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How Does Priestley Create Tension In An Inspector Calls

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As a result of the Birlings' capitalist viewpoint, Priestley clearly shows the disparity between the upper and lower classes in An Inspector Calls, which leads to Eva Smith's tragic suicide as a result of the Birlings' capitalist viewpoint on life. There is no doubt that Priestley focused on the patriarchal nature of British society at the time, doing so to emphasise the need for change to take place in Britain, especially for families like the Birlings, who are represented by Priestley's work. At the start of the play Priestley highlights the Birlings' desire to portray their lives as "pink and intimate," an idealised vision of what life should be like. Essentially, what Priestley is trying to convey is that he wants the audience to overlook …show more content…

The family's flaws and the fact that they are not really who they seem to be are brought to the attention of the audience by the "brighter," "harder" light, which acts as a spotlight. The light also underlines the look of a police interrogation lamp, demonstrating that the Inspector's goals are to ensure that the family admits their mistakes and takes responsibility for their actions as well as to voice Priestley's own socialist opinions. Additionally, Priestley is trying to highlight the flaws in capitalism and the advantages of …show more content…

The fact that Sheila is described as "a lively good-looking girl" and is "twenty-four" years old, just like Eva, is also significant. Only class and money separate Eva and Sheila, who are both young, attractive, and vivacious. This is a deliberate choice by Priestley to show how what happened to Eva could have happened to Sheila if she had no money—something he believes to be abhorrently unfair. Eric comments to his parents that they are "starting to pretend now that nothing's really happened at all" at the conclusion of the play after the Inspector departs. and Shelia confirms this, attesting to the fact that they are "just starting to pretend all over again." In this case, it is conceivable that Priestley's use of time in the play was influenced by the theories of Piotr Ouspensky. According to Ouspensky, after we pass away, we begin our lives over again. The same parents give birth to us again, and the same things happen in our lives over and over again. If we didn't make any significant changes, we would continue living identical lives. He is demonstrating to us throughout the play that people like the Birlings are content to continue existing within the same destructive cycle of egotistical greed in which they

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How Is Mr Birling Presented In An Inspector Calls

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An Inspector Calls is a morality play, filled with controversial political viewpoints attempting to persuade the audience that socialism is the way forward. Such views are voiced by The inspector, Priestley's mouthpiece. The play is set in 1912, A year followed by world war 1, the miners' strike and the sinking of the Titanic, therefore, supplying the writer with the opportunities to use dramatic irony, which Priestley does, to further influence his audience in act 2 to reconsider accepting a capitalist society. Sybil Birling is one of Priestley's characters that lack development in their attitudes towards society, particularly the lower class.

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How Does Priestley Present Injustice In An Inspector Calls

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In An Inspector calls, Priestley uses The Inspector to present injustice in society through his questioning of the Birling family and Gerald Croft. The Inspector gradually uncovers the selfish and unjust acts which the family enacts upon the lower classes through their abuse of their power and status over people, not showing the slightest bit of care for their wellbeing, barely treating their workers as individual beings with their own lives and emotions, just caring about the money they are making for them, and treating the lower class in general as lower beings in general, not being worth the time to understand or sympathise with. The Inspector exposes the acts of injustice by the upper class towards the lower classes through his questioning

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How Does Priestley Present Gerald In An Inspector Calls

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How does Priestley Present Gerald in An Inspector Calls In his didactic play ‘An Inspector Calls’, Priestley presents Gerald, and the upper class as a whole, to be extremely callous and unwilling to accept the opportunity for redemption. He explores themes and ideologies such as patriarchy in order to excoriate those for living protected in an ‘ivory tower’ of wealth, luxury and, most significantly, denial. The methods used by Priestley to do all of this encourages the audience in a contemporary society to look at themselves with an inverted eye and strive for equality.

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How Is Mr Birling Presented In An Inspector Calls

1785 Words | 8 Pages

An inspector calls, written by J.B Priestly, is a play based on a suicide of a young woman Mr birling was the most to blame as he started the chain of misfortunate events of Eva Smith’s life which eventually lead to her suicide. Mr Birling is an exalted as well as being a wealthy capitalist, he is also portrayed as being a rather portentous man. Moreover, Priestly presents him as a middle-class citizen and extremely proud of his company Birling and co While boastingly claiming that he has “a couple of hundred workers under” him “which keep changing.” Due to his higher status to Eva Smith he views the working class as cheap labour rather than humans.

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How Is Gerald Presented In An Inspector Calls

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An Inspector Calls written by J. B. Priestly was first published in 1945. It is a play which has a strong focus on the themes of social responsibility, age, gender, and class. Priestly uses these themes to remind us that not being aware of our actions can sometimes lead to other receiving them as consequences. He wants us to be responsible for both the welfare and behaviours of ourselves but also of others. In the play, we find that some characters tend to be more immersed in either themselves or money/business and this leads them to being a lot less of an admirable character than the ones who are willing to recognise and acknowledge their mistakes.

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How Does Sheila Change In An Inspector Calls

1417 Words | 6 Pages

She becomes more mature. In Act 3, after the inspector has left the Birlings’ house, Sheila mentions, ‘… The point is, you don’t seem to have learnt anything…’. This quotation indicates that Sheila is a dynamic character who is willing to change. Through her interactions with the inspector she goes on a learning journey. Sheila has matured and she is now more responsible.

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Throughout the play Mr Birling is shown to be solely focused on the effects that anything might have on his business. This is shown early in the play when he makes a speech surrounding his daughter and competitor's son Gerald Croft marriage. He begins the speech by saying ‘ It is one of the happiest nights of my life’ suggesting that he is talking about the marriage but by the end he says ‘ we may look to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing’ by saying this he triggers a negative reaction from the audience as well as Sheila and Mrs Birling. These comments further proves that the marriage of his own daughter is more of a business move for his

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The Birling Family In J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

414 Words | 2 Pages

In 1912, the difference between upper and lower class was very distinctive and noticeable to everyone in that society. The upper class were sophisticated, traditionally intelligent and had recognisable titles for other classes to identify them and to give themselves pride ,although the lower class usually worked cheap labour and struggled greatly to have a decent quality of life. In An Inspector Calls, the Birling family represent a typical upper class family but they are still aware of Gerald’s families status above them and Priestley represents the character of Arthur Birling to be very mindful of this and his ambition is portrayed in many ways throughout the play. Arthur Birling addresses the lower class as “these people” when talking about the issues with Eva Smith, this represents his capitalist views as he does not believe that a man like himself, a “hard-headed businessman”, should be looking after the poorer members of society.

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How Does Priestley Create Tension In An Inspector Calls

1175 Words | 5 Pages

'An Inspector Calls' was written by 'J.B Priestley' in the year 1944/45 and it was set in 1912 before the first World War and the sinking of the 'unsinkable Titanic. The play was first produced in 1946 after the war. The play is about the Birling's that are celebrating their daughter's engagement with Gerald Croft and the Inspector interrupts them with the news about a girl's suicide. The girl seems to be driven to suicide due to the actions of the family and the Inspector wants the family to know the consequences of their choices and actions. Priestley uses the Inspector to convey his socialist ideas in the capitalist setting of the play with the theme that we are all responsible for each other, i.e each character's action led to the evitable

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Morality And Double Standards In J. B Priestley's An Inspector Calls

504 Words | 3 Pages

At least, I’m trying to tell the truth.” Sheila acts devastated by the death of Eva which according to her is entirely her fault, thing which is proven wrong later in the play; nonetheless her genuine regret and bravery in accepting culpability is admired by the

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873 Words | 4 Pages

Priestley, in his 1945 didactic diatribe ‘An Inspector Calls’ uses the Birling family as a construct in order to promote his anti-war, socialist and feminist agenda and in so catalyse change among hierarchical capitalistic society. He utilises the theme of guilt to evoke a sense of social responsibility into his audience and spark a cultural epiphany in which society realises that they are members of ‘one body’, and that factors that affect one unit, affect all others. Sheila Birling is arguably used as a tool by Priestly to represent the refuge he saw in the younger, ‘more impressionable’ population. Sheila ultimately embodies the deadly sin of vanity.

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How Does Priestley Create Tension In An Inspector Calls

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1041 Words | 5 Pages

She says after they find out that the Inspector was nothing but a hoax, “but now you’re all beginning all over again to pretend that nothing much has happened.” Sheila being the most intelligent out of the characters is aware that even though the Inspector wasn’t a real one, they still did break moral values and acted callously towards a person. The pronoun and repetition of “all” suggests Sheila is removing herself from her family of capitalists and is becoming her own person. Sheila towards the end of the play says, “And it frightens me the way you talk, and I can’t listen to any more of it.” The adjective “frightened” shows to the audience that she is shocked at how her parents seem to think of it all as a joke rather than events that have actually taken place, this is the process as role reversal as Sheila (and Eric) are admitting to their faults whereas her parents’ morality has not changed.

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In ‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B. Priestley, the actions of the Birling family and Gerald are factors in Eva Smith’s death. Their lack of social responsibility and feelings of superiority cause them to treat those they see as inferior with little thought and compassion. As a socialist, Priestley may have been attempting to comment on the injustice of class systems in the 1900s and the negative impacts of Capitalism on society. In the first act of the play Sheila is naive and petulant.

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510 Words | 3 Pages

In ‘An Inspector Calls’, class inequality is depicted through the characters’ social status and their interactions with one another. The wealthy and influential Birling family look down upon and mistreat Eva Smith, a member of the working class, who they see as inferior and disposable, which presents Priestley’s perception of how the upper class viewed the working class. Along with emphasizing the ways in which the Birling family's privilege and influence led to Eva's misery, Inspector Goole also exposes that they were all involved and somehow played a role in her tragic demise. Throughout the play, the characters’ actions and attitudes towards Eva expose their entrenched class biases, as well as the ways they have benefitted from and contributed to a society that prioritises and privileges the powerful and affluent

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