Result of Eva’s Story Essay

ohn Boynton Priestley was born in 1894 and died in 1984. He was famous for contemplating apprehension and philosophy, and wrote many plays to put forward his socialist views. An examiner Calls was one of these, and is near a wealthy upper-middle break up family, the birlings, and how their views on living change as a result of a visit from an inspector. The main characters be the Birlings, Inspector Goole and Eva smith.Arthur Birling is a successful businessman his wife, Sybil, is very pretentious and their rather peculiar son, Eric, is an alcoholic. Erics sister, Sheila, has recently engaged to Gerald Croft, a gentleman of a slightly higher social class than the Birlings Mr. Birling feels a little inferior because of this. We do not know a kitty about the Inspector he is given an air of mystery and importance merely it is possible that he could be an trace of some kind or perhaps a figure to represent Priestleys own views. Eva Smith is an absent character who neverthele ss plays a huge part in the storyline.The play takes place but in the dining room of the Birlings house, which is heavily comfortable but not homelike. This unified telescope is beneficial in many ways. One thing is that it lowers the costs and requirements of the production of the play, meaning that it can be performed in a wider variety of settings and therefore be shown to more people. In addition, the audience will focusing on the actors and the plot rather than the set so much if it does not life changing, which helps retain wariness to the play.The play begins as Gerald Croft and the Birlings are celebrating as a family Sheila Birling and Geralds engagement, when the evening is interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Goole. The Inspector tells them the story of the tragic suicide of a young girl, whose name is Eva Smith, but she calls herself Daisy Renton after Mr. Birling sacks her, as an attempt to make a fresh start. He forces them to see how distributively of the peo ple present contributed to her taking her own life by swallowing disinfectant. Gradually, he picks away at the protective, self-complacent shell that the Birlings have built up around themselves, and eventually manages to pull apart the whole genius of the family. He then exits, leaving them to blame each other and argue amongst themselves.The play was written in 1945 but is set in 1912. I call back this is to emphasise the point that rich people are not always right, as Mr. Birling in particular makes several predictions that we, as the audience, know to be incorrect. For example, he says, Youll hear some people say that wars inevitable. And to that I say fiddlesticks and on that point isnt a chance of war. However, we know that two years later, WWI began.He speculates about Sheila and Geralds next In twenty or thirty years time lets say, in 1940 you may be giving a little party like this your son or daughter business leader be getting engaged and I tell you, by that t ime youll be living in a world thatll have forgotten all these silly war scares. This is ironic because in detail in 1940 WWII took place. He also makes predictions about labour struggles when he says, theres a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble in the near future.Dont worry. Weve passed the worst of it, and the Titanic, as he says, Unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable, both of which we know are wrong. Mr. Birling is self-confident about all of these predictions, but we know how wrong he is. This is an example of dramatic irony, and I think J.B. Priestley used it to great effect in portraying Mr. Birling as someone who is entirely uneducated about what the future holds, though the other characters are unaware of this.In Act One, the family is celebrating the engagement of Sheila and Gerald. Sheila is presented as excitable and eager to please her family and Gerald after she has received her ring she says, (excited) Oh its wonderful Look mommy isnt it a beauty? Oh da rling (She kisses Gerald hastily.) She is also rather materialistic, as the stage directions, ( salvage admiring her ring) imply, though she still shows empathy and compassion towards Eva SHEILA (Rather distressed) Sorry Its just that I cant help thinking about that girl destroying herself so horribly.She plays up to Gerald, saying, Oh is it the one you wanted me to have? and I think this suggests that she wants to keep on everyones good side, and avoid any conflict. She behaves in the same way to her parents, meekly saying, Im sorry, Daddy. Actually I was listening.