How Does Priestley Present Social Class In An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls

How does Priestley explore the theme of social class in An Inspector Calls?

Priestley explores the theme of social class by comparing the upper class' naivety with the lower class’ struggles, this is shown through the treatment of Eva Smith. The upper class have a presupposed authority over the lower class and this is exhibited by the inspector. The inspector questions Priestley’s character's social and political views and exhibits to us how the upper class acted at this time. This is done by giving us characters who are very different from each other, the younger generation which contrast the older generation. Priestley uses this contrast to allude to how there is a shift towards socialism within the younger generation.

By using Arthur Birling, Priestley is able to portray to us how people of the upper class acted at that time and their views on society. Arthur Birling deems himself to be more important and more knowledgeable than people of the lower class. This is shown when he states, “ We hard headed practical business men must say something sometime”. As a ‘hard headed practical business man’ he believes his opinions are fact and anyone who disagrees is below him. He sees himself as a remarkable man and he is very conceited and very arrogant and this reflects on what most men were like in this time period. He uses his age to reflect on his knowledge and ignores any opinions from his two children, which would’ve been common thing to do for a man like him at the time. He dismisses other people's observations to the conversation, and sees his own as always being factual. This is shown when he dismisses his son, “ Just let me finish, Eric. You’ve a lot to learn yet.”, he does this because he thinks that he has better judgement than his son, due to his age and social status. Priestley also uses the technique of dramatic irony to explore the theme of social class in the play and this is partly exhibited by Arthur Birling. Arthur Birling dismisses any inklings from his younger son about war happening, and he gives a lecture to everyone about how there will not be a war, The Germans don’t want war. Nobody wants war’, this shows how ignorant Mr Birling is. He states that the titanic is ‘unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable’, placing emphasis on the word ‘unsinkable’ and the adverb ‘absolutely’ shows how sure of himself Mr Birling is, he is convinced he’s correct. We as the audience both know these two statements are incorrect as both happen and when the play was published, the Titanic had already sunk and the War had happened, which is why Priestley uses them as examples; they show the audience how he acts like a