An Inspector Calls:
In An Inspector Calls the central theme is responsibility. Priestley’s interested in
our personal responsibility for our own actions and our collective responsibility to
society. The play explores the effect of class, age and sex on people’s attitudes
to responsibility, and shows how prejudice can prevent people from acting
responsibly.
Themes:
Responsibility:
Each member of the family has a different attitude to responsibility.
Inspector wanted each member of the family to share the responsibility of
Eva’s death. He tells them “each of you helped to kill her.”
However his final speech is aimed at everyone, including the audience:
“There are millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with
their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness,
all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do.”
The Inspector is talking about a collective responsibility, everyone is a part
of “one body”. Inspector sees society as more important that individual
interests.
The views the Inspector is propounding are like those of Priestley who was
a socialist. At the time the ethos was based on the individualism ethos of
‘laissez faire’ (leave alone), Priestley wanted characters to consider a
social conscience and to embrace a collective responsibility.
He also adds a clear warning at the end about what could happen if, like
some members of the family, we ignore our responsibility. “And I tell you
that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, when
they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
In this quotation, Priestley would have wanted the audience to think about
the world war they had just lived through- the result of government’s
blindly pursuing ‘national interest’ at all costs. Also could be thinking
about the Russian revolution in 1917, in which poor workers and peasants
took over the state and exacted a bloody revenge against the aristocrats
who has treated them so badly.
Age:
Older and younger generations take the Inspector’s message in different
ways. While Sheila and Eric accept their part in Eva’s death and feel huge
guilt about it, their parents are unable to admit they did anything wrong.
Gerald Croft is caught in the middle, being neither young nor old. In the
end he sides with the older generation, perhaps due to his aristocratic
roots influencing him to want to keep the status quo and protect his own
interests.
Ultimately we can be optimistic that the younger generation, those who
shape the future society, are able to take on board the Inspector’s
message, just like Eric and Sheila.
The old are set in their ways. They are utterly confident that they are right
and see the young as foolish. The young are open to new ideas. This is
seen early in Act 1 where both Eric and Sheila express sympathy for the
