The Presentation of the Inspector in An Inspector Calls :: J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls Plays Essays

The Presentation of the Inspector in An Inspector CallsJ.B. Priestley was born in Yorkshire on 13th September 1894. Hegained his writing experience in the years before the war 1911-1914he did not work among professional writers he was slightly people whoread a great deal, cared a lot for at least one of the arts, andpreferred a real talk and enthusiastic arguments to social chit-chat. Despitehaving grown up into his fathers circle of socialist friends, hefound himself joining in in their political discussions/arguments. Itwas around this time that Priestley started to write in his frontattic bedroom. At the age of twenty, and at the outbreak of war, in 1914, he joinedthe infantry. He left in 1919, having seen active front-line servicein France and having narrowly escaped being killed when a German shellexploded three yards away from him and having been a victim of agas-attack. In An Inspector Calls, Priestley uses a lot of his political viewsin the Inspectors speeches by using him as a kind of a mouthpiece forhis socialism. The play was written in 1946 however it was set in1912, just before the outbreak of WWI. This was a new era when peoplewere no longer willing to give the poverty or the categorize system thathad gone before. Priestley strongly believed that everyone had someresponsibility for others in society and not just their own welfare. He established that change was coming and explores this theme in hisplay. Priestley believed that events are repeated over again unlesspeople face up to their past activities, like Eric and Sheila do, andonly this canister bring about a positive and equal change in society. At the start of the play, Act 1, Mr Birling is portrayed to theaudience as quite a self confident and opinionated person who doesntbelieve in collective responsibility. He feels he belongs to asocial class that makes him superior and somewhat divorced from othermembers of society. He has no concept of helping, or beingresponsible for others. T his is shown in Act 1 when he is with thefamily and his filles new fianc, Gerald Croft, celebrating theirengagement. He made a few speeches that give the audience a bad viewof him and make him look arrogant and ignorant. hardly because theKaiser makes a speech or twoEverything to loose with war, and nothingto gain. And to Eric, And I say there isnt a chance of warin aworld thatll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labouragitations and all these silly little war scares.