How Does Priestley Create Tension In An Inspector Calls

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What dramatic techniques does Priestly use to create tension and suspense in “An Inspector Calls”?

To understand the theme and the complexity of “An inspector calls”, a play where a young lady called Eva Smith dies and an inspector , with a strong and aggressive personality and tone, makes a whole family realize what they’ve all done to affect or cause Eva’s suicide; first we need to understand how the personal traits of each character affects the way in which they behave and we need to take in consideration the dramatic devices the author uses to keep us interested and wondering what happens next.

Throughout the play the character development is notorious because we can notice that as the play advances, the characters start changing their …show more content…

Other example of this technique is the way in which the author adds flashbacks to the play, giving us an idea of what had happened and the way in which the character involved says it affects the way in which we realize how it affected them, or what was going through their minds.

Some other devices are shown by each character and how their mood goes from cheerful and happy to suspicious and uneasy and even aggressive, like Gerald when he realizes that Eva Smith was also Daisy Renton, the girl he had been having an affair for a long time.
While the play develops the dramatic devices used helps us notice the difference in the atmosphere or in the mood, like the different entrances and exits that happen in key moments in the play, for example when Eric suddenly disappears or how the Inspector exits the room while Sheila realizes her fiancé had cheated on her.

One one hand, we could spent hours discussing how each character is responsible of this girl’s death, but on the other hand we can analyse how the author helps us get to a conclusion of each character by using, for example, dramatic irony applied almost every time Mr.Birling talks, giving us an advantage to realize what kind of person he is (which comes in handy towards the end of the