How Does Priestley Present Inequality In An Inspector Calls

Hakeem

Priestley presents inequality in various different ways throughout the play - An Inspector Calls. He shows contrast between the treatment and living conditions of the upper class compared to the lower class. Priestley grew up in his father’s circle of socialist friends which heavily influenced his political views and hate for capitalism. The play is set in the year 1912 and starts off in the dining room of the Birlings - a wealthy upper class family. The play is divided into 3 different acts. It focuses on the constant unequal treatment and discrimination from the upper class towards lower classes. Most importantly, Priestley examines how inequality affects the various classes by showing how each member of the Birling family abuses

This could be perceived as dramatic irony by the audience. This play was set in 1912 but was first performed to an audience in the year 1945 - which was when WWII ended meaning Priestley has done this to anger the audience and make them dislike Birling even more as millions of lives were lost in the war and he would just be considered an insensitive character. Birling is a selfish capitalist who is constantly portrayed in a bad light which accentuates to the audience how much Priestley dislikes the ideology of capitalism. Birling also ridicules the ideology of socialism by using the simile - ‘as if were all mixed up together like bees in a hive’. However the Inspector reveals that each of the Birlings and Gerald are links in the 'chain of events' that led to her death. This would make the audience feel a strong sense of epiphany because they realise that the wealthy upper class treats society in such a discourteous

He presents gender inequality to the audience to emphasise the importance of treating everyone the same. Early on in the play, when Gerald told Sheila that he was ‘busy at the works all that time’, Mrs Birling interrupts by saying that Sheila should ‘get used to that’ just as she had. This quotation accentuates the point that Priestley is trying to get across - society back then was extremely patriarchal as Mrs Birling demonstrates that she is used to being the secondary choice. It shows us that men weren’t always there for their wives and how women didn’t have equal rights - men had to fight in the war while women just worked at home. The women in the play were seen as possessions of the husbands and they didn’t have any jobs/careers due to the patriarchal society. Priestley presents men in a dominant, arrogant and strong way while women were presented in an emotional and materialistic way to highlight the way misogynist capitalist society operated. Priestley believes in gender equality because he thinks that everyone has social responsibilities and should take care of not only themselves but as well as everyone around them. This would make the audience feel that mistreating women would slow down society from progressing as he believes in making a socialist society and a community as ‘one body’ would be beneficial for