What I think J.B.Priestleys aim was and how he tries to achieve it.
I think J.B.Priestley´s aim in the play was to explain to us that we are like the Birling´s and that we need to change, and be more considerate to other people, this is what the Inspector says as he leaves the Birling's house.
"We are members of one body, we are responsible for each other"
Priestley might have had problems during the war but this might have led him to believe that to live in a admirable world everyone must have their own responsibilities towards everyone else.
At the beginning of the play the family are sitting around a table all happy and gay celebrating Shelia and Gerald's engagement. The atmosphere was carefree and joyful. The Birling's appeared to be an upper class family at the time enjoying the evening. Priestley is setting the scene for the start of the play, trying to make the characters look like nice and warm but also an exciting and loud family. Mr Birling and the Inspector are very different in many ways, Mr Birling is very uncaring and selfish, but the Inspector is very open and understanding. Priestley has deliberately made a clear difference between these two characters, to make a better contrast. Mr Birling is only interested in his business and his family, he doesn't think about anyone else,
"a man has to look after himself and his family too"
Here Priestly is really showing the reader how selfish Mr Birling is, this would have an impact on the reader, and they would probably start to go against him for this. He didn't care about Eva's death and wouldn't take any blame for it; he showed this by blaming Eva for it herself. He wasn't even interested about her death when the Inspector mentioned it,
"Yes. Horrid business. But I don't understand why you should come here"
Mr Birling doesn't even stop for a second to see if he could help in anyway dealing with Eva's death.
During Mr Birling´s speech on how we should look after each other, the doorbell rang; the atmosphere changed the moment the Inspector entered the scene. The reader might have been wondering, who was at the door at this time. Their thoughts on the family may now change when the Inspector comes in because usually it means that something might happen. The family began to wonder who this new inspector was and why he was there at that time.
Dramatic twists are used well in this play with Mr Birling´s thoughts of the war and the Titanic,
"The Titanic she sails next week-forty six thousand tons-New York in five days and every luxury-and unsinkable", "Germans don't want war. Nobody wants war except some half-civilized folks in the Balkans. And why? There's too much at stake these days. Everything to lose and nothing to gain by war"
The play was set before the First World War (WWI) but published after the war, so the reader would know that Mr Birling is wrong about the war and the Titanic. This would show Mr Birling is a fool, as Priestley intended him to be. Mr Birling is rather pre-tense, only his opinion matters; he always knows what is best. But the reader knows he isn't always correct. Mr Birling never seemed to be affected when the Inspector confronted his actions. We can see this throughout the play.
The Inspector's character in the play is very important. There are a number of reasons why; the first is he opens up the character's personalities with his questions. The Inspector leads the characters to confront their own weaknesses, which makes them feel guilty and probably quite shocked. He is supposed to be the good character in the play. He is the motivation for the evening at the home. The Inspector gives a very important speech that covers all of the main themes of the play and lets Priestley get his message across. The speech is very effective and dramatic.
What Priestly is trying to say here is that we need to have responsibility in order to keep peace in the world. If we don't then it could end with a war, because of personal suffering or someone committing suicide. I think the speech would have been performed very seriously and with a strong tone, spoken carefully so that the reader would get the dramatic impact.
"But just remember this. One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us... We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other...”
The Inspector's speech would have made much discussion amongst the reader because of the language used and because he left the scene directly after speaking to the family. This left the Birlings quiet and wondering what the Inspector's speech really meant to them. One of the themes to the play is wealth and power between the classes; this is shown in Mr and Mrs Birling's actions. Mrs Birling shows this in act two:
"whatever it was, I know it made me finally lose all patience with her. She was giving herself ridiculous airs. She was claming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position"
Mrs. Birling is hinting that a girl in her position has no right to give her own thoughts. This also links up with the main theme shared responsibility. We should treat everyone the same however poor or rich they are. This would also make the reader feel frustrated towards Mrs Birling; they would get the idea that she was a selfish and snobby woman. This is probably what Priestley had wanted because he wanted Mrs Birling's character to make the reader feel no compassion for her.
After the Inspector left the scene and the reader really began to see the characters for their real individual selves. When they try and forget about what had just gone on. The only person who was affected was Sheila the rest of them were just thinking about themselves and how they would get out of this mess. Birling "Yes and you don't realize yet all you've done. Most of this is bound to come out. There'll be a public scandal.
Throughout the play the Birlings have showed me their good side and their weak side I think that this play would have made a big impact on its reader because the message was quite intense because the country had just had the Second World War.
I think that J.B.Priestley succeeded because when I read the story I could understand what Priestley was trying to tell me about why the Inspector was there. He gave quite a few hints in the story for example when the Inspector left he said "We are members of one body, we are responsible for each other".