The form, structure and language of An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley - CCEA - GCSE English Literature Revision

The form of An Inspector Calls

The is the type of text and that the writer chooses to write in.

An Inspector Calls is written in the form of a play and so it is meant to be heard and seen in performance. There are stage directions to help guide actors and it is written in lines of dialogue.

All productions of An Inspector Calls will be different; some might focus on a particular theme or could use staging in different ways which will give the performance a slightly different feel.

An Inspector Calls fits into three possible genres:

well-made play
crime thriller

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Listen to a podcast about the form, structure and language in JB Priestley's play, An Inspector Calls

Well-made play

A is a popular dramatic genre from the 19th-century. In a well-made play the plot is intricate and complex and the action builds to a climax. This is often concerned with events that happened before the events of the play. A well-made play usually ends with a return to order but Priestley moves away from this genre with the revelation at the end.

An Inspector Calls has elements of a well-made play because the events are all influenced by what happened to Eva Smith before the play takes place

This structure allows JB Priestley to manipulate the audience. They do not know what happened to Eva Smith and so each revelation about her treatment by the Birlings and Gerald Croft adds to the drama. Each revelation is more shocking than the last and so Priestley cleverly builds to the climax. In An Inspector Calls there is a twist at the end of the plot – the characters are unsure if the Inspector existed at all. This gives the audience time to reflect on the events of the play. When it is revealed that another inspector is on their way and the curtain falls, the audience would be stunned.

Morality play

Morality plays were popular during the 15th and 16th centuries. Historically they sought to teach the audience lessons that focused on the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Whilst characters who committed these sins were punished, morality plays showed that if a character repented then they could redeem themselves.

An Inspector Calls has elements of a morality play because all of the Birlings and Gerald Croft commit crimes which are similar to the seven deadly sins. Mr Birling is greedy because he wants more money, Sheila is guilty of wrath and envy when she spitefully complains about Eva Smith and so on. Not all of the characters manage to redeem themselves.

Priestley uses the morality play structure to teach a 20th century audience a series of lessons that relate to his beliefs about social responsibility, age, gender and class. The audience is invited to enjoy judging these characters – they are also forced to question their own behaviour. Priestley would have hoped that people watching the play would have left the theatre as better people.

Crime thriller

A crime thriller is a genre that tells a gripping tale based around a crime. The audience receives clues on who has committed the crime and will enjoy trying to guess what happened before the end of the action.

An Inspector Calls contains many elements of a crime thriller because the action centres around the suicide of Eva Smith. Initially, as this is a suicide and not a murder investigation, it would seem that there is no clear suspect. It soon turns out that all the characters are potential suspects for different reasons.

The crime thriller genre encourages the audience to become involved in the events of the play. In this case they would be considering who is 'more' to blame for the death of Eva Smith. Ultimately, Priestley makes the audience suspects too; their behaviour is questioned and they are left wondering if they had committed any 'crimes' like the Birlings had.

Analysing form

To analyse the form of An Inspector Calls you should:

remember that An Inspector Calls is a play and so it is meant to be seen in performance
consider how the events that happened before the action on stage keep the audience guessing
as it is partly a morality play, think about how the audience judges the characters and themselves
remember that the audience would be trying to work out if any one person was to blame for Eva Smith's death

The structure of An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls is written in a three act structure. Priestley cleverly structures the acts so that they end on gripping cliff-hangers.

There is also a final climax and then a twist at the very end. This use of structure helps to keep the audience gripped and on the edge of their seats.

As we know, the Inspector is here to investigate the death of Eva Smith. What the audience don't know is what happened in the two years prior to the evening the play takes place. Priestley slowly reveals these events. We never actually meet Eva Smith but we with her as a character. It is through the Inspector that we get a sense of who she is and what happened to her.
The closing twist, when it is revealed via phone call that an inspector really is about to call, is a very effective ending. The Birlings and Gerald are stunned, especially Mr and Mrs Birling and Gerald who just a minute ago had been sure they were in the clear. The audience would be shocked and left with lots of unanswered questions.
The ending also reflects Priestley's interest in theories about time, including the idea that individuals re-enter their lives again after death, living it all over again. They can make changes to their previous actions, beginning a new cycle where they do not repeat the mistakes of their past. We can see this in the structure of the play as the cycle of events that just took place is about to start all over again, with an investigation into the suicide of a young girl. Sheila and Eric have learned from their mistakes and could escape this cycle, whereas the others have not.

Language and dramatic methods

The language in An Inspector Calls includes and stage directions. Priestley has tried to make the dialogue realistic so there is less emphasis on imagery and more focus on plain, at times emotive, expression.

It is important to consider how the dialogue adds to the drama of the play. The dramatic features of the dialogue include:

dramatic pauses (make sure you identify the stage directions and/or punctuation marks that indicate a pause!)
repetition
gasps and interruptions
fluency and length

The stage directions also add to the drama of the play. Early in the play, Sheila says to Gerald “so you be careful”. This line could be delivered in a number of ways; each would change its meaning. Priestley specifies that the line is said “half playful, half serious”. This stage direction gives a very early hint to observant audience members that all is not well between Sheila and Gerald. Without it, Priestley's dramatic intentions might be lost.

Priestley also uses dramatic methods such as lighting to affect the atmosphere of the play. The stage directions state that the lighting is “pink and intimate” at the start of the play, creating a warm and cosy effect that mirrors how comfortable the characters are and how ignorant they are of how their actions have affected Eva Smith. When the Inspector arrives, the lighting becomes “brighter and harder”, symbolising how he intends to shine a light on their behaviour and make them see what they’ve done. The light being “harder” suggests a lack of sympathy or mercy on the Inspector’s part; he is determined to confront them with the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them or how it shatters their cosy, self-centred worldview.

When analysing the language Priestley uses, consider:

What are the ideas Priestley is trying to get across?
How has he chosen particular words to reflect this?
What effect does this have on the audience?

Where you can find literary devices ( or , for example) try to name these as well as analysing them.

How	Why	Effect
Dramatic pauses
A significant dramatic pause is used at the end of Act One when the Inspector says to Sheila and Gerald “Well?”	Priestley has done this to create a dramatic cliff-hanger at the end of Act One. The placing of the question right before the end of the act stops him – and the audience – from getting an immediate answer.	After the act ended, there would be an intermission. The audience would go into the theatre bar buzzing with questions, desperate for the next act to start.
Repetition
In real life people repeat themselves – Priestley uses this technique to add a sense of realism and character to his dialogue. Eric says “He could. He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out.”	In this instance the repetition shows that Eric is a little uncertain of himself, he hesitates and then repeats himself.	The playwright cannot rely on lengthy descriptions about actions and appearance. This repetition helps get across Eric's character in a subtle way.
Gasps and interruptions
Priestley uses interruptions to add to the drama – for example a panicked Mr Birling quickly interrupts his daughter: “(cutting in) Just a minute, Sheila. Now, Inspector, perhaps you and I had better go and talk this over quietly in a corner.”	This interruption shows that Mr Birling is afraid that his daughter is going to get them into trouble by saying too much.	This makes the audience dislike Mr Birling further. He is shown to be a man who will try to avoid taking responsibility for his actions.
Stage directions
Priestley helps actors with their delivery of lines. Mr Birling loses patience: “(rather impatiently) Yes, yes. Horrid business.”	This ensures that the tone of the scene is kept as Priestley intended.	The effect in this case is to show the arrogance of Mr Birling, he is trying to hurry the Inspector along. Stage directions can be used for a wide range of different purposes.
Fluency and length
Priestley varies the length of the lines the characters deliver, Sheila gives the blunt and snappy line “Because I was in a furious temper” when explaining her behaviour.	The pace of the drama can be controlled by varying the fluency and length of the lines. At first, Mr Birling speaks with enormous fluency, delivering long, self-assured speeches. In contrast, Eric initially delivers lines with pauses and breaks in them. Short, snappy dialogue speeds up the action. Longer speeches can deliver themes and ideas.	Sheila's line shows how ashamed she is of her actions. It also shows her honesty. She doesn't make excuses, she just presents the facts.

Some other language aspects from within the play might include:

– Eva Smith

Eva Smith is a character but also arguably functions as a symbol within the text, representing all the aspects of humanity who have been disregarded and neglected by society: women, workers, the young, the poor and the “lower class”. Her name supports this: Smith has long been one of the most common surnames in Britain, while ‘Eva’ links her to ‘Eve’, the Biblical mother of humanity and the first symbol of womanhood in Christianity.

Eva is viewed with prejudice and looked down upon by those in power, who use and abuse her for their own ends and resist her attempts to make a better life for herself. She is at once a “real” person who has been wronged by the Birling family and Gerald, and a figurative stand-in representing how Edwardian society has ignored the plight of the less fortunate and taken steps to cut down any who tried to rise up.

The Inspector warns that “There are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us”, showing Eva/Daisy to be a symbolic figure embodying the working class in general, as well as a specific individual who ended her own life.

There aren’t many examples of imagery used in the dialogue of the play, but it is worth paying attention to any you see. For example, when Mr Birling states “But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive”.

Mr Birling’s simile comparing bees in a hive to people in a society shows his prejudice towards the working class. Bees are famously hardworking, and Mr Birling claims to want hardworking labour, but the fact he doesn’t want to be mixed up in the “hive” where the hard work happens shows that he thinks he is above hard work himself.

The play itself shows how people are indeed “all mixed up together”; Mr Birling’s consistent refusal to acknowledge this proves his ignorance as well as his greed for personal wealth and power.

Informal language

The play creates a sense of realism by having the characters speak in ways that reflect how people would really have spoken. The main characters are all of a higher social class but there is still sometimes use of informal language that is appropriate to them. Sheila is scolded by Mrs Birling for using the slang term “squiffy”, which Mrs Birling considers common and improper. Sheila also uses an (a commonly understood metaphorical phrase or saying) when she notes: “We’ve no excuse now for putting on airs”.

Mr Birling also uses an idiom when he states “It’s a free country”. When he says this, he is immediately contradicted by Eric, who counters with “It isn’t if you can’t go and work somewhere else” – this undermining of Birling’s supposedly sensible point highlights how common, trite sayings could easily be used to dismiss real social concerns.

The same dynamic is at work when characters like Gerald or Mrs Birling use to alleviate the awkwardness of speaking plainly in the confrontational way Inspector Goole does. Sexual matters, for example, were not to be bluntly discussed in polite society, so terms like “women of the town” are used for prostitution and Gerald describes his affair with Eva as “relaxation”. Mrs Birling and Gerald use euphemisms the most as they are most aligned with coming from upper class or ‘polite society’ backgrounds.

Allusion

The reference to the Titanic being “unsinkable” is a heavy use of since the audience recognise it as an allusion to one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. Likewise, the allusions to “silly little war scares” and other understatements leave the audience in no doubt as to the short-sightedness of Mr Birling, who makes these statements. Mr Birling’s attitude to these things, viewed by an audience aware of the catastrophic war that would happen within two years of his speech, confirm him to be ignorant and out-of-touch, despite his high opinions of himself.

Listen: An Inspector Calls – Dramatisation

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Listen to a podcast about the dramatisation of JB Priestley's play, An Inspector Calls

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An Inspector Calls - Form, structure and language - CCEA