Inspector Calls was written in 1945 by John Boynton Priestley, renowned author.
He subtly portrayed his socialist political outlook in his play, through the manner of the characters, and the goings on at the time. Inspector Calls was written during World War 2 so the dampened attitude felt by people at the time, might have reflected in Priestley choice to write a play about suicide. The play uses features of a ‘Well Made Play’ to generate a feeling of tension and suspension within the audience. It does this very well by using such features as; Exposition, entrances and exits, obligatory scenes, climatic curtains, mistaken identities and a denouement.
The exposition is a feature not only selective to ‘Well Made Plays’ it is introduction of the characters to the audience. Due to Inspector Calls being a play it had to grip the audience from the off. Priestley didn’t have time to create intricate 3-D personality, or mysterious subtle personas. Instead his characters have to be blunt, and rather stereotypical, so the audience could instantly feel acquainted with them.The entrances and exits are key feature in the play ‘Inspector Calls’.
The entrances and exits provide a platform for very bold moments within the play. The manner in which a character can enter a room can dictate the majority of the remaining scene, a character leaving a scene can also have a similar effect. The entire emotion felt within a scene can change literally with the opening or closing or a door, and Priestley, when writing Inspector Calls, knew this and excellently portrayed this with the manner and the timing of the Inspector’s first entrance. Up until the Inspectors entrance the characters had been in the hub of a humorous, enjoyable scene, an engagement party. However the Inspector’s unanticipated, spontaneous entrance soon flips the mood of the scene to that of fear and a hostile, defensive attitude enacted by all.The spontaneity of the Inspectors entrance helps add additional suspense and tension to the play by, instantly making the audience speculate what the Inspectors intentions of the visit are.
This speculation adds suspense as it makes the audience repeatedly re-evaluate the cast, as they know realise their original judgments of the character’s traits and history are have perhaps been misinterpreted. Tension is generated by the anticipation of the characters responses to the Inspectors probing, penetrating and inquisitive questions.The obligatory scene is also a heavily used feature within the ‘Well Made Play’ genre. It is the part of the play where a secret is publicised and a person’s integrity slashed. However Priestly ingeniously, not only liberates one secret within the play, but multiple, equally scandalous secrets.
None of the characters reveal their secrets voluntarily; they all have to be extracted by the smooth, precise Inspector.An increase in suspension felt by the audience is created when witnessing an obligatory scene. Part of the reason Inspector Calls is such a well acknowledged play is because of the many, unforeseeable secrets released to the audience. Each character has their dark past extracted from the shadows and laid bare for all to see. This public humiliation entices the audiences, and makes them long for more shame to be inflicted, thus generating additional suspense. The tension is created in the audience’s predictions as to which character is to have the past exposed and shame brought upon them.
For a play to grasp the audience’s attention, and keep them clued in for the entire duration of the play, at the end of the acts there has to be a reason to stay for the next instalment. The term for this is Climatic Curtain, a feature Priestley uses to great extent in his play Inspector Calls. Having a Climatic Curtain is an imperative feature of a play, it leaves the audience on tenterhooks in the interval speculating as to what the next part of the play has to offer.At the end of Act 1 the inspector reveals that Gerald knew Daisy Renton. A scandalous piece of information which sprouts off many further questions, that the audience long to know.
This leaves them wanting more, the suspense grips them and engulfs them as the eagerly await the answers to the many curious questions that they posses.One of the features of a ‘Well Made Play’ is where the audience and the cast mistake the identity of one of the characters within the play. The only plausible mistaken identity in the Inspector Calls play is the true identity of the Inspector. Up until the very end of the play the identity on the Inspector is never under scrutiny it is only after we the Birling household receive a phone call from the police office that instructs them that they will be visited by an Inspector.
This then triggers them into a rapid back tracking session and they come to the conclusion the Inspector that had visited them, was not in fact an Inspector.This helps add tense and suspension to the play by further confusing the audience because they do not know what to trust. It makes them revaluate characters and think differently about them. The tension is created in the moments when the audience is waiting to find out the true identity of a character, these moments can be very dramatic and clench the audience in an unbreakable gripPriestley wanted to make sure he didn’t commit the offence of over bearing his audience therefore; he chose to have the one main story line of Eva Smith’s suicide and the family’s involvement. However Priestley also incorporated his socialist views into the play, he also got across the message of how people should learn be ‘responsible for each other’.
The simple yet effective plot idea still enabled the play to be packed full of tension and crammed to the brim with suspense due to the interesting, characters
