I liked and enjoyed the play “An Inspector Calls” because I thought it was interesting and I liked the surprising twist at the end. This play is a play about a spoilt wealthy family just trying to improve their social standards. An inspector comes and interrogates the Birling’s and Gerald Croft about a girl, Eva Smith, who committed suicide by drinking a bottle of disinfectant. The inspector slowly gets these people into admitting that they all played a major part in the “hours of agony” P17 that turned Eva Smith “inside out”. After the Birling’s have been shook up and the truth has all come out. Gerald finds out that the inspector, inspector Goole isn’t an inspector at all and that a police inspector’s coming round to ask them a few questions about a “girl who just died – on her way to the Infirmary after swallowing some disinfectant”.
Whilst reading and watching this play I realised that Sheila was the antithesis of Eva Smith, Eva has worked hard all her life to make her life worth living and Sheila was just handed life on a plate. Even when Eva Smith had the chance to destroy the Birling family by saying that Eric was the father she didn’t, but Sheila didn’t think twice about getting Eva sacked from her job. I think this shows that Sheila was bought up in a class and a family that gets what they want and they do this by abusing their power.
Mr Birling uses his power to sack Eva after she asked for a pay rise, “its better to ask for the world than to take it” is what the inspector said. Is it not her right to ask for better in the world if Eva puts in the effort for it? I think that Priestly was trying to express his views that everyone should be equal and that should occur by the law changing and not a revolution-taking place. Which was basically why J.B Priestly was in the Fabian society because wanted things to change but through law and not through communism like in animal farm.
Mrs Birling abused her power by persuading the rest of the board to look away from Eva’s case. Sheila abused her power by threatening to close her mothers account in a shop; she only did this because Eva looked better in the hat than she did. The Birling’s are the antithesis of the Fabian society and Priestly’s views. Priestly used the idea of Eva Smith and Sheila Birling being the same ages very well. Eva and Sheila are from very different classes; they’re completely different in personality. I think that Priestly is trying to show the public how different people can be and maybe he was trying to say that Sheila was the epitome of the in a higher class.
As I was reading and watching this play I realised that J.B Priestly was determined to keep to the three rules that the Ancient Greeks set. He manages to stick to every one and he even kept to the time rule to the exact second, this proves what a skilled writer Priestly was. I thought that Priestly used the factor of time very well. He did this by making the inspector always conscious to it; he’s always pushing them as if he needs to keep to a strong schedule. “I’m losing all patience with you people” (p46), he doesn’t have time to be patient. The inspector knows what’s coming next, for example on page 49 when first he raises his hand; this symbolises that he is in control. That’s a very definite hand signal, then the front door goes, he knew exactly when the bell would ring and that it would be Eric.
This happened at the very end of act 2, and more tension occurred because the curtain falls “quickly”, this is clever as it would leave the audience in shock. J.B. Priestly has used this very thoughtfully because he has now bought in the audience who would discuss what has just happened amongst each other, getting them more excited and interested in what’s going to happen next. If the play would just run straight from act 2 to act 3 then I think that some of the shock would be lost because the audience wouldn’t have time to run over their minds what had just happened. Therefor wouldn’t be paying complete attention to the next 5minutes of the play.
Because of the fact that he kept to the factor of time to the exact second then it made the book so much more enjoyable to read. This is so because it raises the tension and if the time was over a few days then the tension is broken up. The quickening pace of act 2 was vital to this play. It didn’t give time for the Birling’s to realise what they were saying and what was happening. It also doesn’t give the audience and it didn’t give me the time to work out how the play would end. This added to the blow when it suddenly hit me that Eric was the dad and Mrs Birling had virtually killed his son, her grandson because of her selfish ways.
Whilst watching the film I thought that the person playing Eric was quite talented and made me feel sorry for him although he drunk and was only with Eva Smith for sex. Because of this fact my attention was diverted away from what he was doing which was very wrong and just as wrong as what Gerald did to Eva. This also didn’t make me think that Eric was adding to the tragedies of her slowly deteriorating life, but that he’s just a young boy driven to alcoholism.
The film though didn’t stick to the 3 rules but I thought that the film was very good and gave me a different perspective. Although the film didn’t stick to all the 3 rules, it still kept the chronological order the same. If the film didn’t keep to the same chronological order then the film would loose its tension and the drama with Mrs Birling wouldn’t have taken place, as she would have already known about Eric.
