An Inspector Calls Context and Summary

Name 5 key points about the context and setting of the play

- Class Divide- despite the recent legalisation of trade unions, the law still favoured the factory and business owners over the working classes
- While the play is set in 1912 (Edwardian Britain), it was written in 1945 (after ww1 and ww2)
- Gender Divide- women tended to earn 1/3 to 1/2 of what men earned,
All women didn't get the vote until 1928,
Those who didn't work were confined to domestic duties, Very difficult for women to get a divorce as they risked losing their children
Acceptable for men to have multiple partners, but not women
- Women who became pregnant outside of marriage received no state support, often relied on charities- JB priestley became an advocate of women's rights
- Priestley worked at a textile mill at age 16, where he saw first hand the hardship the working classes endured

What important things do the audience learn from the opening of the play

- The play begins in the Birling’s dining room, which is described as containing ‘good solid furniture’ and of being ‘heavily comfortable, but not cosy and homelike’.

- The play begins in medias res (in the middle of things), so we never quite feel comfortable or at home here

- A parlour maid is described as clearing the table of ‘dessert plates and champagne glasses’ whilst also providing a ‘decanter of port, cigar box and cigarettes’- works as an ostentatious show of wealth- makes the audience feel uncomfortable and belittled, symbol of wealth and power- ww2 audience will still be using rations, will resonate more with them

- Immediately establishes an antagonistic divide between the materialistic edwardian family and the rationed, deprived audience

How does the Inspector behave when he arrives

- The Inspector’s arrival takes place immediately after Birling’s speech in which he chastises the very notion of ‘community and all that nonsense’ and instead declares that a man has to ‘look after himself and his own’

- The Inspector disrupts Birling’s speech and therefore represents, from the very start of the play, the disruption of the ideology that Birling was espousing. Notice also Priestley’s use of ‘sharp’: this is not going to be a pleasant encounter, but rather has violent connotations.

- The light changes, upon the Inspector’s entrance, from ‘pink and intimate’ to a ‘brighter and harder’

- He is the moral compass and Priestley’s mouthpiece: he is the textual mechanism through which the play is able to impart its didactic message.

How does Sheila's response to the Inspector differ from Birling's response

Birling

- Birling refuses to accept any responsibility: ‘I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?’. It is exactly this abdication of responsibility that Priestley seeks to undermine and by articulating it through Birling- 'it’s my duty to keep labour costs down’

- The lexical choice of ‘duty’ highlights the disparity between what Birling thinks his responsibility is and what the Inspector thinks it ought to be: for Birling his own concern is his pocket and not workers such as Eva.

Furthermore, to a post-war audience, ‘duty’ would have had connotations of war (‘do your duty’) and as such Birling’s comments would have seemed even more trivial and as such further heightened the distance between him and the audience.

Sheila

- Throughout the initial exchanges Sheila grows in confidence and ultimately challenges the prejudices of her father: ‘But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people’. Clearly, this isn’t a distinction that Birling understands.

- Shelia’s denouncement of her father engages with one of the main themes of the play: the young generation are the ones most susceptible to change. This motif will be continued and developed as the play progresses.

- Despite Sheila’s apparent integrity it quickly becomes apparent that she also played a role in Eva’s downfall

As the play continues, Sheila’s transformation and willingness to change her behaviour comes to represent and symbolise exactly the kind of change Priestley hopes his audience will make.

Sheila, unlike Mr Birling, comes to represent the moral template which the audience ought to emulate; a change provoked by the Inspector within the world of the play and perhaps, one might imagine, by Priestley himself out of it

What does Mrs Birling's behaviour reveal about the lives of working-class women

- Mrs Birling explains that she refused to help her because 'she wasn't married', which would have been especially frowned upon in Edwardian society.
- Mrs Birling has a complete lack of empathy has for Eva: 'I did nothing I'm ashamed for [...] I used my influence to have it refused. And in spite of what happened to the girl since, I consider I did my duty'- again, Priestley's use of 'duty' in this context would have been especially jarring for a post-war audience
- Priestley's evocation of 'influence', similar to Sheila leveraging her influence to have Eva fired, underlines the way in which influence wielded by the wrong people can lead to a disastrous outcome
- This section of the play also functions as a social commentary on the efficacy of charitable bodies. In the Edwardian Period if a person needed help they would typically go to a charity and rely on the 'kindness of strangers'. However, the Welfare State saw to put an end to this. Thus, the play might be seen as an attempt to justify the introduction of the Welfare State by denigrating the previous system of charity, teasing out its many flaws.

How does Eric respond to the Inspector's questions

- Priestley's use of 'insisted' immediately establishes the power dynamic between Eric and Eva where she, as ever, is stripped of autonomy and power. She has, it would seem, no recourse to say no to Eric
- This is made even more clear in the next section of this revelation that Eva 'didn't want me to go in'. Again, Eva is depicted as vulnerable and powerless with Eric a predator whose drunken desires outweigh what Eva wants. She does not, in this moment, have the ability to control her own fate, as was ever the case
- Eric then explains why it was Eva could not reject Eric's unwanted advances as, apparently, he 'was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty'. Clearly, Eva felt threatened by what Eric might do next, and one could only surmise there is the threat of physical violence unless Eva does what he 'insists' upon
- Whilst Eric does accept liability more than his parents he still does attempt to relinquish his responsibility. Upon hearing of his mother's involvement he stammers: 'Then — you killed her. She came to you to protect me - and you turned her away - yes, and you killed her - and the child she'd have had too [...] damn you, damn you'. Priestley's repetition of 'you' is telling here
- Like Sheila, although certainly not as dramatically, Eric has been changed by the events of the night

How have the relationships between the Birlings changed at the end of the play?

- After delivering his climactic speech the Inspector leaves and immediately Mr Birling reverts to his old ways: 'There'll be a public scandal!' and also 'I was almost certain for a knighthood in the next Honours List'
- This shows that Mr Birling and also Mrs Birling have not changed during the play: they are selfish, cold, preoccupied with their public image, impervious to the Inspector's warnings. They are symbols of the Edwardian values that Priestley has sought to dismantle.
- However, this is not true of Eric and Sheila. Upon hearing his father Eric declares: 'Oh - for God's sake! What does it matter now whether or not you get a knighthood or not?'
- Similarly, Sheila says: 'I behaved badly too. I know I did. I'm ashamed of it. But now you're beginning all over again to pretend that nothing much has happened' and then also 'The point is, you don't seem to have learnt anything'.
- There is also the symbol of her engagement ring: she is at first enamoured by it only to then reject it: she is rejecting the materialist values that she initially lived by.
- When the Birlings receive a call from the police regarding the suicide of a young girl, this relates to Dunne's theory of time in which the past exists in the present and the one continually shapes the other: history will repeat itself until all of the Birling family have learned their lesson.

What are the main structural features of the play?

- 3 acts, each ends with a cliffhanger
- Uses lighting to establish tone- pink and intimate to brighter and harsher
- Cliffhangers give the audience time to process what has been said while keeping them engaged in the story
- The cliffhanger at the end indicates a cyclical structure, which again could relate to Dunne's theory of time- is this a threat to the audience that unless they change, history will repeat itself in the form of another war? (is 'fire and blood and anguish' actually directed at the audience)
- Throughout the play Priestley plays around with time, sometimes referred to as a 'Time Play', and leaves many questions unanswered, which forces the audience to ask themselves questions - the ambiguity is crucial, as it also means that it is up to interpretation, and allows many messages to be communicated simultaneously.

What is the role of the Inspector

- The inspector as a character is a source of ambiguity, and therefore is the one who creates the most questions, and who, as an audience, we know the least about; is he a police inspector? Is he human? Is he even real? Because of this, we don't really think of him as an actual character, more like a third party narrator, who drives the story and works as a voice for the writer; he communicates the moral messages to the audience, and warns them of their actions in the future.
- He is also a dramatic device and an allegorical figure for socialism, which again promotes Priestley's ideas in throughout the play
- He also functions as a foil to Birling, the allegorical figure for capitalism, and when he ultimately beats him, this symbolises the inevitable victory of socialism over capitalism, and subconsciously, by showing the satisfying putting down of Birling, implants the belief of the socialist victory in the audience.
- He can also function as a moral absolute for good, as well as a sort of morality police; as the inspector progresses through the play, and condemns those who have wronged Eva Smith, it forces the audience to look at themselves and compare themselves with the other characters; are they a mr birling, can they be an inspector goole? By doing this Priestley encourages change in the middle/upper class audience.