Time in An Inspector Calls
● Priestly draws on ideas about time to create twists and surprises in the
play. For example, the idea of time repeating itself, and using
knowledge of the past to change the future, occurs at the end of play.
The phone call telling the Birlings that a girl has just died brings the
characters full circle.
- Inspector Goole arrives at the Birlings’ to question the characters before
the suicide has been discoverd.
- The characters are given a chance to see the consequences of their
past actions.
- The characters can change how they will react when an inspector
questions them the second time around.
- At the end of the play the audience is left to consider how each
character will respond. We expect Sheila and Eric to understand what
they have done to Eva Smith and behave differently in the future. We
expect Mr and Mrs Birling to deny any responsibility for their actions.
● The period in which Priestly chose to set it (1912) and its relationship to
the audience who would first see it. He set it just before the ‘fire and
blood and anguish’ of the first world war, for an audience who would
have just come through the second world war. From Priestley's point of
view it would give great power to his words.
● He considers the failure of the older generation (exemplified by Mr and
Mrs Birling) to learn from their mistakes after the first world war and not
to repeat this failure now that WW2 is over.
● The audience would also recognise how Eric’s fear of the future
foreshadowed the coming of life among his generation.
● Earlier on in the play, Eric seems to challenge his father’s view about
the possibility of war. His father sliences him, which we could see as a
symbol of the older generation failing the young. Gerald, on the other
hand, agrees with Mr Birling that the future looks like ‘a time of steadily
increasing prosperity’ comments that prove to be tragically ironic.
● Priestly draws on ideas about time to create twists and surprises in the
play. For example, the idea of time repeating itself, and using
knowledge of the past to change the future, occurs at the end of play.
The phone call telling the Birlings that a girl has just died brings the
characters full circle.
- Inspector Goole arrives at the Birlings’ to question the characters before
the suicide has been discoverd.
- The characters are given a chance to see the consequences of their
past actions.
- The characters can change how they will react when an inspector
questions them the second time around.
- At the end of the play the audience is left to consider how each
character will respond. We expect Sheila and Eric to understand what
they have done to Eva Smith and behave differently in the future. We
expect Mr and Mrs Birling to deny any responsibility for their actions.
● The period in which Priestly chose to set it (1912) and its relationship to
the audience who would first see it. He set it just before the ‘fire and
blood and anguish’ of the first world war, for an audience who would
have just come through the second world war. From Priestley's point of
view it would give great power to his words.
● He considers the failure of the older generation (exemplified by Mr and
Mrs Birling) to learn from their mistakes after the first world war and not
to repeat this failure now that WW2 is over.
● The audience would also recognise how Eric’s fear of the future
foreshadowed the coming of life among his generation.
● Earlier on in the play, Eric seems to challenge his father’s view about
the possibility of war. His father sliences him, which we could see as a
symbol of the older generation failing the young. Gerald, on the other
hand, agrees with Mr Birling that the future looks like ‘a time of steadily
increasing prosperity’ comments that prove to be tragically ironic.
