Inspector calls Flashcards
The inspector
introduction of the inspector
The inspector is a proxy for Priestley’s views, he is a socialist and believes in responsibility. He arrives at the Birling house to try to get them to take their responsibility of Eva Smith’s death.
The socialist message of the inspector
Responsibility:
“we don’t live alone, we are members of one body. We are responsible for each other”, this directly contrasts to Mr Birlings view that “everyman looks after himself and family”. The inspectors view contrasts to Birlings and the capitalist audience. By the inspector echoing Christianity “members of one body”. Most of the audience would of been Christians in 1945 and would regularly go to church. This Biblical would be instantly recognized to them. Which links to Priestly’s message of ‘all responsible for each other’ to the Christian message. This is persuasive and tells the audience that a Christian society should be socialists.
The inspector been anti-war
“If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish”. This is a description of world war which the audience lived through and one that’s going on, this is a direct link of capitalism and desire for war. People that rule society are greedy and want profit and money are the same people who want war.
War is the consequence of giving power to men, and an economic consequence of capitalism as in order to expand markets and defeat competition Britain will go against it’s main economic rival Germany, with devastating consequences for the upper class. This is because due to their status their sons would be officer leaders who led everyone from the front, thus first tp be shot showing capitalism is willing to sacrifice lives to achieve powerful economic business.
The Goole of Christmas yet to come- inspector
Once the inspector leaves the family to exercise their free will and choose to learn the inspectors lesson or reject it. Ironically similarly to scrooge as he learns the lesson in Christmas carol but the Birling parents and Gerald reject his lesson.
In tradition of a Christmas Carol as ‘Goole’ is a reminder of a ghost and an allusion to Dickens’s ‘the ghost of Christmas yet to come’. When the ghost leaves scrooge he is also free to learn the lesson that ‘we are all responsible for each other’, because scrooge learns that lesson the future is altered such as Bob Cratchit lives. Similarly to Eva, is they learn their lesson Eva will live.
The Inspectors language
He uses emotive language when describing Eva as a ‘pretty’ and ‘lively’ girl. These attractive words make the audience more sympathetic towards her. This sympathy is strengthened by the harsh tone used to describe her death “with a burnt-out inside on a slab”.
Omnipotence
When the Inspector arrives the lighting changes from ‘pink and intimate’ to ‘brighter and harder’, these adjectives ‘pink’ and ‘intimate’ connate to warmth but the adjectives of ‘harder’ opposes this. Showing him to be a dramatic device of Priestly, symbolizing how he wants society to change. The lightining before he arrived shows the stereotypical middle-class family, who were happy while been ignorant of working class, mirroring how priestly wants society to improve. In an Edwardian society this symbolizes by light in which nothing can hide.
