An Inspector Callspsychology Argumentative Essay Example

and ideas to the audience. These include dramatic irony, stage directions and cliff hangers.

The purpose of this to create tension in the audience.

Firstly, a dramatic device that Priestley uses is lighting. The lighting used changes throughout the play, depending on the situation and the atmosphere. Before the Inspector arrives, the atmosphere is light-hearted and joyful, the lighting is pink, warm and friendly, suggesting that everyone in the room is happy. However, when the Inspector arrives, the lighting becomes more intense and powerful adding more tension to the atmosphere.

“Pink and intimate until the inspector arrives..... then brighter and harder afterwards”.

This shows that the inspector changes the tone and atmosphere from comfortable to awkward place. This device changes the atmosphere in the audience. The audience realise that the play starts off with a jolly introduction, talking about a normal upper-class family who were just celebrating their daughter’s engagement, to a serious place. The audience’s body language changes from attracting to the play to retracting from the play. Another device used by J. B Priestley is sound.

He uses sound on the stage to engage the audience. When the Inspector arrives we hear a “sharp ring on the doorbell. This is important because the atmosphere changes from here. Edna informs the party”...

an inspector has called. ” The bell makes the audience ask questions like; “Why is an Inspector here? ” and “Is someone in trouble? ” Priestley uses stage directions as another dramatic device which helps show the way the characters speak to each other. It shows how the characters must act, directs emotion and creates tension. An example of this is: Sheila

(gaily, possessively), “I should jolly well think not” This shows that Sheila is happy and jolly.

But her stage directions change when the Inspector arrives. Another example of a stage direction is, “Mrs Birling - (reproachfully), “Arthur, you're not supposed to say such things “. This shows that Mrs Birling doesn't want such subjects talked about in front of her children. Priestley also uses dramatic irony is, as another dramatic device. He uses it in Arthur Birlings speeches when he talks about the war and the ‘Titanic’. “Just because the Kaiser makes a speech or two, or a few German officers have too much to drink and begin talking nonsense, you’ll hear people say war’s inevitable.

And to that I say – fiddlesticks! ” “Why, a friend of mine went over this new liner last week – the Titanic – she sails next week – forty-six thousand, eight hundred tons – New York in five days – and every luxury and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable” Both of his predictions were wrong. Priestley ridicules Birling. With the play written in 1945, after the sinking of the Titanic and both World Wars, this statement is making the audience think “Isn’t he rather foolish. ” . Priestley lastly uses cliff-hangers to create tension.

He uses it at the end of Act One to hook the audience. At the end of Act One Gerald admits to Sheila that he had an affair with Eva Smith. The Inspector enters and says “Well? ” Ending the Act on this cliff-hanger makes the audience want to watch more. It also keeps them thinking about the play. In conclusion, I think the dramatic devices

Priestley uses does convey his concerns and ideas to members of the audience as well as interest them and involve them in the play by relating the audience to the characters in the play.

I think the most useful dramatic device used in the play is dramatic irony. When Birling talks about the Titanic and both World Wars it changes the audience’s mind about him. Priestley also engaged the audience by using lighting, sound, dramatic irony and stage direction. Priestley wanted his audience to be affected by the message he was trying to transmit. He used all the tension so the audience could feel guilty for what they could be doing or what they could have done to the working class.

He also made some people see the inequality in society and that they should change.