How does ' an inspector calls' explore people's social views and political stances? Essay

An Inspector Calls is a socially contrasting play that explores people’s social views, political stances and standings. The writer, John Priestley uses the characters to symbolize how he saw society at the time. John Boynton Priestley was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in the September of 1894. His mother died the same year he was born and his father was a school head master. Priestley left school at sixteen and decided to write, mostly about social attitudes and political stances which he was inspired to do by his father’s socialist friends who believed that everybody should have an equal chance in life with fair pay and not have different social classes. He was also involved in the 1st world war and that made him think about the state of society and the way the social system worked, which he thought was wrong. Priestley deliberately set his play in 1912 because the date represented an era when everything was very different from the time he was writing, 1945. Society in 1912 was mainly devised into two social classes which had a big difference. The very rich and the very poor. 87% of the countries total wealth was in the hands of 5% of the population and 8 million people had to get by on 25 shillings a week. The play is set in 1912 which is before the 1st and 2nd world war and also before the sinking of the titanic which gets referred to in the play. The play, like some of his earlier work explores the concept of time, and how someone’s actions can affect someone else’s life in the long run. The characters in the play are used to reflect society at the time. The play focuses around the mysterious death of a poor young working class girl called Eva Smith. I think that each character in the play is a representation of a certain social class and a certain generation; they show the different attitudes that each class of people have. There are 7 main characters. These are Mr and Mrs Birling, their children Sheila and Eric Birling, Sheila’s fiancé Gerald Croft, Inspector...