Inspector question play priestley dead reason men dickens

Text	What makes it Priestley’s most performed and most popular play? Reason one is that there is nothing difficult about the play. It is not expressionistic or experimental, nor is it abstract or symbolic – like Music at Night or Johnson Over Jordan. It is a straightforward three-act play where the action is continuous and the pace brisk. Priestley’s language is also not difficult. His dialogue is composed of what he himself called ‘that familiar flat idiom’. Now this facility is not because Priestley couldn’t write complex plays with symbolic meanings conveyed in abstract terms using language that is hard to understand; it is because on the whole he chose not to. He deliberately chose a wide channel of communication and wanted to reach the widest audience possible. Simplicity to Priestley was a virtue. He once wrote that he ‘wanted to write something that at a pinch could be read aloud in a bar parlour. And the time soon came when I was read and understood in a 1000 bar parlours’. An Inspector Calls has been heard and understood in thousands of theatres around the world. Its simplicity is therefore a large factor in its enduring appeal. The second reason is that it is a gripping piece of drama that maintains the shape and atmosphere of a thriller. It is a play that demands answers to questions that can only be found by continued watching. As soon as the Inspector walks into that drawing room we are hooked. Who is this girl Eva Smith? Why did she kill herself? Did each member of this family really have a hand in her demise? What did they do? Why did they do it? Who is this Inspector? Is he a real Inspector or someone or something else? And then of course at the very end the telephone rings bringing more questions and questions about questions. The Inspector moves among the Birlings and Gerald Croft like a moral whirlwind, ruthlessly exposing each of them in turn. It is tremendous to experience it in the theatre. Merciless in his pursuit of the truth Goole brings each to account for their social crimes. His exchanges with Birling are an almighty collision between two entirely opposite creeds. We want to know who will win. Even when we know he will our own need see it played out keeps us watching. Their exchanges present some of the most powerful lines in the play, few more so than when the Inspector says to Birling ‘it’s better to ask for the earth than to take it’. This duel between the two men is magnificent theatre. The final reason is the central, simple question the play asks us: who is responsible? It is a question that needs an answer whether we are in 1912, 1945 or 2015. It’s a question repeatedly asked by every generation and a question every generation seeks to answer. Most great writers ask too. Dickens asked it more than most and it is implicit in much of his work. Early in Bleak House the frustrated Gridley demands to know who is responsible as his case is once more refused a hearing and his access to justice is blocked. Later, when Joe the crossing sweeper dies, Dickens writes these words: ‘The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.’ When considering who is responsible for this helpless waif’s death Esther Summerson tells Mr Skimpole that ‘everybody is obliged to be’. In An Inspector Calls Priestley does not treat it as an obligation, but as an imperative: ‘We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.’ It can be argued that Priestley more directly answers the question Dickens posed a hundred years before. We need only substiture Eva Smith for Joe the sweeper. And he goes further than than posing it – he warns us, realistically, the disaster that continued irresponsibility will bring. Events in the twentieth century show this to be true. As long as that question needs asking and as long as it requires an answer this play will endure

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What makes it Priestley’s most performed and most popular play?

Reason one is that there is nothing difficult about the play. It is not expressionistic or experimental, nor is it abstract or symbolic – like Music at Night or Johnson Over Jordan. It is a straightforward three-act play where the action is continuous and the pace brisk. Priestley’s language is also not difficult. His dialogue is composed of what he himself called ‘that familiar flat idiom’.

Now this facility is not because Priestley couldn’t write complex plays with symbolic meanings conveyed in abstract terms using language that is hard to understand; it is because on the whole he chose not to. He deliberately chose a wide channel of communication and wanted to reach the widest audience possible. Simplicity to Priestley was a virtue. He once wrote that he ‘wanted to write something that at a pinch could be read aloud in a bar parlour. And the time soon came when I was read and understood in a 1000 bar parlours’. An Inspector Calls has been heard and understood in thousands of theatres around the world. Its simplicity is therefore a large factor in its enduring appeal.

The second reason is that it is a gripping piece of drama that maintains the shape and atmosphere of a thriller. It is a play that demands answers to questions that can only be found by continued watching. As soon as the Inspector walks into that drawing room we are hooked. Who is this girl Eva Smith? Why did she kill herself? Did each member of this family really have a hand in her demise? What did they do? Why did they do it? Who is this Inspector? Is he a real Inspector or someone or something else? And then of course at the very end the telephone rings bringing more questions and questions about questions.

The Inspector moves among the Birlings and Gerald Croft like a moral whirlwind, ruthlessly exposing each of them in turn. It is tremendous to experience it in the theatre. Merciless in his pursuit of the truth Goole brings each to account for their social crimes. His exchanges with Birling are an almighty collision between two entirely opposite creeds. We want to know who will win. Even when we know he will our own need see it played out keeps us watching. Their exchanges present some of the most powerful lines in the play, few more so than when the Inspector says to Birling ‘it’s better to ask for the earth than to take it’. This duel between the two men is magnificent theatre.

The final reason is the central, simple question the play asks us: who is responsible?

It is a question that needs an answer whether we are in 1912, 1945 or 2015. It’s a question repeatedly asked by every generation and a question every generation seeks to answer. Most great writers ask too. Dickens asked it more than most and it is implicit in much of his work. Early in Bleak House the frustrated Gridley demands to know who is responsible as his case is once more refused a hearing and his access to justice is blocked. Later, when Joe the crossing sweeper dies, Dickens writes these words:

‘The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead! Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.’

When considering who is responsible for this helpless waif’s death Esther Summerson tells Mr Skimpole that ‘everybody is obliged to be’. In An Inspector Calls Priestley does not treat it as an obligation, but as an imperative:

‘We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.’

It can be argued that Priestley more directly answers the question Dickens posed a hundred years before. We need only substiture Eva Smith for Joe the sweeper. And he goes further than than posing it – he warns us, realistically, the disaster that continued irresponsibility will bring. Events in the twentieth century show this to be true.

As long as that question needs asking and as long as it requires an answer this play will endure

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