s death. She also tries to accept no blame in what happened to Eva.
Sheila feels guilty about what happened to Eva and I think by the end of the play the moral has got through to her. Near the beginning of the play Sheila is happy with life. She also abuses the fact that she is the daughter of a rich businessman.
Eric, like Sheila feels guilty about Eva’s death and the role he played towards it. He is quiet and drinks a bit too much than what is good for him. I think Eric disagrees about his father’s view on every man for himself.
Gerald is the son of a richer family the Arthur Birling. He believes in almost the same views as Arthur and supports whatever Arthur says throughout most of the play. I think only Sheila and Eric really regret what they did and understand that everyone is responsible for everyone else. I think Sheila knows that she abused her social power by getting Eva fired. I think Eric also realises that he took advantage of Eva Smith’s position.
Eva Smith is the centre of the play. Everything revolves around her. She is the only who didn’t do any wrong. She is the innocent one. At the beginning of the play Eva is the one everyone has forgotten about, but towards the end she is the one all the characters will remember for the rest of their lives. Even at the end of the play there are doubts about Eva being one or a series of girls put together by the clever Inspector. Eva represents all the poor and mistreated people in the world, even if she wasn’t real. Without Eva Smith the play would not give the same moral.
The Inspector plays the role of the man who moves the play along; at whatever pace he conducts his interviews, is the same pace in which the whole play moves. He makes everyone confess about how he or she played a part in Eva Smith’s death. He acts as the conscience of the characters, making them say what they are thinking. And finally the Inspector acts as what he is supposed to be, an Inspector. So though out the play the Inspector plays the role of a narrator, a confessor, a conscience and an Inspector.
At the end of the play, Priestley made all the characters think that they were in the clear and the Inspector had just been a hoax, but then there is a phone call from the real police saying a young women has died in a infirmary by drinking disinfectant. I think Priestley has decided to do it this way as it can show the audience and the characters that if something doesn’t end up happening, it easily could have. I think this because it was believed by the Birlings and Gerald that the Inspector had used many different girls and said it was one girl and that there wasn’t even a dead girl in the infirmary. But when the phone call came it was realised that a girl had died in an infirmary.
I think the play is a good play and that Priestley has achieved his main aims and got the moral through to the audience and the characters. The play is set in a unity of time, place and action so as the audiences find out more about the play so do the characters. I think the speech at the end of the play by the Inspector is the strong point and really brings out the moral. In the speech at the end the Inspector is saying that Eva was just one mistreated girl and there are many, many more in the world and if people do not realise this soon they will be taught by ‘fire, blood and anguish’. So the Inspector is implying that if people do not change their ways people will die. So all in all I think Priestley has achieved his main aims and gets the moral through to both his audiences and his characters very well.
