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Social Responsibility In J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

1121 Words5 Pages

An Inspector Calls is a play concerned with the idea of social responsibility. The play was set in 1912, a time when there was a strict class division in Britain. People were expected to know their place in society and not attempt to disrupt the status quo. At the same time, these notions of class and one’s position in society were beginning to be challenged, with the increasing popularity of socialism, suffragetism and the development of trade union politics in Britain. Priestly’s play was written and first performed in 1945, just after two world wars had ended and Britain had endured years of hardship, rationing and the destruction of its previous social strata. The Labour government had been elected to power after years of Conservative rule, which ushered in a new period of social change, including the …show more content…

Priestley’s audience had endured all of this hardship, and by the end of the war, the Birling’s attitude towards social responsibility and society would have been seen as out of date and potentially dangerous, given the political climate of this time. Priestley was trying to give the audience a retrospective view on social classes and conditions pre ww2. He explores the theme of social responsibility inter-generational, through the selfish, indifferent older Birlings and the younger generation, who perhaps represents the change post ww2.

In the play, Birling is a symbol of capitalism and is used by Priestley as a device to illustrate people’s views on social responsibility in 1912, where there was a rigid class system ideology. He is depicted as an arrogant character who believes that ‘every man is for himself.’ The constant use

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