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"An Inspector Calls" Essay
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“An Inspector Calls” Essay Essay Title: Study act three in the play “An Inspector Calls”, exploring Priestley’s dramatic methods and explain how an understanding of the historical and social context of the play might help shape audience response to this act and to the play as a whole. Written in the last months of World War 2 and set in 1912, two years before the start of World War 1, “An Inspector Calls” by J.B. Priestley presents its audience with contrasting and conflicting views about community and personal responsibility, which are still relevant at the beginning of the 21st century. He did this by setting it in 1912 when there was a huge social gap in society between the upper class and working class. Some even feared there might be a revolution. A war was already taking place in the Balkans between Montenegro and Turkey and the Titanic was to set sail but unfortunately sink the following week. The women’s suffragette movement was being lead by Emmeline Pankhurst for women’s right to vote in Britain. During the last century there had been a mass movement of people from agricultural work in the countryside to industrial work in the cities. Many people lived in unsanitary and squalid conditions with very poor wages and little education. Through the complacency of the characters Arthur Birling and Gerald Croft, we see the attitude of the wealthy classes towards themselves and the rest of society. It was an attitude of looking after oneself and expecting others to look after themselves. This attitude became very common in the 1980s under Mrs Thatcher’s Tory party. The central message that Priestley was trying to get over was that we are all responsible for each other in one way or another. At the beginning of the play the Birlings are celebrating their daughter’s engagement to the son of their business rivals. Priestley shows us that these people are very wealthy with very descriptive stage directions, such as the fact that they dress for dinner, drink champagne and port, smoked cigars and have a maid. The mood is very light hearted until the inspector arrives and tells them of the suicide of a girl named Eva Smith, who worked in one of Mr Birling’s factories.
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