An Inspector Calls By J.B Priestley

 An Inspector Calls was a play written in 1945 on the eve if a general election by J.B Priestley. The play is set in 1912 which marked the start of mass protests, strikes and obviously two world wars. The play is about the need for change in the United Kingdom before the world wars. Pre-war Britain was a patriarchal society where there was a strong class system and it was at the peak of the industrial revolution. The play focuses on the Birlings and Gerald who are the capitalists of the play and we hear Priestley's socialist message about how we need change, how we must all look after each other and get rid of the rigid class system. The play starts with a dinner party to celebrate the engagement of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft who are both from the upper classes. After Mr Birling has given some of his speeches, An Inspector Calls to question the Birlings about a girl who died at the infirmary after drinking disinfectant. We learn throughout that each of the four Birlings and Gerald played a part in the suicide in one way or another and it highlights the actions of the upper-classes towards the lower working classes. 

I like this book as in my opinion it gets teenagers ready for life as it teaches them a lot about the country and it's politics and in my opinion matures the readers of the play growing them into young adults. It is, therefore, I believe it is a great idea that this play is studied at GCSE as part of the English Literature course. Priestley successively highlights the true attitudes and traits of the Upper-class capitalists and shows how they have been largely responsible for not only all the suffering in 1912 and before but also how they were responsible for the two world wars. The Inspector is successfully used as a dramatic device to foreshadow and warn the Upper classes of what their actions will result in. Furthermore, I also like how we learn how those in the upper-classes are mostly unable to change however Priestley shows how there is hope for the younger generation to change for the better.

This is one of my personal favourite plays to read and actually prefer reading it to watching it live. I, therefore, do not have many things I dislike about this text. I believe it would be nice if we got to hear from Eva Smith but that would not be possible due to her being dead but similarly, it would have been just as good if some entries from her diary were readout. Finally, one other thing I dislike about this play is the cliffhanger at the end as it really makes the reader/audience want to know what happened next and if the behaviour of the Birlings and Gerald had changed. Sadly, we will never know if they changed or what happened next.

Altogether, I like how this text really introduces the younger generation to politics and it is a play that not only I am glad is in the GCSE English Literature course (for AQA) but also a play which I believe all secondary students should study ideally towards the end of their time in the education system. Altogether I would rate this book 4 stars due to it's amazing content.