The Main Themes in An Inspector Calls Essay Example

help by Mrs. Birling. The largest theme within the play is that of responsibility. The play outlines that we as a community need a sense of personal responsibility; but not only that, a sense of responsibility for other people's actions.

These views are voiced very strongly by the inspector within the play. One of the main parts that he shows this is in this 'fire and blood and anguish' speech when he says; 'But just remember this. One Eva Smith is gone - but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives and what we think and say and do. We don't live alone; we are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.

And I tell you that the time will come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and aguish. ' Within this speech he mentions how he thinks that we are all intertwined within each other, that lots of people doing little things to one person can lead to a very serious thing, in this case, death. Also within this speech he also emphasises the point that there are many people like Eva, and tries to get them to understand this an change their ways to help those others, but only Sheila and Eric seem to understand this and act upon it, the others don't care.Each character takes on a different amount of guilt and reacts differently to the news of Eva's death. Sheila Birling, daughter

of Mr and Mrs Birling, feels very guilty about the whole escapade, whereas Mr and Mrs Birling do not really care and try to pass on the blame to everyone else, and tried to make it look as if they were not to blame, but that everyone else was to blame.

Sheila, before she sees the photo of Eva, say; ' You talk as if we were responsible-.Then, when she is shown the picture, she is shocked and cannot say anything and runs out, but when she comes back she says; 'you knew it was me all the time, didn't you? ' By saying this Sheila opens herself up and seems to accept responsibility for her actions and is showing this to the inspector, rather than trying to cover the truth up with lies, or try to pass on the blame to others as some characters in the play do. Eric Birling, the son of the Birling Family, acts in very much the same way as Sheila, but does not seem to help the inspector with his investigations as much as Sheila does throughout the play.Sheila understands the whole situation straight away and knows what is morally right to do, and so does Eric, but he does not seem as keen to help. He reacts in very much the same way as Sheila does when the third act starts he thinks that the inspector knows, but wants to check.

He says at the beginning of the act; 'You know, don't you. ' This similar response shows the reader that they have similar point of view on it all.This becomes clearer as the play develops and they, the

younger generation, help the inspector with his investigations; although Sheila does most of the helping, Eric does understand feels responsible the same way as Sheila does, this is made obvious by their similarities in the way they react on first hearing of the death, to hearing that she is not dead and then to hearing that she is really dead. Mr and Mrs Birling do not take the same point of view as the others as they are much older and have Victorian values, which are very different to the values embraced by Sheila and Eric, the younger generation.This is an example of the generation gap theme that crops up throughout the play. Mrs Birling, when first shown the picture lies and says that she knows nothing of that person ( , but then Sheila, having seen the look on her face showed her up as she thought this was the right thing to do.

Mr Birling's reaction (Yes I do. She was one of my employees and then I discharged her. ) is very open and speaks of her as if she is nothing. He thinks of her as any other employee. He shows this when he says; Rubbish! If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth.

He refers to her and her fellow workers as 'some of these people' as if they were just cheap labour, not real people like him and his family. This reflects Mr Birlings Victorian morals which he describes as part of one of his speeches: 'a man has to make his own way, has to look after himself - and

his family too, of course, when he has one - and so long as he does he won't come to much harm. But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we're all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense'.This shows his values very clearly and how he bleives its every man for himself, this shows how he thinks business is firs then family comes in as an afterthought. Another main theme was Pride.

The play shows that pride is only what people make and that pride is rooted only in shallow soil that can easily be upturned. People's pride, as show by Mr Birling, can take the better of them and make it all a fantasy, a life that they want to life the pride they want to have, not what they actually have.Also, what things that they have to be proud about, in Mr Birling's case, him being the town mayor years ago in the play, are overemphasised and therefore lose their 'value'. The more that this point is mentioned by him or by his wife, the more that the people around him get annoyed and the more people, and the audience, can see how shallow he is and where his morals lie. Also, Mr Birling, by saying 'But what I wanted to say is - there's a fair chance that I might find my way into the next honours list. Just a knighthood, of course.

This shows that Mr Birling is viewing his daughters' marriage as a way into getting a knighthood, not as

a good occasion where two families can come together. Also, previously in the play, he is talking about the marriage of his daughter as a pleasant occasion, but then he turns it into business by saying 'perhaps we may look forward to the time when Crofts and Birlings are no longer competing but are working together - for lower costs and higher prices'. This extract also shows he does not care about the real value of marriage, just a way for him to make more money.Again Mr Birling puts business first and his family comes as an afterthought. One of the other themes which is constant throughout the play is the theme on lies.

The characters lie to each other, and also to the Inspector. It is not just the characters lying for a one off, but they begin to see their whole lives as a lie. The characters see that their lives are based on lies, their relationships with others and themselves and they begin to see that they need to start their lives again with truth. Many of the lies within the play are hypocritical.

Within the play several types of love and sexual relationships are mentioned. The husband-wife relationship with Mr and Mrs Birling, the supposed love of Gerald and Sheila, family love and also the odd love of truth by the inspector. There is also the previous sexual relationship between Gerald and Eva Smith. This play depicts that love is not always what it seems and that unwritten moral laws can be broken, like the impregnating of an un-married woman, which was frowned upon in those days. Respectable women were supposed to be

chaste, but men not.

This meant that sex before marriage was had with working class peoples or mistresses like Eva, but even if people of these classes got pregnant, it was still frowned upon. Lower class women were expected not to say no to sex from an upper class man and they were usually at mercy of their money. The play shows that love is odd, especially family love when Eric steals from his father showing the lack of respect he has for his father, this was particularly bad as children were always meant to obey their parents, and if they didn't, bad thing would happen. In this way, Mr Birling and family heads ruled by fear.

There is no visible love between Mr and Mrs Birling, they are just an average couple with children. On the other hand the inspector always shows his love for truth throughout the play. Truth is the one thing he is there to find out. One example where he shows these views is in his 'fire and blood and anguish' speech when he says that 'And I tell you that the time will come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and aguish.

' This shows that he likes the truth and that he wants them to learn a lesson through the truth and that if they don't do this the easy way, they will learn the hard way.Within this passage he describes this place as a common idea of hell. Another theme is that of the class system. People in those days were expected to know their class, and stay

within this class.

If a person tried to go up a class, those who were in charge frowned upon this move. Also, people were expected to marry within their class; so the trend was that if you were born high class, you stay high class, and if you were born low class, you would stay low class, this trend was rarely broken in those days.Factory owners or high class business were usually mid-high class. They believed that the knew better than their workers as workers were usually from a lower class, this is why Mr Birling takes such strong actions when he sacked Eva, he did not like his workers, who were lower than him, questioning whether his ideas of what pay was right for them was right.

He thought this was just plain rude and shouldn't be and wasn't accepted then.Mr Birling also wants to climb the social ladder through the marriage of his daughter since the mother of his daughters fiance , Lady Croft, is already part of the aristocracy and since he thinks that his service as a magistrate and the Lord Mayor means that he deserves it, and his daughters marriage into aristocracy just seals it all off. Overall throughout this essay I have found out that the main theme within the play is responsibility, but that there are many underlying themes, such as generation gap, lies pride, sex, classes, the view of women, which I have tried to explore but I am certain that there are other themes within the play which I have either just overlooked or just missed out.This, as any other book, play or text has meanings which can

be interpreted as many different things.

I have interpreted them in one way but others might interpret them differently, it is all to do with where you come from, whether you look at the background of the reader, the way he writes, how this might be related to his childhood or previous experiences. However, in this essay, I have not explore the play to that depth, only what was written within the text of the play.