An Inspector Calls - Plot &Context

JB Priestley: An Inspector Calls

Background & Context

John Boynton (JB) Priestly       

• Born in Yorkshire 1894, died 1984
• Left school in 1910 at the age of 16 and worjed in an office as a clerk before joining up to fight in the First World War where he narrowly escaped being killed.
• After the war he went to Cambridge University before going to London to begin work as a writer - he wrote over 50 plays

An Inspector Calls

• He was very active in politics and supported the Campaign for Niclear Disarment - The play An Inspector Calls was very influecned by the subject of war, as it was set in 1912, the year the titanic sank, and just two years beofore the outbreak of the first World War, which the characters discuss.
• It was a time of Industrialisation
• This period ( from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 until the star of the First worlf war ) was known as the Edwardian Era - after King Edward the VII and was seen by many as a fairly untroubled and peacful time.
• The two wars that followed changed things completely, so those who saw An Inspector calls when it came out in 1946 would have recognised it as being in a very differenct era, not least for the wealthy , who lived in luxury and employed plenty of servents.

Plot

Act 1

• Characters ands settings are introduced in the dining room of the Birling family during an engagement party…