This ironic hindsight into the war also gives the audience a sense of the inspector's wisdom. He is portrayed as the conscience because all throught the play the Inspector is seen as guiding the Birling's away from sin, trying to teach them selflessness and responsibilty for others, in this sense the style of the play is one of morality.We see an opinion of responsibility through the inspector's attitude torwards the sinful actions of the Birling family. He attempts to make Sheila accept her share of the blame 'you're partly to blame'. The Inspector's speech on page 56 of the play clarifies for the audience and
The Appearance and Approach of The Inspector Serves More Than One Purpose for J.B Priestly, discuss? „Proletarier aller Länder vereinigt Euch!” (Workers of the world, Unite!) - Karl Marx It can be assumed that Priestley’s overall motivation for writing ‘An Inspector Calls’ is to promote a socialist worldview. In the play, Priestley uses a lot of his political views in the Inspectors speeches by using him almost as a mouthpiece for his own socialism. But what else does the image of the Inspector as a character represent?
Priestley strongly believed that everyone had some responsibility for others in society and not just their own welfare. He realised that change was coming and explores this theme in his play. Priestley believed that events are repeated over again unless people face up to their past activities, like Eric and Sheila do, and only this can bring about a positive and equal change in society. At the start of the play, Act 1, Mr Birling is portrayed to the audience as quite a self confident and opinionated person who doesn’t believe in “collective responsibility”. He feels he
Priestley’s concerns were the lack of responsibilities Capitalists felt as though existed between one another, and that Communists would form a stronger knit community, one which makes everyone feel responsible for one another’s actions. The Inspector wants to teach the Birling’s just this, that even though they feel as if they are ‘above’ Eva Smith in terms of class, their actions have massive effects on people, maybe even more so than what would happen to someone of their own class. As this is a play, a variety of dramatic devices are used throughout, to invoke emotions, questions, or ideas within the audience. Irony is a theme which Priestley carries throughout the play, but is used the most extensively within the first act. Two great examples of this are both in Mr Birling’s long speech, one being that the Titanic was ‘absolutely unsinkable’, whilst the other is when he says: ‘There’ll be peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere – except of course in Russia, which will always be behindhand naturally.’ The first is ironic for tragic, yet obvious
It was a common way of thinking at that time so Priestley's aim for the play was to influence the unconvinced in society. The Inspector, straight from his introduction, is commanding and authoritative. Upon his entrance he creates, “…at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.” The Inspector continues to create this impression as he progresses through his speeches and through his interrogation of the family. The Inspector remains confident, sturdy and composed, while people around him crumble and fall to pieces. His ‘solidity’ is proven by the fact he remains on task despite numerous attempts from Birling to wander away from the points he is making.
Towards the end of the story Huckleberry's friend Tom Sawyer begins to have an impact on the way he acts in his society at the time. There are many examples of Huckleberry Finn being morally affected throughout the whole story based off the characters that he encounters and spends decent amount of time with. Miss Watson and widow Douglas attempt to alter Huck’s morals by making him act in a more civilized manner. Miss Watson represents the naggy parts of civilization and widow Douglas represents the good parts of it. They teach him to abide by the rules and to go along with society's laws.
Red is the mediator or polemicist, meaning that he’s a smooth talker and debater. In Shawshank he’s know as the man that can get anything for you from the outside … for a price of course. He’s a crook with a good heart and somewhat good intentions, but he confides to the prison walls to blur the lines of reality outside in the real world. Inside the prison he has value to his name and his insecurities are concealed by the opaque violence, and hard stance of Shawshank’s environment. Hope motivates him, but he does anything in his will to cloak that fact.
That being said, Shakespeare has given each character their fair share of attributes that are certainly repugnant, and therefore only making the above statement partially true. The men of the story are all characterised as the leaders of their society who dominate the women in their lives. They are bigoted and manipulative in their own ways; however they still manage to maintain calm and measured exteriors. A prime example of this type of male in 'Othello' is Iago. Iago, to everyone else, seems like an honest and good man who will do everything in his power to help those around him succeed, but is really just power-hungry, two-faced and manipulative.
He is suffering with the people and wants to put an end to everyone’s suffering. He is regarding the people and himself to be equal. The audience senses that Oedipus wants to be the saviour not for the glory and pride but because of the kin within the city. The audience learns that Oedipus is a caring man, who wants to do all he can to help the city. However, the audience would quickly question Oedipus character as he continues his conversation with Teiresias.
The speaker elevates his master ‘how happy you make those’, increasing the gap between them and creates a division in the two classes, linking to Marxist ideas of how social circumstances determine your entire life. Furthermore, references to time through ‘watch the clock’ and ‘precious time’ make it alert to the reader that all of his time is purely devoted to his master, putting a restriction on his freedom. This ties into the interpretation of the speaker being trapped in a conversation with himself as he apostrophises, not allowing a second perspective into the sonnet. This strongly relates to Marxist ideas of having no freedom of speech, linking to the main idea of ‘minds aren’t free, they only think they are’. However, there is a tone of acceptance from the speaker, suggesting he is not revolutionary as he continues to admire his ‘sovereign’ connecting back to the Marxist view of the need to climb up to the social ladder.