capitalism v socailism in aic Flashcards
mr b and capitlism context and paragraph starter
in his didactic play priestley uses arthur birling as a mouthpiece for the greedy and selfish nature of noveau rich industrialist men and indeed capitalism as a whole.
as he is a self made business man he is the respected standard for many capitalists and many would view him as the rule of how hard work and prosperity breeds success, however priestley looks to subvert this and show how he builds his success on the oppression of others and uses the scrutiny from the old money people as fuel to let out a need for control over his workers, repressing them of any power
mr b capitalism paragraph structure
upon introduction we immediatley grow a dislike for him due to his description as ‘heavy looking, portentous’- heavy looking creates imagery for the sterotype of capitlism being pig like and greedy. it also is a phsyical manifestation of capitalisms dominece over society at the time
priestley demonstrates the backwards nature of his work through his relations with his employees, whom he vies as a liability and a statistic rather than a mutual reltaitonship, if they through experince and hard work like he preaches ask for higher wages they are a liability as he is pushing for the cheapest labourers, its clear capitlism breeds selfishness and also hypocracy as he cannot look out for others to become socially mobile as he is desparate to conform
he is not receptible to needed change as the inspector is, linking to how the labour gov had tighter control over private business than he wouldve been allowed
furthermore its clear that he represents ho capitlism breeds selfishness and materialism- he sees the marriage between his daughter and gerald as the ‘happiest day of his life’ however shamefully not forlove but for the transactional purpose of gaining scoietal respect, his hummanity has been lost to greed
hes also overly confident in the economy as he sees himself as a rising industrialist as being part of the reason it had become so prosperous, hence why he mocks his youngers as being boys and youngsters- he does not view them as hard enough workers and hence sees them as demasculatnised- a mataphor for his condeince in his economy and his hubris is through the mass developement of the titanic, the fact that he deems it as ‘absolutely unskinable’ despite the dramantic irony that it sunk on first voyage, shows how rocky the economy is and how he is arrogantly unaware of such, he continuous this foolishness through belittling war- and so the reader begins to associate his opinion with wringness as he immediatley enters a speech on capitalist values
inspector paragraph starter and context
the inspector is a foil to mr birling and a moutpiece of priestley whos aim is to both juxtapose the miopic capitlaist values expressed by arthur and to indroduce a more positive new socialist mindset to a change receptible post war audience
inspector paragraph plan
upon his abrupt entry the inspector interrupts a lecture given by mr b to eric, here we get a sense of relief that we begin to assocaite with the inspector as he is a break from the droning miopic values, whilst also this could be symbolic of how hes come to revolutionalise the mindsets of the youths away from capitalist brainwashing
he immediatley juxtaposes the nature of arthur and will continue to throughout, every clear wrong is combatted by a moral socialist solution, mr b speaks ‘provinically’ and in greta quantity to compensate for his lack of factual substance, whilst the inspector speaks in ‘carefully and weightily’ as he can rely on the depth of his words
whilst the actions of the birlings are very telling of their immorality and would likely shock the audience to opose capitalism as it is, the place of the inspector is to call them out and to punish them in a way that is symbolic of how priestley hoped that socialist regime would completely dismantle the victorian conservative structure
he shows this promise of destruction bred by capitlaism in ‘fire and blood and anguish’ to a post war audeince this wouldve been ringing true as many of the atrocities they faced due to the second world war relate sto this, it was indeed a conflict of selfishness and power. whilst it also holds biblical connotations to hell and eternal suffeirng if man does not grow more empathetic and aware of the importance of community
he is far more moral and hopes to raise awareness to the brilings of the immorality of their actions as its apparent like the audince they actually may be blissfully unaware- like the pink tinted lighting
