inspector calls The introduction to the play offers a lengthy description of the set, helping the audience to picture the scene

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An Inspector Calls

The introduction to the play offers a lengthy description of the set, helping the audience to picture the scene. With the help from some useful descriptions of the characters, I think the director in the production succeeded to get all the detail across. For example, Mr Birling is a: -

“Rather portentous man…rather provincial in his speech” while Mrs Birling is “a rather cold woman and her husband’s social superior”. These attributes of ‘portentousness’ and ‘coldness’ are central to these two characters, and help to explain their behaviour towards Eva Smith.

Priestley prepares the audience before the arrival of the inspector by what Mr. Birling declares: “The Titanic…. unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”.

This suggests to the audience that Birling has no substance to his ‘superior’ knowledge. Another example of irony from Birling:

“People say that war’s inevitable and I say fiddlesticks!”

This also shows that his beliefs are usually wrong. The audience would have known that the Titanic sank and there was another making it ironic. It shows Birling as unreliable. Priestley shows Birling’s philosophy on life:-

“ If you don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the Earth”

Before the arrival of the Inspector you can detect unease in the household: -

“A man has to make his own way”

This shows how selfish Birling is.

As the Inspector enters, immediately after the doorbell rings, Birling says: -

Join now!

“You’d think everybody has to look after everyone else as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive-community and all that nonsense”

The significance of the Inspector arriving at that stage is that they will discover everybody influences someone.  

The Inspector has his own spotlight, to separate him from the rest of the characters.

The lighting changes when the inspector enters. Mr Birling instructs Edna: -

“Give us some more light”

This symbolises an unnerving presence, Godlike and heavenly. Priestley is attempting to use the lights as a persona and mood changer. The spotlight, ...

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