Gender Roles In J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls
By: Kevana McGough
Explore one or two moments in the play when Priestley makes the Inspector’s presence on the stage particularly powerful, and how he uses language, staging and structure to do so.
The play “An Inspector calls” written by J.B. Priestley, takes place in the dining room of the Birling’s house in the industrial city of Brumley. An evening in the spring 1912, the Birling’s are celebrating Gerald’s and Sheila’s engagement, when Mrs. Birling remarks that Sheila is obliged to the idea that Gerald will have to spend a lot of time working, which brings up the different gender roles in this common era; where women stayed home and men went to work. The chatter continues, until Mr. Birling kicks off speaking about how he is repugnated by the idea of a community; due to that he believes that youngsters because of their age have plenty
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Mr.Birling is suddenly interrupted when Inspector Goole arrives to interrogate the Birlings about the suicide of a working-class women called Eva Smith; whose death was led by a series of events. The Birling’s are consumed with lies, lack of responsibility and the certain manipulation /powerfulness of the Inspector.
The Inspector is used by J.B Priestley to communicate that our actions affect each other, and throughout this play Priestley portrays the Inspector’s character as dominant and superior: “Because what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events” pg 14. In this quote the Inspector uses repetitive language to get his point across, and Priestley makes the Inspector seem wise and humble, due to the fact that the Inspector is practically the only person in that room that knows that everyone affected Eva Smith in their own way, and he is not pointing the finger at anyone, because he knows that will cause more chaos. The word “determined” is a very firm word, which makes the Inspector’s speech
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