An inspector calls

ohn Boynton Priestley was a socialist. He believed that whether we acknowledged it or not, we are in a community and have a responsibility to look after others. He wrote "An Inspector Calls" to highlight these beliefs and share them. In writing this essay, I intend to show Priestley's aims in writing the play, how he showed these aims and how successful he was in conveying his ideas.



You can only speculate on the aims of a playwright in writing a play. In the case of "An Inspector Calls", a valid speculation would be that the author aimed to educate the audience through the characters' realisation of their role in Eva Smith's demise and thus their individual responsibility towards other people.

Arthur Birling is the kind of character the whole play warns against. "A hard-headed business man", he believes that society is as it should be. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and there is a large gap between the two. He believes that "a man has to mind his own bus...