Discuss the presentation of the Inspector in 'An Inspector Calls'.

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Discuss the presentation of the Inspector in ‘An Inspector Calls’

        John B Priestly, 20th century author and playwright, lived from 1894 to 1984. Famous for being a politically charged writer, Priestly wrote critically about the social class system that was present in the Edwardian times. The rigid divisions between the different classes created a huge gap between the rich and poor. Being the ardent socialist that he was, Priestly felt strongly about these divisions and believed in equality, shared responsibility and unity between all people. A lot of his writings subtly demonstrate Priestley’s views on socialism. An example of this is his short play ‘An Inspector Calls’.

Set in an industrial city in the Midlands, the play was written in 1945 – thirty-three years after the play was set. By setting the play in 1912, Priestly had the advantage of incorporating a lot of dramatic irony into the play. Another advantage of setting the play more than thirty years previously is that the audience will have a more distant point of view of the play, thus giving them a more critical stance of the characters. Priestly wrote the play to provoke thought and to challenge complacency. Written in just one week, (a matter of days after the World War II had finished,) Priestly wanted his play to be in production as soon as possible. This sense of urgency shows the importance of Priestley’s message that he so hastily wanted to get out to the world. The message that ‘An Inspector Calls’ delivers is not just about the injustice of the Edwardian society but also about the consequences of one’s actions; no matter how complacent things seem, the smallest action can cause the most tragic results.

The play begins with five characters seated at a dining-table celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling (the daughter figure of the Birling family, ‘a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited’) to Gerald Croft (‘an attractive chap about thirty’ ‘very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town’); all five are in evening dress of the period. The entire play is set in ‘The dining-room of a fairly large and suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer.’ The set of play and the dress of the characters allow us to deduce that the family are upper-class citizens. In the stage directions the lighting is required to be ‘pink and intimate’. This gives us the impression that the Birlings have a rose-tinted view of the world. The light makes the scene look warmer, showing the audience that the Birlings are having a good time. Birling’s frivolous talk, ranging from the Titanic to port, contributes to the light-hearted mood that is present.

Arthur Birling, the head of the household, is a content, complacent, conceited gentleman. He is portrayed as a brash, ignorant man who tends to show that he is quite full of himself. Priestly achieves the effect of portraying him this way by using dramatic irony.

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“…the Titanic… unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable…”

“…you’ll be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these silly little war scares.”

The audience would know that the Titanic did unexpectedly sink and those ‘silly little war scares’ developed into a World War, killing millions and millions of people. Because of this, Birling is presented as naïve, arrogant and pompous. He thinks himself superior to everybody else in the room and talks down to his children. He dominates the conversation showing a lot of false optimism.

The free-flowing conversation and the jovial ...

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