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

By what means, and how successfully is suspense created and sustained in An examiner Calls?An Inspector 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 structure Layers of meaning in language, ideas and themes The social and historical setting/contextJB Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls towards the end of ball War2. The bestow however, is set in 1912 at a wealthy, middle-class familyhome. The play is about a family celebrating an engagement, when anInspector calls, and tells them of a young girls suicide. The playis always set in the familys dining room, but it has precise stagedirections, so each character must be session in a certain place.Suspense is used right through the play, usually at its peak at theend of an act.I think JB Priestley was act 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 be always trying to find out whowas responsible for the suicide, and you know that everybody fits in,but you dont know when or how.As you find, or think youve name something out, the play takes a newdramatic turn, which definitely makes suspense the key factor. Whatmakes the play even better is that the audience always knows a lotto a greater extent than the characters do, and you be always wondering whyhavent they worked that out?Suspense is very successfully created and sustained in An InspectorCalls.When Act ane 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 hoax. Then, it is usedas a dramatic device again when it rings, and the local Inspector sayshe is coming round to question the Birlings about a young girlsdeath. The play ends here.Now, we have found out the suspense is created and sustained v erysuccessfully in An Inspector Calls. With you always wonderingwhether the Inspector is real, and all the cliffhangers that are used,you are constantly left in suspense, even after the very unusualending. You are wondering at the end whether this time it really isreal, or is it some other hoax? We will never know. Dramatic devices area key element in this play, for example in Act 3 a telephony is thefocal point. It can be little things like that. I hope this brings agood conclusion to a very good, interesting, even if strange play.