Another key detail concerning the play’s setting is the fact that the scene location never changes throughout the storyline. The entire play occurs in the Birling’s family dining room. Although this appears to be a minor and irrelevant aspect, it is in fact important when studying the attitude of the Birling family.
The opulent dining room acts as a boundary between normality and the fabricated world that the Birling’s seem to live in. It gives the impression that the Birling’s are naïve and ignorant to events happening outside of their ‘large, grand, suburban house.’
The Inspector’s main role in the play is to break down this injudicious class system and dispose of the closed environment that the Birling’s live in. The Inspector is intent on making the Birling’s recognise others in the community and how their actions affect the social veneer, ‘You mustn’t try and build up a wall between you and that girl.’ The Inspector’s strong words do seem to have an effect on the family, particularly Sheila, ‘You and I aren’t the same people who sat down to dinner here.’ Sheila understands the didactic meaning that the Inspector portrays; the upper class have ‘responsibilities as well as privileges.’
The Inspector’s character is also improvised as a dramatic device to communicate to the audience the political stances of Priestley and the new ideas of the Labour Party. Shortly after the end of the Second World War, a contemporary and promising Labour Party came in to power. The British people were exhausted from years of war, bloodshed and imperialism. They were desperate for change – a period of social reform had begun. However, the Birling family represent the anxiety and fear of this new society. Mr Birling is concerned that their high social status will come under threat, ‘capital versus labour agitations.’ Consequently throughout the play Mr Birling and the Inspector are at conflict due to their contrasting political feelings, ‘socialist cranks.’
This conflict is explored further when Mr Birling views Shelia’s marriage as an exciting business proposition ‘Crofts Limited and Birling & Company can work in partnership.’ This generates a feeling within the audience that capitalism is absurd and defective. A view shared by Priestley via the Inspector.
The reason for this view, Priestley was influenced heavily by his involvement in the Second World War. The time he spent on the Western Front gave his socialist viewpoints far more depth and substance especially in terms of past events. Consequently An Inspector Calls contains a large numbers of historical references. Priestley uses dramatic irony to convey his thoughts and feelings of significant and life changing historical events.
For example, Priestley intentionally discredits Mr Birling and his social attitude from the offset of the play. The confident and persuasive Mr Birling makes numerous false predictions, ‘Germans don’t want war’, ‘the Titanic… absolutely unsinkable’, which instantly inform the audience that he and his opinions cannot be trusted or taken seriously.
It is very clear that Mrs Birling has a lot of pride and self-respect as she is not willing to face up to any facts or admit responsibility for actions that may threaten her own family’s dignity, ‘I did nothing I’m ashamed of or that won’t bear investigation.’ She is determined to keep her high self-esteem intact. Therefore Mrs. Birling is a very significant character in the play as she shares the same personality and views as her already discredited husband Mr Birling. This further enhances the integrity of the Inspectors (Priestley’s) opinion on capitalism.
In An Inspector Calls, a didactic message regarding social responsibility is delivered to the readers. In my opinion the main bearer of this moral is the Inspector. The Inspector’s character acts as a catalyst or mouthpiece for Priestley’s socialist theories. ‘Goole’ the name of the Inspector, implies that Priestley intended for him to be perceived as a ghost (Goole resembles the word ghoul which means evil spirit). This in turn, generates suspense and builds up anticipation for the audience.
Inspector Goole comes across as being of an ambiguous nature. So much so that there are question marks over his existence, ‘Was he really a Police Inspector?’ The only mention of the Inspectors physical appearance appears in the very first set of stage directions, ‘not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.’ As you can see, there are no indications of the Inspector’s distinctive features, which instantly creates an air of mystery around the character.
To conclude, Priestley uses numerous dramatic devices and character stereotypes to reflect social attitudes and political stances. These social attitudes and political stances combine to provide an important didactic purpose to the play; to show the audience how poor the condition of man was in the unjust class system that operated under naïve capitalist control.
