“An Inspector Calls” Social and Historical Context

The Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period 1901 to 1910, the reign of King Edward VII. It succeeded the Victorian period and is sometimes extended to include the period up to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the start of World War I in 1914, or even the end of the war in 1918.

Consider Priestley’s ideas and views:
1. He thought of his time as ‘an age of deepening inner despair’ and of appalling catastrophes; an age when society says one thing and then does something entirely different. Western man is a schizophrenic’. (He hated this social hypocrisy).
2. ‘We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’
3. ‘You cannot be happy when you are surrounded by people who are unhappy’.
4. Priestley was concerned with the atrocities mankind had commited on each other during the two world wars. They had devastated Europe and he hoped that by setting the play BEFORE the wars, in 1912, people would realise how their daily actions and words might change and influence the world – for better or worse.

POLITICS: 1912 and 1946
The play opens with a scene of great luxury: a wealthy family is celebrating an engagement in a very lavish fashion. This will be obvious to an audience that has spent the years of the Second World War without the luxuries that the Birlings are so abundantly enjoying (rationing of many luxury - and basic - goods continued into the 1950s). Although Churchill (a Conservative) is seen as a war hero for leading the fight against Nazism (he led a coalition government of Labour, Conservative and Liberal elements) a Socialist government has won a landslide victory in the 1945 General Election. Priestley was a supporter of the Labour party, and made many broadcasts on radio in which he tried to persuade people of the merits of socialism. In order to do this, Priestley sets the play in a time before there was a welfare state in the United Kingdom, and when employers had great power over their workers.

CLASS ISSUES AND SOCIETY

In 1912 there was no welfare state in Britain. Poor people often depended on charity. But wealthy people, such as Mrs. Birling, in the play, usually controlled the charity.

Young men and “wild oats”: There was a double standard between the genders. This play depicts a common situation from the early years of the 20th century - young women from the middle classes were not expected to be sexually active before marriage. This has nothing to do with virtue - but much to do with securing a good match. (After marrying, or even becoming widowed or divorced, middle-class and wealthy women could be more active if they chose.) However, poorer women could sometimes be seduced in return for material rewards (that would not be so attractive to those with wealth of their own).

The French called the era from 1895 to 1914 La Belle Époque. It was an epoch of beautiful clothes and the peak of luxury living for a select few - the very rich and the very privileged through birth. Contrast this with the lives of girls like Eva.

In retrospect we can see it is an era very separate from the 20th century despite belonging at its start. The attitudes and lifestyles of two decades were swept away by war and because the war was so atrocious a new socialism and sense of personal identity was born. The masses started to reject the concept of privilege as the reason for a better life.

Socially, the Edwardian era was the period during which the British class system was at its most rigid, although paradoxically, changes in social thought, particularly the rising interest in socialism, attention to the plight of the poor and the status of women, expressed in, for example, the issue of women's suffrage, together with increased economic opportunities as a result of rapid industrialisation, created an environment in which there could be more social mobility and people would become more liberal. This change would be hastened in the aftermath of the first World War. The playwright uses the self-absorbed, wealthy Birling family as a vehicle to expose much of what was wrong with Britain’s class system. This is done in the way their selfish and unkind actions drive a smart, young working classgirl to commit suicide. JBP hoped that the audience would realise that it is their selfish, unthinking actions and words to each other everyday which escalates into hatred and violence.