'We don't live alone we are members of one body we are responsible for each other`. These were the exact words of Inspector Goole the character produced by J.B Priestly

An Inspector Calls

‘We don’t live alone we are members of one body we are responsible for each other`.

These were the exact words of Inspector Goole the character produced by J.B Priestly. Throughout the whole play these words were the most important and the most meaningful words transferred from J.B Priestly to the audience, these words remind us that there are people around us and we must appreciate them and their situations. It also means we are all humans and we must not have different classes of people or a culture, a religion or anyone, J.B Priestly tells the audience discrimination of any kind should not be tolerated. Finally the words explain to us we must help each other to get through our problems, we must help each other solve these problems like a mature team and we must be careful we don’t hurt anyone else through the process of supporting ourselves.

The play An Inspector Calls was first produced in London on 1 October 1946 at the New Theatre. The play only consists of seven characters produced by J.B Priestly. I think he only created seven characters to keep the play easy to understand and to get his points across to the audience without confusion. All three of the Acts are set in the dining room of the Birlings’ house in Brumely an industrial city in the North Midlands. The play was set on an evening in spring, 1912. I think the reason why J.B Priestly set the play in the in the past was so he could use dramatic irony, this way he described his characters better because the audience knew there was more discrimination in the past. Although it still happens today there was a lot more of it in 1912.

J.B Priestly makes quiet a few points to the audience through this play. I think he expresses his feelings through Inspector Goole. He points out the differences between Eva Smith and the Birlings and Gerald Croft. Eva Smith is a poor working class woman but the Birlings are powerful wealthy people. Mr.Birling does specify to the Inspector that he is ‘on the Bench` although this didn’t make any difference to Inspector Goole.

I think J.B Priestly really ants to tell the audience about how unfair the world is, according to my opinion he definitely was. He points out how the wealthy have so much control over the lives of the poor and working class people, I would say the rich almost own the lives of the poor. J.B Priestly points out the difference between the rich and the poor, he explains to the audience about how the rich live in pleasure and the poor live in pain and problems that they aren’t able to solve for reasons that they can’t even talk to someone about.

Priestly does this by showing the audience that the Birlings have a maid in their house, too many, different type of drinks and a very beautifully decorated house. The house has a large dining table that is shown to us in Act 1, in Act 2 the fire place is revealed and in Act 3 we see a small table with a telephone on it. The house seems warm and cosy with good solid furniture. As well as seeing their priceless dining room, we hear they also have a drawing room, J.B Priestly educates us in a way so we realise and know that the Birlings must have a large house, a lot of money and so, they must be powerful. And all of this belongs to a prosperous manufacturer, who I would definitely call big headed, but strangely enough Mr.Birling calls himself a hard-headed businessman.

Eva on the other hand cannot afford any of this; she’s too poor and powerless.

Priestly also points out the attitude of the rich towards the poor. He shows us this through each of the Birlings and Gerald Croft’s attitude towards Eva Smith. Inspector Goole tries to make all of them feel guilty for the wrong which they’ve done, but at the end he doesn’t achieve this with Mr and Mrs.Birling, apart from them Eric, Sheila and Gerald do feel that they have done wrong. So Mr and Mrs.Birling will just have to face the consequences when the ...

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Eva on the other hand cannot afford any of this; she’s too poor and powerless.

Before Inspector Goole enters the play J.B Priestly explains how wrong Mr.Birling can be, he does this by using dramatic irony.

‘Look at the progress we’re making` says Mr.Birling. He claims that in the future their won’t be wars, he thought the Titanic wouldn’t ever sink or be destroyed, yet the audience knows the Titanic has already sank and there is still war going on all over the world. He carries on talking about the automobiles and aeroplanes, basically he thinks the world will be perfect, something it can never be. J.B Priestly very cleverly shows the audience that whatever Mr.Birling says is wrong. He gives the audience a negative impression about the Birlings right from the start of the play, also because of the way they’re dressed and the make-up seems to make them look cold and a bit too high-hat, especially Mrs.Birling. The Birlings and Gerald Croft think they’re superior to Eva Smith and the working class people, we know that everyone is even, wealthy and powerful or poor and powerless, everyone is equal.

Throughout the whole play J.B Priestly’s main point is about how power and wealth is misused, I think this was his main point that he was getting across to the audience. I think this was his main scenario.

Power and wealth is misused throughout the whole play, all against Eva, a poor and powerless woman who did not deserve such an awful life. Although Eva Smith never appears on stage the audience are given a clear description of her by the other characters. She is described as a very pretty yet hard working woman, who was poor, powerless and innocent. Basically I would describe her as clearly the opposite of the Birlings and Gerald Croft, because of this they take advantage of her, after using her they just left her on her own. Despite all her efforts to survive she felt she was left with no choice but to commit suicide, she was an innocent woman who lived a tragic life, and a tragic death.

To sum it al up I would say it was five steps that took her to death, all of which included the misuse of power and wealth.

Mr.Birling was the one who took Eva through the first step; he described her as, ’A lively good looking country-bred, I fancy`, and he goes on to say, ‘She was a good worker too`.

But after the workers came back from their holidays they a bit more money, several more pennies as Mr.Birling was paying them the average. Mr.Birling said it would be responsibility so he told her to clear out. Mr.Birling thought that she would’ve got into trouble, he thought she would’ve gone on the streets. So that was the first time that power and wealth were polluted, and Eva was sacked from her job.

Next she luckily got a job at Milwards, a shop that sold women garments; it was a very well known and commendable shop.

Sheila Birling took Eva to her second step towards death; she did this by getting her sacked by Milwards. It all happened when Sheila went to Milwards with her mother, she went there to try something on, it was an idea of her own, her mother and the assistant were against it but Sheila insisted on trying it out. It didn’t suit her at all. Sheila felt angry and was jealous with Eva; this was because as Eva brought the garment towards Sheila and put it next to herself, then she gave Sheila a smile, who thought it was pure cheek. Sheila later in the play admits that she was jealous because the garment looked perfect on Eva. So she went to the management of Milwards and threatened them that if they never dismissed Eva from the job they would close their account, because the Birlings were one of their best customers with a great account, they sacked Eva.

Sheila said, ‘It was cause Eva was impertinent`.

In actual fact it was because Eva was prettier than Sheila was, and this is what she was envious about. Wealth and power is once again misused and has taken Eva another step closer to killing herself.

It was Gerald who took Eva another step closer by loving her, he really loved her and she really loved him, the both of them had an affair, until Gerald decided to leave her because he believed she wasn’t his standard.

Gerald was very wealthy and powerful whereas Eva was poor and powerless, if Gerald got married to Eva he believed that he would loose his reputation and his family and friends, only because Eva was poor, she had no money and no power whatsoever. But if he married Sheila he would gain more respect and because she was from the Birlings he would improve the business. So he decided to go for Sheila, the rich and powerful one, but not the one he loved. He broke the affair off just before he went to a business trip.

Next Eric took her another step closer, the fourth step. Eric forces Eva to make love with him, as he was drunk at the time. Eric even made her pregnant. Before the Inspector questions Eric he questions Sybil Birling the one who took Eva to her fifth and final step where there were no more steps and no more choices left but to commit suicide, along with the baby in her womb, the baby that was never born.

Eric leaves Eva with an offer of only 50 pounds that Eva refuses to take because it was stolen from his fathers office, this again explains to the audience about how good Eva must’ve been. Eric leaves her because he doesn’t love her and doesn’t care about their child. Eric did feel sorry for her and wanted to help her but he couldn’t t because of the circumstances, the way his family would react to him making a working class woman pregnant, in whichever way they would react Eric knew it would’ve been a negative reaction. So he left her.

Anyway, because of this he left her and Eva was forced to go to the Brumely Women Charity Organisation where Mrs.Birling is a prominent member. The charity organisation is where women can go if they are in distress, they could get help from there in various forms.

Unfortunately for Eva Mrs.Birling was a prejudiced against her case because first she called herself Mrs.Birling as she never knew whom she was talking to. Mrs.Birling called it ‘Imprudence`. Mrs.Birling said it was, ‘Quite deliberate and naturally and that was one of the things that prejudiced me against her`.

Mrs.Birling makes sure that the other members of the organisation don’t give Eva any charity, she gets to do this because she has a lot of power.

Mrs.Birling then says that Eva did admit who she was and what had happened but never said Eric’s name. Mrs.Birling still refused Eva after the truth. Then Mrs.Birling went on and on about how it was Eva’s parents’ fault and their child’s father was supposed to help, but she did not know that the father was Eric. Until Inspector Goole says that he is waiting to do his duty after Mrs.Birling says his duty is to make Eva’s partner confess in public. Everyone knows the Inspector is waiting for Eric, the curtains close and the audience is left on a cliffhanger, Act 2 finishes there.

Eric soon returns and admits what he’s done, leaving Mrs.Birling in tears and Mr.Birling in anger.

So these were the five steps that took Eva to death, power and wealth were misused in each and every one of them.

Eva had done nothing wrong to deserve this; anyone who’s watched the play could easily work out that all of this happened because Eva was poor and powerless.

By these five steps the points of J.B Priestly are made clear and apparent to me, which makes his play successful.

Throughout the whole play Inspector Goole’s behaviour is somewhat suspicious. At the end of Act 3 it is revealed to the audience that he isn’t even an Inspector at all and there was no one in the police squad with the name Goole. It then became crystal clear to the audience that he had come back to haunt them for what they had done. Watching the play I realised Gerald Croft and the Birlings had never even committed a crime. So why did the Inspector come to haunt them? It was obvious that it had to be because he felt sorry for Eva and wanted them to feel the wrong that they’ve done. He wanted to take revenge on behalf of Eva; he felt they had to [pay for what they did. Another reason that made me feel there was something odd about the inspector was his name, I knew it meant ghost. To me this meant he came back to haunt them, however I do have one question without an answer. Was he a ghost or was he just a man who had it all planned out?

At the end of the play another thing which is obvious is that who has changed and who hasn’t, who felt that they did something wrong and who didn’t. J.B Priestly makes the audience learn threw the play that Jerald Croft, Sheila and Eric Birling felt bad and regretted what they had done to Eva, but, Mr. and Mrs. Birling had no sympathy whatsoever for Eva Smith. If think the point that J.B Priestly raises is that the younger population is improving, they are starting to realise that all humans are equal. J.B Priestly gives us hope for the future, hope for the poor and powerless as well as the rich and powerful.

I heard and saw J.B Priestly’s points and agreed with them. I felt they were really getting across to me through the attitude of the Birlings and Gerald Croft towards Eva Smith, which lead her all the way to death through five difficult steps.

Inspector Goole points out to the Birlings and Gerald Croft that there are more people out there and you must be very careful and responsible for your actions. At this point of the play I felt that J.B Priestly was appealing to the world to respect others. I think his play was very successful and the issues, which he raised, were excellent, but the way he raised them with only seven characters in one room was purely remarkable.

The issues he raised really got me thinking about what kind of people there are in the world and the tragedies that are happening all over the world that we don’t even get hear of.

J.B Priestly’s play was definitely a success.