Inspector Goole Says, “We Are All Responsible for Each Other” How Does J.B Priestley Present This Idea to an Audience in an Inspector Calls? [20]

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Inspector Goole says, “We are all responsible for each other” How does J.B Priestley present this idea to an audience in An Inspector Calls? [20] Priestley presents the idea that we are all responsible for each other in a number of ways especially through the characters. Priestley deliberately sets the play in 1912 because during that era there was class differentiation and also gender boundaries which seemed strict, permanent and unchangeable. When the play was performed in 1945 most of the social and gender based divisions had been broken. Through the play he attempts to show the audience that society can change and this is due to every single person within it. Inspector Goole particularly presents the idea of the responsibility everyone has for each other in society. Throughout the play Priestly shows his socialist views though the Inspector. He does this by exposing the Birling family to each other’s unjust actions. He then shows them although they can not change what they did, they can change how they act in the future. He explicitly does this in his final words. He uses powerful and persuasive language and techniques when addressing the family and as he does so he makes the audience feel as though they are being spoken to also. He uses the first person pro-noun ‘we’ which makes both the audience and the family feel as though they are being spoken too as well as including himself. This may alert the audience and feel as though they should listen to what he is saying. He then says, “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for one another’. These short simple sentences are gripping and impact those listening to him. They also sound like a triple with emphasises that we are, in fact responsible for each other because ‘we’ are all interconnected as shown by the Birling’s impact on Eva Smith. He speaks like this at the end of the play

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