We don’t live alone. We are all members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’ What is Priestley’s main aim in An Inspector Calls? How successfully does he achieve it?
Rosanna Moss, 11H G1 14th November 2000
'We don't live alone. We are all members of one body. We are responsible for each other.' What is Priestley's main aim in An Inspector Calls? How successfully does he achieve it?
John Boynton Priestley was a committed socialist. He was born in 1894 in Bradford and his mother died the same year. Priestley was raised by his father, who was also a passionate socialist. At the age of fourteen he became a junior clerk at a wool firm in his home town, before joining the army in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War. During his time spent fighting in France, Priestley developed a strong sense of the class divisions that were an integral part of the capitalist system;
'I went into that war free of any class feeling, no doubt I came out with a chip on my shoulder; a big heavy chip, probably some friend's thigh bone.'
Priestley grew to hate the way a few rich and greedy businessmen and industrialists exploited and abused the working classes, for the sake of greater profits. In Priestley's mind, it was simply the nature of this society which had made war in 1914 inevitable. As a socialist, Priestley believed that wealth should be equally distributed amongst the population, and that this could be achieved by the state ownership of the fundamental means of production, therefore abolishing the need for an upper class of capitalists. Priestley hoped that World War One had shown people that their way of life needed to change, but even though military service had caused much upheaval, soon, things had reverted back to the way they had been. When war broke out again in 1939, Priestley could see that the lessons of the first war had not been learnt, and felt that society had to change drastically.
With this in mind, at the end of the Second World War after successfully publishing other plays and novels, Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls. He anticipated that the public, with the benefits of hindsight, would now be more receptive to his socialist ideas;
'This brings us to the second and more truthful way of looking at this war...to regard this war as one chapter in a tremendous history, the history of a changing world, the breakdown of one vast system and the building up of another and better one...there's nothing that really worked that we can go back to...but we can't go forward and build up this new world order unless we begin to think differently, and my own personal view, for what it's worth, is that we must stop thinking in terms of property and power and begin thinking in terms of community and creation.'
From this quote we can clearly note Priestley's condemnation of capitalism and his vision of a new socialist Britain.
Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls in 1945, but critically, set it in 1912, just before the outbreak of World War One, and in the year of the Titanic's sinking. Inspector Goole is not a real police officer, as we discover, but represents Social Conscience and can be seen as the embodiment of Priestley's socialist message. Priestley uses the plight of a poor working class young woman to illustrate the power an industrialist and his privileged, selfish family have ...
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From this quote we can clearly note Priestley's condemnation of capitalism and his vision of a new socialist Britain.
Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls in 1945, but critically, set it in 1912, just before the outbreak of World War One, and in the year of the Titanic's sinking. Inspector Goole is not a real police officer, as we discover, but represents Social Conscience and can be seen as the embodiment of Priestley's socialist message. Priestley uses the plight of a poor working class young woman to illustrate the power an industrialist and his privileged, selfish family have over her. By setting the play in 1912, Priestley can suggest to his audience that it was Britain's capitalist society that led to war, and that just as we ignored the lessons that could have been learnt from World War One, some of the Birlings didn't heed Goole's message and caused another visit from an inspector to be necessary. Priestley uses the characters in An Inspector Calls to put across his message.
Mr Birling is the play's stereotypical portrait of an avaricious capitalist, whose attitudes and actions have undesirable repercussions for his workers;
Birling: '... a man has to look after himself - and his family too, of course, when he has one - and so long as he does that he won't come to much harm. But by the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense...a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own.' (Act One, page 10).
Eric agrees with his father, and therefore backs up Birling's argument. This blatant disregard for the well being of others is repeated throughout the play by Birling and his contemporaries, and we are obviously expected to view these opinions negatively because Birling is proved to be wrong in his ideas about other matters, such as the ongoing 'behindhand' nature of Russia, the 'unsinkable' Titanic, and the 'silly little war scares.' All three of these obviously incorrect ways of thinking discount Birling's other ideas.
The treatment of Eva Smith (Smith is a very common name, perhaps chosen to represent the anonymity of this girl) by the Birlings and Gerald highlights the capitalist attitude that the lower classes are not nearly as important as richer people;
Inspector: 'And so you used the power you had, as a daughter of a good customer and also as a man well known in the town, to punish the girl just because she made you feel like that?'
Sheila: 'Yes, but it didn't seem to be anything very terrible at the time. Don't you understand?' (Act One, page 24).
These ideas seem second nature to Sheila. She doesn't deliberately mean to be thoughtless and cruel, but having been raised with these attitudes firmly planted in her mind, she knows of no other way of behaving towards people like Eva Smith. Mrs Birling also treats Eva Smith as a second-class citizen, and airs these views to the inspector;
Mrs Birling: 'And in any case, I don't suppose for a moment that we can understand why the girl committed suicide. Girls of that class--' (Act Two, page 30).
Like Mr Birling, Mrs Birling feels no sense of responsibility towards Eva Smith at all;
Sheila: 'Mother, she's just died a horrible death - don't forget.'
Mrs Birling: 'I'm very sorry. But I think she only had herself to blame.' (Act Two, page 43).
From An Inspector Calls we can also find clear examples of the men's attitudes towards the women, and also the attitudes of the women towards their own place in society. In 1912, women had not yet gained the right to vote, and had no real rights. Perhaps by highlighting this fact to an audience in the 1940's, where women had more rights and freedom than ever before, Priestley is trying to show that society can change, and becomes all the better for it;
Sheila: 'What's this all about?'
Birling: 'Nothing to do with you Sheila, run along.' (Act One, page 17).
Birling: '...I protest against the way in which my daughter, a young, unmarried girl, is being dragged into this--'
Inspector: (sharply)'Your daughter isn't living on the moon. She's here in Brumley too.' (Act Two, page 37).
Eric: 'Well, I'm old enough to be married, aren't I, and I'm not married, and I hate these fat old tarts round the town - ' (Act Three, page 52).
Inspector: 'But she became your mistress?'
Gerald: 'Yes, I suppose it was inevitable.' (Act Two, page 37).
Not only do her parents treat Sheila like a vulnerable child, but Eva Smith, as a desperate woman, is also used, and then 'dumped' by both Gerald and Eric.
Throughout the play Inspector Goole (suggesting 'ghoul' or 'ghost?') makes his feelings plain; disagreeing with the other characters, and trying to change their attitudes. In his final comments, the inspector sums up the socialist ideals that the Birlings have totally ignored up until this evening;
Inspector: 'One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and their fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.' (Act Three, page 56).
The inspector often has short, sharp lines, which emphasise his point and make him seem powerful and confident.
The characters in the play all react differently when they are told about their individual contribution to the demise of Eva Smith. Sheila immediately admits her regret and guilt and she is truly sorry for the damage she has caused;
Sheila: 'I behaved badly too. I know I did. I'm ashamed of it.' (Act Three, page 57).
Sheila understands that there are lessons that need to be learnt from the inspector's visit, and can see it was the family's attitudes which greatly contributed to Eva's suicide;
Sheila: 'So nothing really happened. So there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did.' (Act Three, page 71).
Like Sheila, Eric can also see the error of their ways;
Eric: 'I don't see much nonsense in it when a girl goes and kills herself. You lot may be letting yourselves out nicely, but I can't. Nor can mother. We did her in all right.' (Act Three, page 69).
The younger generation learn quickly and are open to new ways of thinking; they accept their guilt, and are uneasy about the way their parents and Gerald ignore the inspector's message. By criticising their parents' unchanging attitudes, Eric and Sheila are criticising the capitalist system. This emphasises Priestley's hope for future change. Birling, Mrs Birling and Gerald refuse, or are unable to realise, the part they and their way of life played in Eva Smith's death. Mr Birling doesn't seem capable of learning, and is mostly worried about the affect a scandal may have upon his expected knighthood and reputation;
Birling: (angrily) '...Most of this is bound to come out. They'll be a public scandal.'
Eric: 'Well, I don't care now.'
Birling: 'You! You don't seem to care about anything. But I care. I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours List--' (Act Three, page 57).
Birling is sorry for what's happened to Eva, and would like to make it right again, but he doesn't seem to realise that it is the capitalist system that he supports that is also to blame;
Birling: (unhappily) 'Look, Inspector - I'd give thousands - yes, thousands--' (Act Three, page 56).
Mrs Birling simply doesn't want to learn from the experiences of the evening and never admits she has done anything wrong. She is firmly stuck in her ways and opinions. As soon as she realizes that the inspector wasn't real, she laughs off all that she could have learnt;
Mrs Birling: 'They're over-tired. In the morning they'll be as amused as we are.' (Act Three, page 71).
Gerald, although younger than Mr and Mrs Birling, is not as open to the message as Sheila and Eric because, like Mrs Birling, he is also from the upper classes and has a very strong sense of social status. By questioning the authenticity of the inspector, Gerald is also questioning the socialist message that Priestley is trying to put across, and therefore has learnt no more than Mr and Mrs Birling. Gerald wants Sheila to take back her engagement ring at the end of the play, showing that he wants everything to be the same, unlike Sheila, who knows it cannot be. This difference between them underlines the fact that Sheila is willing to accept change, whereas Gerald does not want to.
I think Priestley chose a good medium with which to put across his views, because a play based upon a possible real-life situation gives the audience an example of the evils of capitalism which they can relate to their own lives. Perhaps including more examples of the benefits of a socialist society, rather than concentrating on the disadvantages of capitalism could have further endorsed Priestley's pro-socialist message. Priestley delivered his opinions in a concise and accessible way. Obviously, there was a mood for change after the Second World War, Tony Benn writes;
'...He (Priestley) wrote An Inspector Calls in 1944 and consciously intended it to make a contribution to public understanding which, in its turn, he hoped might lead to a Labour victory after the war was over... The story of that Labour government is now history, with the welfare state, the national health service, full employment and a huge house building programme which gave the people of this country their best chance ever. I believe that Priestley, with his commitment, his perceptive mind and his skilful pen, contributed greatly to the mood of hope which produced that change.'
