An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls

1. social responsibility

   • The inspectors main focus: 1) His final speech is clear and to the point, is a summary of his lesson about responsibility
     • his aim is not to make the family feel guilty about Eva Smith, but to make them aware of the difficulties faced by the 'millions of Eva and John Smiths'
   • play reveals a lot about Priestly's socialist ideas. He was a socialist , used his plays to promote social responsibility and criticise the problems caused by the social divide
     • purpose of the play is to make the audience question not only their social responsibility, but also how responsible they are for their own actions. The audience are already wary of Birling's short-sighted opinions, so when he critcised socialism they are more inclined to disagree with him
       • ways Priestly uses Birling to promote socialist ideas: 1) during his speech at the start, Birling says the world will have ' peace and prosperity... except russia' Russia became a socialist state in 1917, and Priestly was interested in seeing how successful this was in creating greater equality for the Russian people. The first production of 'An Inspector Calls' was in Moscow.