What social and historical issues are apparent in An Inspector Calls? How do issues appear to us tod - page 1
Keywords: What social and historical issues are apparent in An Inspector Calls? How do such issues appear to us today? J.B Priestly social class
By ruth on 08/11/2006 17:22:00
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
What social and historical issues are apparent in An Inspector Calls? How do such issues appear to us today?
An Inspector Calls, by J. B. Priestley, is the story of Arthur Birling and his family, and the night an inspector calls to investigate the story of a girl who has committed suicide. The play brings up social and historical issues, as well as being like a detective story. Some issues evident in An Inspector Calls appear quite different today than they would have in 1912. In this essay I identify social and historical issues such as class and war and examine whether they have changed since the play was written.
An issue apparent in An Inspector Calls which I see as very significant is social class. The Birlings are of high class; Arthur Birling runs his own successful port business. He sees his family as being superior to those of lower class; his wife Sybil also feels this way and the pair make rude remarks about this.
Mrs Birling at one point in the play says "as if a girl of that sort would refuse money”. Mrs Birling says this when she’s describing what happened when Eva sought charity at her committee. This comment shows her presumptions of the lower class - thinking a poor person would take any opportunity to gain money, even if it was stolen. In An Inspector Calls the upper class parents are shown to be very snooty and full of themselves and their unpleasantness towards the lower class is one way this is demonstrated.
Mrs Birling also feels girls like Eva have no morals: “she was claiming fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position”. Here Mrs Birling expresses how she thinks a girl in a dire situation would feel. But as she hasn’t been in Eva’s position she has no idea about the “feelings and scruples” she could be feeling. Neither is it the sole right of higher class people to claim “fine feelings”. Mr and Mrs Birling think they are much higher and more important than anyone poorer than them, and Arthur even wishes to be knighted purely to gain a higher status.
In 1912 when the play was set it is shown that the upper class had a lot more power than today. They could effortlessly get anyone sacked
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