An Inspector Calls
The Context
'An Inspector Calls' was written and first performed in the mid 1940s but was set in a fictional town in 1912. The whole message of the play is about how society has changed and needs to continue changing. This makes understanding the context very important.
Priestley's Life
In A Sentence
A man who grew up in the heart of the textile industry and fought for greater equality in society throughout his whole life.
The Big Picture
John Priestley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1894. Bradford was one of Britain's booming textile towns. Priestley decided against going to university to begin with and instead got a job as a clerk in one of the local wool mills before moving into journalism.
When World War One broke out, Priestley enrolled in the army and was sent to France to fight on the Western Front. He suffered minor injuries such as having a “little piece of flesh torn out of my thumb" before being caught up in a gas attack and sent home as a result of his injuries. He described his fellow soldiers as being "slaughtered, not by hard necessity but by huge, murderous public folly.” In short he declared the war a huge "murderous" mistake by the governments involved.
Priestley's private life was as busy as his writing career. His mother died when he was 2, but he had a strong relationship with his step-mother. He married three times and had numerous affairs with other women.
Priestley's playwriting career nearly always involved politics. A number of his plays, like 'Dangerous Corners' also followed a story line of slowly revealing a family's secrets. During World War Two, he was a popular speaker on the BBC radio but removed as his broadcasts were seen as too political. Some suggest it was Winston Churchill himself who asked for him to be removed. His achievements in literature were recognised by many, but when Priestley was offered a the chance to be made a Lord he refused it.
Priestley was happy to be called a socialist and even formed a political party, the 'Common Wealth Party'. His party's vision was for wealth (money) to be shared more evenly by people based on their need.
How Does It Link To 'An Inspector Calls'?
Priestley was born in a textile town called Bradford; this sounds very familiar to Birling's fictional town of Brumley. Priestley even worked in the textile industry as a wool clerk, so would have first hand knowledge of the business that Mr Birling and the Crofts that he constructed for them.
Priestley fought and was wounded in World War One. This was a war that Mr Birling said wouldn't happen. Priestley attacked the arrogance of men that allowed the war to happen and criticised the government strongly. When Mr Birling declares that war will never happen, perhaps we ought to remember the anger that Priestley felt about the war when he wrote these lines.
Priestley found it difficult to be faithful to women like his character Gerald. It may be that we place too much emphasis on Gerald's cheating. Perhaps Priestley would not have intended for a modern audience to be as shocked as they sometimes are when his affair is revealed. On the other hand, perhaps Priestley uses Gerald to reflect on his own failures of marriage.
Priestley was a committed socialist. He expresses his own views clearly through Inspector Goole within the play. He also uses the older Birlings to reflect those in society he held absolute disgust for. Finally Priestley turned down the honour of a Lordship, stark contrast to when he has the character of Birling desperately chasing his knighthood.
Edwardian England
In A Sentence
A society with a strict class system that often left those at the bottom struggling to provide for their family.
The Big Picture
If you are aware of the context of Victorian England through 'A Christmas Carol' or other texts, then you will know all about the poverty that many faced. Things had improved since then. Child labour had gone, the workhouses were on their way out and people were generally healthier, better educated and worked in safer conditions.
The beginnings of a welfare state had begun with the Liberal Party gaining victory in 1906 and doing much to lay its foundations. A minimum wage, free school meals, pensions and sick pay were all policies that began under the Liberals during this time.
Edwardian England was still however a tough place to be if you were poor and a deeply unequal society. The poor overcrowded housing of the Industrial Revolution still formed the majority of housing for many. Wages for workers were low and there were still few rights for improving conditions. Women still had no right to vote nor did many men who did not own property and therefore were not allowed either. It was a patriarchal society (one which men held power) and women were still very much second class citizens.
The class system remained strong and Britain was governed and controlled by the King and a Parliament still mainly made up of men from the upper class. Although it was not in the levels of Victorian poverty people like Dickens were writing about, Edwardian England was still a deeply unfair, unequal and often uncaring society which Priestley was keen not to return to.
How Does It Link To 'An Inspector Calls'?
Eva Smith represents a typical woman of working class Edwardian society. Her firing from Birling's textile factory and at Milwards shows us the lack of rights poorer workers had. Her desperation that led her to Gerald and Eric shows us that the welfare state, the system where government helps those most in need, was still in its early days and not adequate to support people like her. As a woman in a patriarchal society, she had few places to go so reached out for charity and when she was not shown any mercy there, took her own life.
The Class System
In A Sentence
Putting people into a category of their place in society based on factors such as their ancestry (family), wealth, and profession.
The Big Picture
The class system still strongly divided society in 1912:
The Upper Class:
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These guys were born into this class. They had land. Lots of land. Their family name was important to them and it is likely their distant relatives did something very handy for a king, like win him a battle. This meant that their family has held a ridiculous amount of land ever since. They would be recognised as being upper class immediately by their accents; accents formed in one of the very elite and expensive schools. They would likely have a title too, perhaps Lord or Viscount or Baron. They would not need to work. Instead upper class families would live off their enormous inherited wealth and by earning money from renting out the land they owned.
The Middle Class:
By the Edwardian era the middle classes could also be phenomenally wealthy. Those that made money in the Industrial Revolution often made some serious money. With the rise of industry came the need for more lawyers, bankers and other educated men in role which held together the growing economy. The rise of modern medicine brought in larger numbers of well paid doctors. All of these would join the middle classes. With cheap labour from the working classes, a middle class family might expect to have a servant or two as well to give them that little bit of status and an easier life. The middle classes didn't have the family name and status of the upper classes, but still lived a very comfortable life.
The Working Class:
The biggest group in society. The Industrial Revolution had created a need for factory workers. Lots of them. They were often poorly paid, had little job security and worked long hours. To show how unequal society was, factory working wasn't even the biggest employer. The biggest form of employment for the working class was being a household servant for the upper and middle classes. More people did this than any other job in Edwardian England. The working class had now moved to the city and lived in crowded and polluted conditions. A lack of education and a shorter life expectancy was a feature of the working class who only in the most exceptional circumstances could hope to better themselves and join the middle class.
How Does It Link To 'An Inspector Calls'?
Class was everything for the Birling family. Mrs Birling was her husband's "social superior" and married beneath her class. Something we find out her family were not too happy about. The Birlings were delighted that Sheila had managed to marry above her class and find the upper class Gerald. They were even prepared to ignore his cheating to ensure the marriage still went ahead. Gerald's family also seem unhappy that he was planning to marry beneath his class and Mr Birling tries his best to impress him with expensive port and cigars.
Birling is what we call a 'social climber' someone who is always trying to gain a higher class status. He reminds us every five minutes that he was Lord Mayor and is desperate to gain his knighthood (something he suggests Gerald might mention to impress his upper class mother).
Mrs Birling is perhaps the biggest class snob. She simply has no interest in the case of Eva Smith who was almost certainly to blame as that is what the working class were like in her mind. "Girls of that class - " as she says before Sheila cuts her off.
The challenges the working class face are represented by Eva. Someone who worked hard but was forced to take desperate action through little fault of her own. She falls into what we call 'destitution' at the end when she loses both jobs. She cannot even afford basic food and shelter.
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Allusions to Historic Events
In A Sentence
Priestley uses dramatic irony to allude to historical events that make the character of Mr Birling seem ever more ridiculous.
Events:
The “unsinkable” Titanic sank in 1912 killing over 1,500 people on it weeks after Birling made this comment.
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“Scaremongering” says Birling, but Britain and Germany went to war in 1914-1918. World War I killed 9 million soldiers and 13 million civilians. This was a war which Birling said would simply never happen.
In 1939, Britain went to war with Germany again in in World War II. Birling suggests ”peace and prosperity” in 1940. Sheila and Gerald, it is suggested by Birling, " might be having a little party like this - your sons and daughters might be getting engaged.' This would be in the middle of the war and if Gerald had survived World War One, then industrial towns would have been in the middle of a ferocious bombing campaign by Germany.
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The General Strike of 1926 lasted for 9 days and millions of men went on strike. Again, proving Birling wrong after dismissing labour trouble when he say we will have "forgotten all these capital versus labour agitations and all these silly little war scares"
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“Russia, which will always be behind naturally” came out of World War II as a growing superpower. ’An Inspector Calls’ was first performed there.
Socialism and Capitalism
In A Sentence
A more equal society where money is more evenly shared (socialism) or more freedom in society where competition allows people to earn big and get rewarded for their hard work (capitalism)
The Big Picture
Explaining these two systems could be a subject to study at school in itself. To put it simply capitalism is what we have today and what allowed the Industrial Revolution to happen.
Capitalism allowed a country's businesses and resources to be controlled by private individuals who aim to make a profit. It allowed people to loan money to build bigger companies. To employ workers to expand their business and pay them the wages that they thought they deserved. It encouraged new technology so that industry could become more efficient. Competition was supposed to create an economy that ensured workers were paid a fair wage (or they would work elsewhere) and businesses sold their products at a reasonable price (or people would shop for them elsewhere). Capitalism created enormous wealth for some but the Industrial Revolution left many living in poverty. That doesn't mean it was all bad though and capitalism is still very much how our economy works today.
Socialism rose as a result of the growing inequality in society created by capitalism. Socialists wanted a fairer society with support for the poorest workers. They believed that higher taxes could pay for a society where nobody needed to suffer unfairly. Healthcare, education, pensions, minimum wages: these were the things that socialists thought people needed. Some socialists also wanted the government to control more industries directly. Railways, energy, and water for example could be run by the government to ensure everyone could access them fairly.
It's important to say that socialists didn't want an end to capitalism. Therefore it might be better to say Priestley was attacking unrestricted capitalism; he simply wanted some restrictions on businesses to stop them exploiting people so a fairer society could be created.
These are two complicated economic arguments that are still raging today. It is unlikely we'll ever totally agree what type of society is best, but it's fair to say that many of the things Priestley wanted are now firmly part of our society.
How Does It Link To 'An Inspector Calls'?
Priestley was a socialist and wanted a fairer society. He uses Inspector Goole to make the case for socialism throughout the play.
Mr Birling represents the face of unrestricted capitalism. He wants to join together with Gerald so he can lower the wages he pays his workers and raise the price of the textiles he sells. Through Eva Smith, Priestley shows us the consequences of men like Birling who exploit their workers because of their own greed.
In the end we see Sheila and Eric siding with the Inspector's way of thinking. Priestley perhaps suggests that future generations will come to see the importance of a fairer socialist society.