24th June 2010 James Poole

How does J.B. Priestley express

his views on Social Responsibility
in “An Inspector Calls?

J.B. Priestley uses a range of effective devices in “An Inspector Calls” to

promote his views on social responsibility including character and action,
dramatic devices, language as well as historical and social setting. Written in
1945 and first produced in 1945, the play was set in 1912 just before World
War One where in Britain 5% of the population owned 87% of the wealth.
Therefore, the majority of people were very poor and only a few individuals
were affluent. Despite the play being set in 1912, it was produced in 1945
because Priestley wrote it to encourage people to make a fresh start and to
enable life never to be the same for the people of post-war Britain.

One way of promoting his views is through characters. Mr. Birling

represents the stereotypical rich employer of the day, showing a disregard to
the welfare of his employees as well as maintaining a capitalist view on his
business and life generally. “They were averaging about twenty-two and six,
which was neither more nor less than is paid in our industry. She
wanted...twenty-five shillings. I refused of course.” The two words “of course”
show that Mr. Birling doesn’t think about the consequences of sacking Eva Smith
and simply assumes that it is the obvious course of action. He doesn’t
acknowledge the fact that Eva Smith may depend on her job and the money that
accompanies it as a source of food.

Furthermore, Mr. Birling is only concerned for matters that are directly
involved with him. “Why the devil do you want to go upsetting the child like
that?”. Here Mr. Birling is angry at how his daughter is being treated by the
Inspector despite the fact that he has plenty of young women working for him
in extremely poor conditions – he could care for his young woman but not for
others.

One other interesting point to make regarding the Birlings is how the play
is set in one room. This simple idea shows how the Birlings are restricted and
isolated to that single room and so are their old-fashioned, out-of-date
thoughts and concepts. Also, it represents that whilst the room doesn’t change,
neither do the Birlings’ thoughts and principles on social life.

But what really shows that Mr. Birling simply isn’t aware of his actions is
how he accepts no responsibility in his part of the incident – “Still, I can’t
accept any responsibility”. This demonstrates how he doesn’t acknowledge the
personal circumstances of his workers and how they depend on money just as
much as he does. It’s as though he thinks that as long as he’s earning and making
profits he couldn’t care less. Consequently, this enables the audience to not only
dislike Mr. Birling but also the whole class system, particularly the upper
classes.

To contrast, Sheila is affected by the ordeal and becomes altogether

more down-to-earth. “They’re not just cheap labour, they’re people”. Sheila is
often used as a voice for Priestley’s views, she thinks that employers should be
socially aware of their employees and understands that they have lives and
problems of their own to deal with. Additionally, Sheila is the only person to
recognise her mistakes and realise that she’s done wrong. This illustrates how
Priestley believes that there’s hope in young people, it’s up to them to turn the
situation around.

The Inspector always shares his views after somebody else has done so.
“We were having a nice little celebration...and a nasty mess you’ve made of it”
then the Inspector says “A nice little promising life there...and a nasty mess
somebody’s made of it”. Here, the Inspector turns the table on Mr. Birling – he’s
concerned about his family get-together but is forgetting the fact that
somebody’s made a “nasty mess” of Eva Smith’s life, never mind a family get-
together. This quite clearly demonstrates how Mr. Birling is only concerned with
matters to do with himself and only himself whereas the Inspector gives the
wider, more significant picture of a typical socialist – J.B. Priestley.

So in order to get across these socialist views from the Inspector, J.B.
Priestley enables him to be rather influential and has a great effect on the
younger generation. “You seem to have made a great effect on this child,
Inspector” (Mr. Birling) then “ We often do on the young ones – they’re more
impressionable”. This imprints the concept of how the younger generation are
the future and that they have the power to bring about the appropriate changes
needed in society.
 Priestley’s views are also shown through language in the Inspector’s
speech. “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible
for each other”. Here we see how extremely persuasive the Inspector is as he
uses three dramatic, simple sentences that strip away opinion from fact – quite
the opposite to how Mr. Birling speaks. Also, these three sentences contribute
to the rule of three notion. Each one of the sentences begin with the pronoun
“we” which signifies how the Inspector is including everybody in what he says
and does whereas Birling frequently uses the pronoun “I” clearly symbolising how
he isn’t aware of being a member of one body and possibly suggesting that
Birling represents most of the upper classes. Priestley not only does this to
inform the characters but also the audience. Moreover, Priestley is such a
strong socialist that he threatens severe consequences (through the Inspector)
as a result of not being aware that we’re intertwined with each others’ lives.
“...then they will be taught in fire and blood and anguish “. Such powerful words
all under a semantic field of war have an unsettling effect on the audience that
makes them listen carefully to how if we are not aware of being responsible and
acknowledging that we are members of one body then harsh consequences will
occur that we otherwise would not have wanted to happen. In between each of
the three words Priestley writes the connective “ and” which builds up the
tension and makes it sound like the outcomes of not being responsible are in
plenty.

On the contrary, Mr. Birling’s speech focuses on very egoistic, self-

centred concepts. For example “But the way some of these cranks talk and write
now”. Mr Birling’s use of the word “ crank” implies somebody who’s wrong in the
head so perhaps Mr. Birling considers all people who disagree with him to be
wrong in the head. J.B. Priestley shows a common attitude that the upper
classes had at the time; that because they had lots of money they were
superior, always right. In addition he says “...as if we were all mixed up together
like bees” which is quite ironic because bees are very efficient animals yet Mr.
Birling is taking a negative view on them – bees (when they work together)
produce honey so he could be subliminally hinting that we could end up (as a
result of working collectively) in a sticky end.

Priestley uses stage directions to express his views: “The Inspector is

not a big man but creates at once a sense of massiveness, solidity and
purposefulness. He is a man in his fifties, dressed in a plain, darkish suit of the
period. He speaks carefully, weightily and has a disconcerting habit of looking
hard at the person he is addressing before actually speaking”. The Inspector is
rather secretive about sharing information about himself but is eager to gain
information from others. It is unclear as to which social standing the Inspector
comes from – if J.B. Priestley represents the Inspector then perhaps Priestley
is saying that we should abandon the social class system or that it is not
important and shouldn’t matter. Additionally, the Inspector can still control the
Birling family despite them not knowing which social class he belongs to, they
still let him waltz in and command them all to share information. They
themselves prove that the social class system is insignificant because they allow
an unknown person (all they are told is that he’s “an Inspector”) to question
them so intensively.

Stage lighting does actually help him to present his views. “...lighting
should be a pink and intimate colour until the Inspector arrives and then it
should be brighter and harder”. This represents how when the Birling family are
alone it is homely, comfortable and familiar for them but when the Inspector
enters, the room becomes brighter as though some aspects of the Birling family
and Mr. Croft (some negative) are exposed; their selfishness and greed. Pink is
a colour often associated with make-up and covering up areas of the face so it’s
hinting how the Birlings are pretentious and conceal their self-centredness by
using their middle class superiority as an excuse for not being socially
responsible. Such a subtle alteration to the lighting demonstrates what I think
is the entire message of the play; that unless you don’t stop and correct
somebody for not being socially responsible then they will persist to be so. The
Inspector in this case is the person who prevents the unsociably responsible
behaviour.

Priestley not only uses the Inspector but other stage directions to cast
his own opinion on the characters and what they say. “...that a man has to mind
his own business and look after himself and his own. The door bell rings.”. This
timely occurrence is as though Priestly is saying “Stop! You can’t say that!” to
Mr. Birling when he is commenting on how he thinks that as long as you’re doing
fine it shouldn’t matter about anybody else – completely against socialist views.
Once Priestley has put a stop to these views I believe he’s showing the audience
that other people can stop these views and promote social awareness in society.
 Overall, Priestley thinks that we should treat other people in a way that
acknowledges the potential consequences of your actions. We can look back at
the play and find evidence for this in language, characters, stage directions and
dramatic devices but also through Mr. Birling’s sacking of Eva Smith. Here, he
failed to realise how important the job was to Eva and what potentially could
happen as a result of his actions. It’s rather intriguing how this fundamental
mistake is shown through a supposed thoughtful, unbiased and reasonable
employer of a large number of young women. Priestley considers the middle to
upper classes to not be as good and just as they perhaps should be - money
clearly isn’t part of a recipe to become a good member of society. From these
numerous thoughts and ideas we can weave them together, therefore
understanding that Priestley is a very didactic writer in “An Inspector Calls”.
What must be discussed however is how this play is relevant in today’s
apparently modern, twenty-first century world; the distinct boundaries of the
working and upper classes remain intact although they have been brought closer
together and the government today is much more socially aware than in the
past. But can people really change? Are people able to sweep aside decades and
centuries of traditional class systems and the expectations of each sector? I
believe that the answer lies in whether people actually want to change and by
designing the Inspector in a very genuine, persuasive and down-to-earth man
Priestley encourages people to want to change their attitudes on social
responsibility.