‘An inspector calls’ is a detective story written in 1944-1945 but set in 1912. It is trying to solve the story of Eva Smith, a woman who committed suicide but lots of events led to the suicide so the inspector it doing some investigating into who was involved. It is also a morality play, a type of play which tells the audience about a man who is caught between the religious need for good, yet has the temptations or evil. This plays shows us that the Birling and Gerald Croft are guilty of at least one of the seven deadly sins. The deadly sins include sloth (laziness), pride, greed, jealousy, desire, anger and yearn. In an earlier era, any person committing these sins would have been sent to a place where nothing is good, the worst place you can go to.
At the time the play was written it was just before the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage. This is important and relevant because as the play was set in 1912, Priestley could help the audience relate to the play by using dramatic irony. Mr Birling is the main character and the first to use dramatic irony in his speech at the beginning of the play to all the men.
An example would be the audience watching or reading know how wrong Birling is when he makes clear confident predictions about there not being a war ‘…The Germans don’t want war. Nobody wants war, except some half-civilised folks in the Balkans…’ A little while later in his speech he tells us ‘…You’ll be living in a world that’ll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these sill little war scares…’ The audience know that there was a World War II that started in 1939 and finished in 1945. The fact that Birling is so exited when the titanic is sailing on its maiden voyage is ironic as the audience know the titanic sank on this maiden voyage ‘…unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable…’ Birling makes this comment about thee titanic adding some comedy to the play. This gives the audience the impression that Birlings assumes he knows everything very early on in the play. He is a very confident man and thinks he knows everything but there is a surprise around the corner waiting for him.
Priestly has very specific stage directions and instructions in this play. This may be to add tension to the thickening plot. An example of this is
‘We hear a sharp ring of a front door bell. BIRLING stops to listen.’
This happens as the inspector arrives and just before the doorbell rung, the men were having a deep discussion about the capitalism society. As the inspector walks into the room, the atmosphere is very quiet and subdued. The inspector seems to have added some mystery to the play and the audience begin to get the feeling, did he even exist from the moment he walked in the door? His name was Inspector Goole, sounding like a ghostly ghoul which is rumoured to be an Evil spirit or monster that robs graves and feeds off of the flesh of the dead as well as exposing people. He behaves in a strange was as though he has come from the future and acts like the families conscience, making them feel guilty and unravel many secrets the individual members of the family share.
There are many other dramatic effects used throughout the play and different devices. The ways Eric and Sheila talk in a similar way to the inspector whereas Mr Birling is an aggressive wealth capitalist who thinks everything he says is right and he is the top and domineers over everyone else. This is quite clear in the way the characters talk to one another and address each other. The inspector is a very calm character whilst talking and he acts very confidently and sure of all the facts he is accusing the family of. Mrs Birlings is like a shivering wreck whilst being questioned and tries to change the subject at every given opportunity. She tries to hide things and control everyone, she does miserably at this.
To conclude, we call all see that Priestley uses many dramatic devices in Act 1 of his play which draws the audience in and helps them to carry on with reading or watching the play. At the start of Act 1, the Birling family and Gerald Croft seem to be a happy, pleasant upper middle-class family celebrating the engagement of Sheila and Gerald yet by the end, only Sheila and Eric realize they must be aware of the consequences of their actions. As we develop further into the plot, the audience began to be more aware of the family and their opinions change.
We see the Inspector trying to teach the family a valuable lesson that is the key to life ‘You must be responsible for your actions.’ By the end of the play only Sheila and Eric seem to have learnt these lessons and feel guilty about the way they treated Eva Smith and even if she wasn’t real, it was a lesson to be learnt. This is clear to the audience as we see Eric and Sheila trying to make their parents and Gerald more aware of this matter and show them they are wrong, little things do count in life.
The two children of the Birlings, Sheila and Eric seem to have learnt why the inspector came to them and he came to show them the errors they were making in life. The lesson they should have all learnt becomes clear when the inspector makes his final speech and says, ‘One Eva Smith has gone, but there are many Eva Smith’s and John Smith’s still left with us.’ This is showing there are still many poor people left in the world and and they depend on the way every other person deals with their lives. This shows us that we should think and change our ways to help others to realize actions always have consequences, whether they are good or bad.
