Inspector Calls Coursework

To what extent is the inspector a dramatic device used by JB Prietley to articulate his views on politics and society?

This is the question I’ve been asked to carry out, throughout my coursework I am going to pursue the way in which he uses the inspector as his center device to get his views and opinions on society at that time.

One of Priestley’s reasons for writing \"An Inspector Calls\" was to make a point about the way people behaved in society at the time. He wrote his characters to reflect what people were actually like and what they believed in . Mr. and Mrs Birling are the typical affluent couple of the age, looking down on the working class as less than human and unimportant. Mrs Birling even dismisses her by saying \"Girls of that class\".

They are caught up in their own sense of importance and respectability and fail to see what’s really important. Mr. Birling believes he’s just responsible for himself and his family, but Priestley doesn’t believe that this view of life is right.

Priestley uses the Inspector to challenge the views of the Birling family and also the audience. Through the Inspector’s questioning, and as events involving Eva Smith are revealed, we learn that we are all caught up together, \"like bees in a hive,\" and our actions do have consequences on others. Eric and Sheila learn from what the Inspector has to teach them, whereas the others do not.

One of the most important themes which Priestley conveys in An Inspector Calls, is that we all share responsibility for other people’s welfare, and that wealthy people have obligations to look after those less fortunate than themselves. Not only does Mr. Birling represent this aspect of selfishness, but when he begins to transmit these principles to the younger generation the Inspector calls to teach an alternative way of thinking and behaving. Although the mysterious Inspector Goole is a police officer, his final speech shows that he is far more concerned...