please help!n I need to write an introcution, but what am I actually introducing?!
How does Priestley make the play An Inspector Calls dramatic?
INTRODUCTION NEEDS TO BE HERE
Priestley uses sound to make the play dramatic. The use of the "sharp ring of a front door bell" increases tension by causing dramatic silence experienced by both the audience and characters on stage. Furthermore the Inspector's entrance brings a socialist message, interrupting the character who was speaking prior to his arrival, Birling, a capitalist who had been preaching the value of capitalist views such as " a man has to look after his own business and look after himself". Drama is created because the Inspector on the other hand, believes that "everybody has to look after everybody else" and had therefore come to the house to teach the Birlings and Gerald a lesson on how capitalists mistreated the working class without giving much importance. The underlying political message for this device has caused tension; a socialist is interrupting a capitalist. Priestley has created drama by using the sound of the doorbell to create tension between two opposing political views.
Another dramatic device Priestley uses given through stage directions is lighting. Priestley described that in the beginning of the play ,light should be "pink and intimate" creating a comfortable atmosphere suggesting its warmth and welcoming. Once the Inspector arrives, the lighting changes to a "brighter and harder light" giving the impression of interrogation and transparency, where all is exposed. With the unwinding of the story and the realisation that the characters were "all in it", being the death of Eva Smith, the lighting at the beginning of the play proves to be deceiving; the audience now understands that the lighting selected has evoked a false ambience where people have tried to cover up secrets. With the Inspector's interrogations, these secrets are revealed. The lighting creates drama because it mirrors the ambience of the play for each scene right up until the end.
Priestley has also made the play dramatic by having only Sheila and Eric, the two youngest characters, learn something from the Inspector's visit. Birling, Mrs.Birling and Gerald seem as if they want to return to their previous ways of treating those less fortunate than themselves; even though it has been highlighted by the Inspector and Sheila that all five of them are held morally responsible for Eva Smith's suicide. It is not only the Inspector who has tried to get a socialist message across, Sheila also gets very upset at her parents for "trying not to face the facts" and accuses them of "being childish", this is ironic because they are the adults and typically should take responsibility for their actions. Drama is created due to the irony of the children having mature responses to the interrogation instead of thinking that "everything's all right now" at the revelation of the Inspector's credibility.
Eva is also a dramatic device because she is an unseen character. Priestley has cleverly described who she is without her having to perform on stage: She's a young woman who will stand up to Birling in his unjust treatment of his employees; she was awfully treated by both Birling and his daughter; she started to frequent the "Palace Variety Theatre", a "favourite haunt of women of the town" which lead to affairs with both Gerald and Eric; and resorting to charity she attempted to get financial assistance from Mrs. Birling's committee. This involvement with the characters is highly dramatic: the episodes described are full of emotions and yet she is never revealed on stage, creating great suspense and mystery for we only know of her from the Inspector and through what the other characters reveal.
The only physical evidence of Eva is the photograph which provoked great reactions, especially from Sheila. When the Inspector "produces the photograph" to her she "recognizes it with a little cry" and "runs out", this clearly states she has taken part in Eva's bitter suicide story. The audience here reaches a turning point where now the "excitable and happy about life" innocent Sheila is the reason Eva lost her job at Milwards. The photograph gives Priestley an opportunity to present emotions that accompany the characters reactions to the photograph in detail creating drama and tension. The photograph is a recurrent dramatic device because instead of the Inspector showing the picture once, creating tension once, he creates it twice giving the audience a slow drip-by-drip detailed account of each characters feelings upon the presentation of the photograph and their relationship with Eva Smith, making the play dramatic. Thus the audience becomes intrigued to see the character's reaction, each time the photo is presented.
Dramatic irony is shown in Birlings speech at the beginning of the play, where he boastfully "as a hard-headed businessman" thinks that "there isn't a chance of war" and that the Titanic is "absolutely unsinkable" when the audience knows that there have been two world wars since and the sinking of the Titanic. This not only makes the audience think Birling is an opinionated and arrogant character giving a poor impression of capitalists, but also it generates great tension due to these events being very vivid in the minds of the audience for they have happened recently . Here drama is created where all the audience feels they know more than the characters on set and due to the rawness and sensitivity of these topics, creates further discomfort in the audience.
In conclusion, the characters who at the beginning of the play were full of self-conviction now question their role in society as innocent bystanders when in fact they know now they were the key in the downfall of Eva's death. The play ends on a cliff-hanger with Birling announcing "...a police inspector is on his way - to ask some - questions - ..." The stage direction following this dramatic announcement is that the characters "stare guiltily and dumfounded" as the curtain falls. This ending mirrors the audience's reaction to the ending; prompting their initial perception of the play, its plot, the character's importance and the Inspector's reliability. These questions at the end cause suspense further more drama is generated leaving audience on the edge of their seats trying to find out unsolved mysteries like whether the call at the end meant the whole investigation was going to be repeated. The phone-call leaves characters panicked and de-stabilised-having the greatest dramatic effect on the audience
Hello Matilda,
An interrogation is a sickening thing--especially if you aren't told why you are being interrogated--or even know the person who died. Interrogators nowadays resort to anything including giving their victims incurable diseases, unknown mind-altering substances, and the "delusional" trick. How do they get away with it? They never say what they really are: prostituted hounds. Is it possible to prostitute dogs? Good question.
Comments:
--Stay in present tense.
--Great ideas. Look up what critics have said about drama. Famous critics's comments are often a good starting point for an essay. Sometimes it's really hard to relate to a play, unless you read more about the playwright.
Priestley creates drama by using the sound of the doorbell to create tension between two opposing political views. At the moment the doorbell sounds, Birling is praising the virtues of capitalism, "a man has to look after his own business and look after himself." By interrupting Birling's speech, the inspector brings a socialist message to the front door: "everybody has to look after everybody else." In essence, a socialist interrupts a capitalist in his own home. _____***What is the outcome of this interruption?***
***After reading your essay, I conclude that Eva's death represents something more than simply a suicide. I would compare this play to Ibsen's "A Doll's House," that perennial favorite among high school English teachers. On the surface it seems absurd that a woman leaves her husband over a piece of candy. Both deal with challenging the moral authority of those in power.
In a critical review of Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw said,
"Now that a reaction against realism has set in, and the old jolly ways are coming into fashion again, it is perhaps not so easy as it once was to conceive the extraordinary fascination of this mirthless comedy, this tragedy that stepped the soul naked instead of bedizening it in heroic trappings. But if you have not experienced this fascination yourself, and cannot conceive it, you may take my word for it that it exists, and operates with such power that it puts Shakespeare himself out of countenance."
or go to the website yourself and select a quote. Comment on where you think Priestley falls in the playwright spectrum.
Reading an autobiography of Priestley may help you understand his views more clearly.
Wikipedia lists: Midnight on the Desert, Journey Down a Rainbow, and Margin Released.
