an inspector calls by j b priestley prepared by kaushal desai

Prof. Kaushal Desai 1

An Inspector CallsBy J. B. Priestley

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John Boynton Priestley• He was an English novelist, playwright,

scriptwriter, social commentator, and broadcaster.

oOther plays Dangerous Corner (1932) Laburnum Grove (1933) Eden End (1934) Cornelius (1935) Time and the Conways (1937) I Have Been Here Before (1937) When We Are Married (1938)


Themes of The Play

Themes

Class

Youth & Age

Responsibility and Avoiding

It

Cause & EffectTime

The Supernatural

Social Duty


Theme: Social Responsibility• J.B Priestley was a socialist and one of the big questions he is asking his audience is ‘How should society be organised?’

• He is offering us a choice between socialism in which the rich are compelled to share their wealth, or through capitalism where you are allowed to keep more of your money.


Theme: Social Responsibility• The two different views of society are represented by

Birling and the Inspector.• The Inspector tells Birling that: “We are responsible

for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”

• Birling tells his family that everyone is on their own, “A man has to make his own way – has to look after himself.” p.9

• The relationship between the working class and the rich is the way that Priestley explores the struggle between socialism and capitalism.


Theme: Social Responsibility• Eva Smith is symbolic of the way that all workers are treated. The Inspector tells Eric that he used Eva like “an animal, a thing, not a person.” p.56

• The idea of the play is what happens to Eva Smith represents what happens to all poor workers.

• In his final speech the Inspector makes that obvious (p.56) “One Eva Smith has gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do.”


Theme: TimeRemember the play has two time

frames that you have to remember.

1. It is set in 1912 – a time before the horror of World War One.

2. BUT it was written in the Second World War in 1945.Priestley is contrasting a very innocent time with a time of horror, bombing and mass killing.


Theme: Time

• Priestley was really interested in different theories about time and was very interested in a thinker called J.W Dunne. Dunne wrote a book suggesting that the same things might be happening simultaneously all the time.

• He believed that people who were specially trained could see backwards and forwards in time. Priestley thought that this might mean you could be warned by visitors from the future about how to behave.


Theme: Time• However that wasn’t the only odd belief that Priestley had.

• He also liked the ideas of a mystic called Ouspensky who pioneered a theory called ‘eternal recurrence’.

• His idea was that you’d live your life over and over until you’d made all of the right choices. This means that you’d get the chance to avoid mistakes you’d made before.


Theme: Responsibility and Avoiding It• This play also give highlights on how you are living in the

world of determination and how will your risk are.• Each of the characters here have their responsibly but to

avoiding the task and situation they are making excuses and throwing their decisions on others.

Characters


Arthur

Birling

Sybil Birlin

g

Sheila

Birling

Eric Birlin

g

Birling Family


Other Characters

Inspector Goole

Gerald Croft Edna Eva

SmithDaisy

Renton


Details about Characters Arthur Birling• Husband of Sybil, father of Sheila and Eric. Priestley describes him as a "heavy-looking man" in his mid-fifties, with easy manners but "rather provincial in his speech.

• Former Lord-Mayor of Brumley and as such he is full of his own self-importance “I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago.”


Arthur Birling• As a local magistrate he sees himself as being above the law. He thinks he can get away with things.

• In Act One he says he know the Chief Constable – “we play golf together sometimes” p.16

• Look at his reaction when he thinks they’ve rumbled the Inspector…

• At the end of the play he is glad to have avoided a public scandal.


Arthur Birling• He is totally unaware of the effects of his actions on other people.

• He doesn’t care that there are low wages for workers. He celebrates ripping off his workers and customers “lower costs and higher prices” p.4

• He is totally unrealistic about the future.• His speech about the Titanic calls it “unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”. P.7

• He wrongly doesn’t think there will be a war – “There’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere.” p.7


Sybil Birling• Married to Arthur. Mother of Sheila and Eric. Priestley has

her "about fifty, a rather cold woman," and significantly her husband's "social superior." Sybil is, like her husband, a woman of some public influence, sitting on charity organizations and having been married two years ago to the Lord Mayor.

• She is an icily impressive woman, arguably the only one of all the Birlings to almost completely resist the Inspector's attempts to make her realize her responsibilities.

• She is also a hypocrite and judges lower classes more harshly than her own family.

• She calls (in a moment of dramatic irony) her own son a ‘drunken young idler’.


Sheila Birling• Engaged to be married to Gerald. Daughter of Arthur Birling and Sybil Birling, and sister of Eric. Priestley describes her as "a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited," which is precisely how she comes across in the first act of the play.

• Sheila is the character who works out the tragedy of Eva Smith most quickly.

• When she admits that she was at fault for having Eva fired from Milwards. She asks the Inspector if “I’m really responsible?” p.23


Sheila Birling• She also works out that Gerald has been up to no good. “I expect you’ve done things you’re ashamed of too.” p.23

• Sheila is sometimes called ‘the conscience’ of the play, as she is one most troubled by Eva’s story.

• She appeals for the others to help the inspector. P.30

• At the end of the play she doesn’t seem ready to take Gerald back. “No. Not yet. It’s too soon. I must think.”


Eric Birling• Son of Arthur and Sybil Birling. Brother of Sheila Birling. Eric is in his "early twenties, not quite at ease, half shy, half assertive" and, we discover very early in the play, has a drinking problem.

• He has been drinking steadily for almost two years. He works at Birling and Company, and his father, we presume, is his boss. He is quite naive, in no way as worldly or as cunning as Gerald Croft.

• By the end of the play, like his sister, Eric becomes aware of his own responsibilities.


Inspector Goole• The Inspector "need not be a big man, but he creates at

once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness." He is in his fifties, and he is dressed in a plain dark suit.

• Priestley describes him as speaking "carefully, weightily ... and he has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before he speaks."

• He initially seems to be an ordinary Brumley police inspector, but (as his name might suggest) comes to seem something more ominous--perhaps even a supernatural being.

• The precise nature of his character is left ambiguous by Priestley, and it can be interpreted in various ways.


Inspector Goole• Goole always tells it like it is and advances the political

philosophy of the play.• Look at dialogue in Act Two when he puts forward the

idea that the rich should care for the poor. “Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.” p.41

• The mystery of the Inspector is heightened by his name – ‘Goole’. This technique is called nomenclature.

• When he disappears we are left with the question of who he was.

• Is he a vision from the past or future?• In he representative of all of our consciences?


Gerald Croft• Engaged to be married to Sheila. His parents, Sir George and Lady Croft, are above the Birlings socially, and it seems his mother disapproves of his engagement to Sheila. He is, Priestley says, "an attractive chap about thirty... very much the easy well-bred young-man-about-town."

• He works for his father's company, Crofts Limited, which seems to be both bigger and older than Birling and Company.


Gerald Croft• He is also quite weak and willing to do the easy thing.

Look at how he sucks up to Birling – “I believe you’re right Sir’ p.6, but also on page 15 and 17.

• He is also a liar, he tells Sheila that he has been very busy at work when he has been having an affair.

• In the end he is very much concerned with his reputation above everything else.

• Look at his relief when he finds out the hospital has not got the body of a suicide victim.

• He believes that the most important thing is if the Inspector is a fake as “that makes all the difference.” p.63


Edna• "The parlour maid." Her name is very similar to "Eva," and her presence onstage is a timely reminder of the presence of the lower classes, whom families like the Birlings unthinkingly keep in thrall.


Eva Smith• A girl who the Inspector claims worked for Birling and was

fired, before working for Milwards and then being dismissed.

• She subsequently had relationships with Gerald Croft and then Eric Birling (by whom she became pregnant).

• Finally she turned to Mrs. Birling's charitable committeee for help, but she committed suicide two hours before the time of the beginning of the play; she drank strong disinfectant.

• It is possible, though, that the story is not quite true and that she never really existed as one person. Gerald Croft's suggestion that there wasmore than one girl involved in the Inspector's narrative could be more accurate.


Daisy Renton• A name that Eva Smith assumes.


Plot• An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J.

B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 in the Soviet Union and in 1946 in the UK. It is one of Priestley's best known works for the stage, and is considered to be one of the classics of mid20th century English theatre.

• The play is a three act drama, which takes place on a single night in April 1912, focusing on the prosperous upper middleclass Birling family, who live in a comfortable home in the fictional town of Brumley, "an industrial city in the north Midlands".

(wiki)


Plot• Arthur Birling a wealthy mill owner and local politician and

his family are celebrating the engagement of daughter Sheila to Gerald Croft, the son of one of Birling's competitors, Croft Limited. In attendance are Arthur's wife Sybil and their adult children Sheila and Eric.

• Eric, the younger, has a drinking problem that is discreetly ignored. After dinner, Arthur speaks about the importance of self-reliance. He talks about his impending knighthood and about how "a man has to look after himself and his own."


Plot• Inspector Goole arrives immediately, interrupting the

evening and explaining that a woman called Eva Smith has killed herself by drinking strong disinfectant. He implies that she has left a diary naming names, including members of the Birling family.

• Goole produces a photograph of Eva and shows it to Arthur, who acknowledges that she worked in one of his mills. He admits that he dismissed her from Birling & Co. 18 months ago for her involvement in an abortive workers' strike. He denies responsibility for her death.


Plot• Sheila enters the room and is drawn into the discussion.

After prompting from Goole, she admits to recognising Eva as well. She confesses that Eva served her in a department store, Milwards, and Sheila contrived to have her fired for an imagined slight. She admits that Eva's behaviour had been blameless and that the firing was motivated solely by Sheila's jealousy and spite towards a pretty workingclass woman.


Plot• Sybil enters the room and Goole continues his interrogation,

revealing that Eva was also known as Daisy Renton. Gerald starts at the mention of the name and Sheila becomes suspicious.

• Gerald admits that he met a woman by that name in the Palace Bar. He gave her money and arranged to see her again. Goole reveals that Gerald had installed Eva as his mistress, and gave her money and promises of continued support before ending the relationship. Arthur and Sybil are horrified.

• As an ashamed Gerald exits the room, Sheila acknowledges his nature and credits him for speaking truthfully but also signals that their engagement is over by handing the ring, that Gerald had bought for her, back to him.


Plot• Goole identifies Sybil as the head of a women's charity to which

Eva had turned for help. Despite Sybil's haughty responses, she eventually admits that Eva, pregnant and destitute, had asked the committee for financial aid. Sybil had convinced the committee that the girl was a liar and that her application should be denied.

• Despite vigorous cross-examination from Goole, Sybil denies any wrongdoing. Sheila begs her mother not to continue, but Goole plays his final card, making Sybil declare that the "drunken young man" who had made Eva pregnant should give a "public confession, accepting all the blame". Eric enters the room, and after brief questioning from Goole, he breaks down, admitting that he drunkenly slept with Eva before meeting up with her several times later and then stole £50 (~ £1570 in December 2016)[5]from his father's business to help her when she became pregnant. Arthur and Sybil are upset by this, and the evening dissolves into angry recriminations.


Plot• The implication resulting from Goole's questioning is that

each of the people there that evening had contributed to Eva's despondency and suicide.

• He reminds the Birlings that actions have consequences, and that all people are intertwined in one society, saying, "If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish", alluding to the impending World War. Goole then leaves.


Plot• Gerald returns, telling the family that there may be no

"Inspector Goole" on the police force. Arthur makes a call to the Chief Constable, who confirms this. Gerald points out that as Goole was lying about being a policeman, there may be no dead girl.

• Placing a second call to the local infirmary, Gerald determines that no recent cases of suicide have been reported. The elder Birlings and Gerald celebrate, with Arthur dismissing the evening's events as "moonshine" and "bluffing". The younger Birlings, however, still realise the error of their ways and promise to change. Gerald is keen to resume his engagement to Sheila, but she is reluctant, since he still admitted to having had an affair.


Plot• The play ends abruptly with a telephone call, taken by

Arthur, who reports that a young woman has died, a suspected case of suicide by disinfectant, and that the local police are on their way to question the Birlings.

• The true identity of Goole is never explained, but it is clear that the family's confessions over the course of the evening are true, and that they will be disgraced publicly when news of their involvement in Eva's demise is revealed.


Questions to think about…1. What do you understand by this quote, “If man will not

learn that lesson then he will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”

2. Is this the ending of the play?3. Who is the Inspector Goole really is?4. Is there any identity about death person who suicide?5. How the situation is playing the role and how will reader

connect the things were going in the play? 6. How reader’s approach is after reading this play?


Work Citation • Priestley, J B. An Inspector Calls. Moscow, Soviet Union,

1945.• —. An Inspector Calls-From Wikipedia, the free

encyclopedia. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Priestley>.

•


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an inspector calls by j b priestley prepared by kaushal desai

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