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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 …show more content…

Arthur was the first member of the family who was shown to be greedy through the inspector’s questioning, as he revealed to care very little about his worker’s wellbeing and just cares about the money they are making for him, as shown by Arthur’s solution to improve his company's profitability being ‘Lower costs and higher prices’, which perfectly illustrates his complete disregard for the wellbeing of his workers, and when his workers went on a strike to get their rates increased from twenty two sixpence to twenty five sixpence, he immediately refused and fired the people who were the leaders of the protest, not caring for what would happen to them after. The Inspector reveals to both the reader and the Birling family that Eva Smith was one of the people who were fired for this reason and set the stage for her misfortune that eventually led to her death. After Eva Smith was fired, she found another job working at Millwards, where she fell victim to Sheila Birling’s selfishness. Sheila abused her links to the shop and her mother to blackmail the manager of Millwards to fire Eva Smith out of pure jealousy due to the fact that Sheila looked bad in a dress whereas Eva looked stunning with it. This alone drove Sheila to do all she could to get her fired due to just the fact that Eva looked better than her. Sheila even reveals to the inspector that ‘If she'd been some miserable plain little creature, I don't suppose I'd have done it’, which perfectly summarises how Sheila’s selfishness towards others and how she cares more about people’s appearances than their actual worth as human beings. Next, Gerald Croft is shown to be selfish towards Eva Smith as he met her at a bar and began a romantic relationship with her, but he was not serious about her and eventually ends the relationship,

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This is evident when she says “that- I consider- is a trifle impertinent, Inspector” this shows how arrogant she is, the inspector isn’t being inherently rude as he simply agreed with Sheila and because Mrs birling sees herself above the inspector in status she sees it as “impertinent” that the inspector should speak plainly to her because she is a fairly wealthy woman whose husband was a “lord mayor only two years ago and that he’s still a magistrate-“ and so the inspector should be giving her the proper respect. She sees herself as the most important person in the room at any given time and feels that everything affects her even when it doesn’t like when Gerald is talking about his affair with Eva, Mrs birling cuts in and says she doesn’t want to hear any more even when it doesn’t affect her and nothing is stopping her from leaving the room until it is her

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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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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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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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1681 Words | 7 Pages

The admission, ‘I caught sight of the girl smiling at Miss Francis’, highlights her insecurity and lack of confidence. However, we feel sorry for her as, in the early 20th century, young women were judged on their looks, which perhaps explains why she felt envious and this is considered as sinful. During Sheila’s interrogation, she remembers “[Eva] was a very pretty girl […] that didn’t make it any better.” and admits, “I went to the manager and told him this girl had been very impertinent – and – and - ”. The hesitation shows shame and regret and while looking back at her actions, she does not have enough words to

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Lee presents one injustice through Aunt Alexandra, labeling people because they are poor. Aunt Alexandra exclaimed to scout, “I'll tell you why. Because-Walter-is-trash, that's why you can't play with him. ”(301) Her reasoning for this came from the fact that the Cunningham family owned little money.

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An Inspector Calls, written by J.B.Priestley, was first performed in 1945. It was a time of great economical, social and political disorder, having just won the Second World War, Britain was in crippling debt. Furthermore, two main views took on the general population, collectivism (favoured by lower class) and individualism (favoured by middle and upper class). Priestley favoured collectivism, as he explores this through the imaginary girl Eva Smith (a lower class) and the individualistic Birling family. Warning the audience what reprobate effects individualism has caused to British society in different classes.

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Sheila directly indicts her father’s exploitative capitalist ways by opposing that “But these girls aren’t cheap labour - they’re people”. These plosive words perhaps signify how Sheila has realised the exploitation that’s permitted by capitalists, for example, Mr Birling. The term “girls” connotes innocence and vulnerability, Sheila has recognised that upper-class members of society, typically possessing capitalist views, exploit the innocence and vulnerability of the lower classes. “Cheap” connotes something that doesn’t have that much value, Sheila realises how immoral capitalism is but can’t break away from

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In the opening of the play the Inspector begins to question Mr Birling after dinner about a photo of a young girl. Mr Birling is shown to be narrow minded in the opening of an Inspector calls. He is displayed as this through his poor political understanding , his business minded views as well as this distancing him from people. Firstly, Mr Birling is shown as narrow minded through his poor political understanding.

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In J.B Priestley's novel ‘An Inspector Calls’ Priestley uses a range of techniques to highlight the divergence between the upper and richer classes compared to the working poor classes. Their attitudes are represented through the characterisation of its characters significantly Mr Birling and Sheila during their first encounter with Inspector Goole. From the beginning Mr Birling is characterised as an embodiment of the social ideology capitalism and displayed all the negative consequences this belief has. In Act 1 he proudly reveals his narcissistic behaviours towards the audience and the inspector making his character intolerable to the majority. The first line of the entire text begins with Mr Birling offering Gerald the alcoholic drink

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1855 Words | 8 Pages

Mrs Birling finds it hard to believe that "a girl of that sort" refused money. The phrase “a girl of that sort” displays her preconceptions about female employees and suggests they lack morals. This phrase also shows the audience how Mrs Birling perceives Eva to be morally inferior due to her lower class. Moreover, this gives the audience an insight to Mrs Birlings attitude towards those of a lower class, implying her lack of sympathy and respect for Eva. Mrs Birling shows her arrogant, hollow self when being questioned about her response to Eva seeking help from her organization.

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541 Words | 3 Pages

In J.B. Priestley's play "An Inspector Calls," Mr Birling is portrayed as a wealthy businessman and a prominent member of the community. He is the head of a family that represents the upper class of Edwardian society, and his views and opinions reflect the prevailing attitudes of his time. Mr Birling's views on gender are typical of the patriarchal and conservative attitudes of his time. He believes that women should be submissive and should not have a say in political or economic matters.

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In the play An Inspector Calls written by J.B Priestley, the use of morality and double standards gives us an insight into the society of the early 1900s; which remains relevant in social stratification, cultural and deviance aspects. Through the story of Arthur Birling, Mrs. Sybil Birling and their children Eric and Sheila. The upper-class family, with untouchable reputation, enjoy of an intimate party soiree in honour of Sheila's engagement to Gerald Croft. Son of a well-known business man, Sir George Croft from Crofts Limited. When Inspector Goole pays a mood-changing visit, resulting in the systematic manipulation of the presumably respectable characters.

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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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747 Words | 3 Pages

One of the several themes that Priestley has introduced to the play is ‘Time,’ and this theme not only interlinks with some others like ‘Age and Youth’ and ‘Social Responsibility,’ but also introduces a very important drama technique into the play for the audience called the dramatic irony. In Act One, Mr. Birling, as a representative of the older generation of the play and the head of the family, is talking to the others about the progress humanity is making and mentions the liner, Titanic saying it is “unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.” The word ‘absolutely’ in this context shows just how confident in his words Mr. Birling is, without understanding that it will all change. As the play is set back in 1912, but is performed much later in 1946, after the audience knows, and finds it ironic that Mr. Birling, thinking he is an old, wise man says such nonsense, as time will show.

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