What is the role of the Inspector in An Inspector Calls. How does Priestley use him?

The first 200 words of this essay...

"What is the role of the Inspector in 'An Inspector Calls'. How does Priestley use him?"

Priestley wrote this play for two purposes, to entertain and to teach the audience what is morally right. It is a seemingly straight forward 'whodunit'. The play is set in 1912 for an audience in the 1940s. Priestley purposely chose to set the play in 1912 because he wants the audience from the 1940s and afterwards to leave the theatre thinking about what led to the world wars and whether people will ever learn from their mistakes. We learn from the play that only two characters learn from their mistakes. These are the two younger characters Eric and Sheila. Priestley seems to split the family into two generations to illustrate, through the inspection of the Birling family that our future lies in the younger generation and that we are all responsible for each other's actions. He also uses the Birling family to criticize the upper class people of the Edwardian era. Near the end of the play the older Birlings and Gerald are congratulating themselves for their lucky escape, until they receive a phone call stating "a police inspector is on