J.B.Priestley’s play, An Inspector Calls Essay -- English Literature

By what means, and how successfully is suspense created and sustained in An inspector Calls?An examiner Calls EssayBy what means, and how successfully is suspense created and sustainedin An inspector Calls? Show analytical and interpretative skills The effects of dramatic devices and bodily structure Layers of meaning in language, ideas and themes The social and historical setting/contextJB Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls towards the end of World War2. The play however, is set in 1912 at a wealthy, middle- human body familyhome. The play is ab expose a family celebrating an engagement, when anInspector calls, and tells them of a young girls suicide. The playis continuously set in the familys dining room, but it has precise stagedirections, so apiece character must be sitting in a real place.Suspense is used right through the play, usually at its billhook at theend of an act.I think JB Priestley was trying to get a message across to us that weneed to abolish the social class differences, and all be equal.The play is very good because you are invariably trying to find out whowas responsible for the suicide, and you know that everybody fits in,but you get dressedt know when or how.As you find, or think youve ready something out, the play takes a newdramatic turn, which definitely makes suspense the pick out factor. Whatmakes the play even better is that the audience always knows a raftmore than the characters do, and you are always enquire whyhavent they worked that out?Suspense is very successfully created and sustained in An InspectorCalls.When Act one begins, the mood is merry, and civilised in the diningroom, at The Birlings house. The family are happy, excited and ... ...er this phone call meansthat yes everything was true, or no, it was a spoof. Then, it is usedas a dramatic device again when it rings, and the topical anesthetic Inspector sayshe is coming round to question the Birlings about a young girlsdeath. The play ends here.Now, we h ave found out the suspense is created and sustained verysuccessfully in An Inspector Calls. With you always wonderingwhether the Inspector is real, and all the cliffhangers that are used,you are constantly left field in suspense, even after the very unusualending. You are wondering at the end whether this time it really isreal, or is it another hoax? We will never know. Dramatic devices area key fixings in this play, for example in Act 3 a skirt is thefocal point. It can be little things like that. I entrust this brings agood conclusion to a very good, interesting, even if exotic play.