What were Priestley's aims in writing 'An Inspector Calls' and how successful was he in achieving those aims?

What were Priestley’s aims in writing ‘An Inspector Calls’ and how successful was he in achieving those aims?

Drama has been here since the Greek times. It is very popular among all age groups. The main aims of a drama are to entertain and to provide a message to the audience. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is one of the most popular dramas to date. It is of a romance genre and it is greatly appreciated even now. It was written by one of the greats, Shakespeare, in the year 1595. The drama that we have in discussion is of a very popular genre, murder mysteries. Very prominent examples of this kind of genre are the books written by Agatha Christie & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. JB Priestly has employed this theme to attract an audience of all age groups. As well as entertaining us, he provides a moral message He manages to provide a social, moral and political message. In order to this he has employed a highly structured play.

The author puts up a social, moral and political message in front of the audience. The play An Inspector Calls was written in 1945 within a week of World War Two ending but is set before World War One. JB Priestley wrote this play intentionally as he saw an urgent need for social change and used the play to express his desire for social equality. The time span between the dates used (1945-1912) is to make us aware of what has happened and learn from mistakes made. People were mentally and physically damaged by the war. The fear factor lay upon them. Priestley hoped his play would give society the chance to look back on the past and not just carry on life in the same way as before.

The play is set in an industrial Midlands town in 1912, just before the First World War started. The play focuses on the death of a poor young working class girl called Eva Smith. I think that each character in the play represents a different social class and there seems to be a generation gap. They show the different attitude that each class of a person has. There are five main characters other than the inspector. These are Mr. and Mrs. Birling, their children Eric and Sheila Birling, and Sheila’s fiancé Gerald Croft. All of them are upper class citizens and believe themselves to be superior to others. Priestley uses this class group because he believes that their attitude is wrong and uses this play to vent his anger at them. The reference to upper-classes couldn’t be more obvious, the language used is even representative of upper-class people, phrases like "steady the buffs?” wouldn’t be used be the lower class people. In the early 1900s, poor people were looked upon with disgrace. No one took their opinions into consideration. Eva Smith symbolizes the poor working class women at that time. Priestley cleverly uses the name Smith as it is a very common name and it represents the working class. Eva Smith was a working class girl trying to make a living. She stands up for her rights and is exploited by the rich and upper class. JB Priestley wanted to show that this would continue to happen if society does not learn from these mistakes made. Priestley effectively puts emphasis on capitalism and socialism. He uses the characters, Mr. Birling and Inspector Goole with immediate effect. The audience can easily make out the difference between the two. As Birling quotes in p9, “a man has to mind his own business and look after himself”, this shows his upper class mannerisms and the way he thinks. In contrast to that, the Inspector feels every person should help each other as he quotes in p56, “We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other”. I can very well say that the author has been very successful in projecting a social, moral and political message.

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Te one feature I liked about this play is that it was thorough entertainment. It was of a murder mystery genre and this was a plus point. After the entry of the inspector, it was an absolute thriller. The character of Inspector Goole is the catalyst for the evening’s events: he is described as creating ‘an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness…’ The inspector interrogates each character in turn. With each of them, he makes a point that they have acted selfishly and used Eva Smith for their own purposes and they have not thought about the effect they have had on her life. The story unfolds slowly with multiple suspects arising. The clever inspector manages to keep the audience in suspense. As in p22 he says, “You heard what I said before Mr. Croft. One line of inquiry at a time.” He keeps on frightening them by mentioning Eva Smith’s death again and again. He catches Gerald off guard by mentioning Eva Smith’s other name. There is rising tension as at the end of Act one, the inspector enters the room and quotes, “Well?” Although Mrs. Birling remains cold throughout his questioning, he succeeds in making her unknowingly blame Eric. At the end of Act two, the tension arises dramatically as Eric enters, looking extremely pale and distressed. A twist in the plot occurs when Gerald enters claiming that there isn’t any such inspector. Everything gets cleared up as they find out that there wasn’t any suicide case at all. Priestley adds his final twist to the plot, as Mr. Birling picks up the phone only to hear that an inspector is on his way to question them on a girl’s suicide. Eva Smith is cleverly used by Priestley as a device for the ongoing events. She is projected as an innocent victim. But we don’t know whether she exists or not. The play has successfully managed to entertain a theatre audience.

JB Priestley has presented a tightly structured piece of drama. Dramatic irony is used well in this play with Mr. Birling’s illusions of the war and the Titanic; we can see this in pages 6 & 7. “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 Titanic – she sails next week – forty six thousand eight hundred tons – New York in five days – and every luxury – and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” The play was set before the war but published after, so the audience would know that Mr. Birling is completely wrong about the war and the Titanic. This would cause amusement and also show Mr. Birling to be the fool, as Priestley intended. Priestley had also maintained the classical unities in this play. The drama takes place in one place, the Birlings’ dining room, and the action is straightforward, without any complicating sub-plots. The events depicted in the play take up about the same amount of time which passes in the theatre. The inspector takes on the role of the chorus, summing up events and explaining the lessons to be learnt. The Inspector performs a very important speech that covers all the main themes of the play and allows Priestley to get his message across. The speech is very powerful and dramatic and it is quite similar to a political speech. We can see this at the end of act three p56: "We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn the lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish." What Priestley is trying to get across here is that we need to use collective responsibility in order to maintain peace in the world. If we don’t, then it could result in a war or, as in this case, someone committing suicide. I think the speech would have been performed as so: very serious and with a commanding tone, spoken slowly and carefully so the audience would get the full, dramatic impact. This way Priestley’s aim would come across in a good way. The Inspector’s speech would have provoked much discussion amongst the audience because of the powerful language used and because he left the scene directly after speaking. The audience may discuss between themselves whether or not they agree with the Inspectors speech. If they already do they probably feel quite pleased with themselves and if not they might feel guilty and ashamed. Priestley has wonderfully presented a tightly structured play.

JB Priestley’s aims were to provide a social, moral, & political message, to entertain the audience and to present a structured piece of drama. In my opinion, he has been very successful in fulfilling those aims. “We are members of one body, we are responsible for each other.” This is the sentence taken from the inspector’s last speech and I think that it sums up exactly what Priestley was trying to get across. Priestley leaves the play unclosed leaving the audience to think about the play and draw their own conclusions. This is a very good tactic by Priestley as it makes people to think about what they saw and hopefully make them realize that some aspects of their life should be changed for the good of humanity. I think that this play would have made an impact on the audience, considering the fact that the country had just suffered a Second World War.

-Siddharth Ganji G9