In the play “an inspector calls” at the beginning where Mr Birling is giving his speech, J.B Priestly uses Dramatic Irony, this shows how confident Mr Birling is, Mr Birling says “… to war I say fiddlesticks” this shows the dramatic irony makes Mr Birling look silly because the audience knows that everything that Mr Birling said was completely wrong. This was the prefect time for the inspector to enter to show that Mr Birling was totally wrong. I liked the chain of events used in killing Eva Smith. Mr Birling was just thinking about his business when he sacked Eva smith from his company “She wanted 25 shillings a week instead of 22 and six pence you made her pay a heavy price for that and now she’ll make you pay a heavier price still”. Shelia also helped in her suicide, she got Eva smith sacked form her last job because she was having a bad day and
Max McKenzie-cook 25 November 2000
An Inspector calls by J.B Priestly
Caught Eva smith smiles because the dress didn’t suit Sheila and she complained and got her fired. Gerald had an affair with Eva Smith “ but it was all over and done with last summer"
Eric got her pregnant and abandoned her along with the baby. I thought it was interesting because the weren’t directly responsible for her death but they played their part.
This story made me think about how we should help others and showed me the consequences of the family, in this case Eva Smith died because neither the Birlings nor Gerald considered her circumstances or her feelings. J.B Priestly was a socialist and thought that you should look after everyone, so in this play he shows how bad it can be if you just think about yourself.
The Edwardian attitudes to working class women were that they were not important. They were necessary to working factories but the owners expected them to keep quiet and get their work done. Middle class people called the working class the “criminal class” Just like Mrs Birling, Mrs Birling says, “as if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money” and they didn’t know the difference between right and wrong “rubbish if you don’t come down sharply on some of these people they’d soon be asking for the world”. The working class men and women were treated like toys to be used by the middle and upper classes. “Croft though, he at lest had some affection “this shows how things could be if they thought about other people.
In 1946 many things that were mentioned in the play had happened. “Titanic…unsinkable absolutely unsinkable” and of course the Titanic sank on it’s first voyage on April 1912. People were different after the war. When people were separated they thought about others. Many things in 1946 were better e.g. less poverty people thought about each other and there was less people on the streets. But still there was no welfare Just as before so the play would encourage the audience
Max McKenzie-cook 25 November 2000
An Inspector calls by J.B Priestly
to support the government, there are more equal opportunities e.g. women had to work during the war because the men were at war fighting but there wasn’t as many opportunities and also in the Edwardian ere people were judged on their class (working, middle, upper) but today it is not as bad as before although classes still exists today.
Nowadays although people realised that there are other people who needed care apart from yourself and your family, people still didn’t take much responsibility, because if a police officer came in your house and said that you’d sacked someone from a job and they committed suicide you probably still wouldn’t take your part of the blame. Just as Mr Birling would say “still I can’t accept any responsibility”.
J.B Priestly, I think wrote this play to show people the meaning of life and that even though the people may be different like Eva Smith we still should do all we can to help the people who need it most.
