Priestley presents ideas about responsibility in an 'An Inspector Calls' by portraying the inspector as a conscience ,using him to represent a good example of responsibility in society. He uses the sound of the doorbell to interrupt Birling's rant on his views on society. Priestley uses the shocking announcement of Eva Smith's death to highlight the consequences of a lack of responsibility. The clarity of Eric and Sheila's realisation of the consequences of their actions sends a strong message to the audience about responsibility. The character of the inspector is written by Priestley as a representation of morality in the play.
The whole way through the play the Inspector keeps reminding the family that there isn’t one of them that will be getting away with anything as they are united in blame. The inspector is clearly a socialistic character in the play, Priestley uses him to introduce the theme of social responsibility. However, as well as this the younger generation are eventually used to show the idea of socialism. Eric and Shelia also begin to side with the Inspector and the way Priestley has managed to develop the theme of social responsibility is by making the younger generation change to take over roles of the Inspector and therefore agree with him. This also means that you can understand that Eric and Sheila can understand the concept that everyone is partially to blame for the death of the girl.
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
How did he make the change to the new style that he developed? Stayer showed incredible self-awareness in that he was able to realize that he could not run his company as a dictatorship, and that he needed to create a whole new way of thinking and culture to make the company successful. Responsibility would have to be delegated to his sub-ordinate staff all of the way down to the workers on the floor. This is done to bring a sense of ownership and belonging for all staff. One example was removing supervisors from the areas and introducing team leads since workers felt supervisors simply yelled if a problem came up and didn’t actually investigate the why the problem was occurring.
They were oppressed people being made into puppet only to benefit Great Britain and it was time for a change. What they did know at the time that it took a whole set of people to go up against the mother country and win. They could not be divided and therefore joined together and united as one to over throw their oppressor. The declaration spelled out the rights that belong to all men. It opened by showing a moral obligation to men.
An Inspector Calls is a play with lots of political messages as well as social messages. J. B. Priestley believed in socialism and he used large amounts of his plays to try and convince people to his way of thinking. It was written in a time when Britain was ruled by a Labour government and socialist policies were seen to be a good way to go. It was a common way of thinking at that time so Priestley's aim for the play was to influence the unconvinced in society.
Correspondingly, he implies that the people who continue to practice poverty only do so in an obsession to uphold subordinate religious morals. With this in mind, Undershaft takes it upon himself to maintain his wealth as a justifiable attempt to prevent poverty from casting a grim shadow upon society. His cause is achieved through means not only by the manipulation of the working class, but also through exploiting man’s inherent need to war over morality and religion. Undershaft’s complete faith in the creation and power of weaponry only proves the fallacy in believing that God
Huck is widely influenced by Miss Watson and widow Douglas by acting in a more civilized manner. He is also influenced by his father who has an affect on him to act like a hoodlum once again. Jim, the slave, has the most important effect on Huckleberry Finn by indirectly teaching him about loyalty regardless if its breaking a law. The king and the Duke also have an impact on him by showing him the lack of morals. 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.
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
In An Inspector Calls, Priestly presents responsibility as one of the key themes, believing that in life everyone is responsible for their actions and for the consequences which follow, affecting other people. This idea is shown throughout the play through actions, words and behaviour of the characters. In my essay, I am going to explore the words and behaviour of specific characters to demonstrate Priestly's point of view. At the beginning of the play, the majority of the characters, excluding Inspector Goole, are participating in a celebratory event where Mr. Birling fully expresses his views about responsibility. He talks about how they shouldn't be responsible for looking out for others: 'But what so many of you don't seem to understand now, when things are so much easier, is that a man has to make his own way- hasto look after himself- and his family too, of course, when he has one- and so long he does that he won't come to much harm."