How to Analyse Form Part 1 of 2

Many students focus heavily on language analysis while completely ignoring form and dramatic devices - costing them vital marks in their English Literature exams. Because An Inspector Calls is a play written to be performed, analysing how Priestley uses stagecraft is essential for achieving top grades.

In Part 1 of this two-part guide, we unpack what dramatic form actually means and how to analyse key theatre devices in your essays. We’ll cover staging, the fourth wall, and the symbolic use of lighting and costumes. We’ll also explore character symbolism, the impact of cliffhanger endings, and how dramatic monologues and dramatic irony work together on stage to convey Priestley's social message.

Timestamp

0:00 What is form in An Inspector Calls and why should you analyse it?
2:33 Staging, the fourth wall 
7:35 Lighting
9:45 Characters as symbols and costume
20:54 anagnorisis and the cliffhanger ending
23:50 More character symbolism
30:36 Dramatic monologues and dramatic irony

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There are also resources to help you in the Study Materials section:

An Inspector Calls Vocabulary Bank

The words in this vocabulary bank will help you to develop a more sophisticated and high level understanding of the key ideas and concepts in 'An Inspector Calls'.

As well as providing a range of words, their definitions and an example sentence, this book also suggests a number of activities that you can use to revise and put the vocabulary into practice.

Bonus - it's completely free!

An Inspector Calls AQA GCSE Model Answers (Coming soon!)

This resource will have model answers for multiple years of AQA past papers, giving you the ability to see what high grade essays look like for a range of essay questions.

An Inspector Calls Edexcel IGCSE Model Answers (Coming soon!)

This resource will have model answers for multiple years of Edexcel past papers, giving you the ability to see what high grade essays look like for a range of essay questions.

An Inspector Calls Flipped Learning (Coming soon!)

This resource is designed for teachers and students: it is a workbook designed to be completed alongside all of my An Inspector Calls videos. It is essentially a structured way for you to take notes and ensure that you are squeezing every ounce of advice my videos have to offer.

I fully intend to add more videos and study materials on this play. If there's something in particular you're looking for, then register and get in touch to let me know what would help you.

Lesson Transcript:

I'm going to start by making a super obvious statement: An Inspector Calls is a play. You're so smart, you're so FM smart!

And so one of the really common mistakes that students make is they never actually analyze it as a play. They do some phenomenal analysis of language, which is very impressive considering how little rich language there is in An Inspector Calls, but they don't look at any techniques to do with a play.

And exam boards—loads of the exam boards, all of the exam boards typically—when it comes to their mark schemes for An Inspector Calls, whether you're doing it as an exam or as coursework, they'll say in the mark scheme that they want analysis of form. Now, form essentially means they want analysis of the techniques that are only found in that text type. So if what you're studying is a poem, they want you to analyze poetic techniques; if what you're studying is a play, they want you to analyze dramatic devices.

When I speak to students, they often feel quite confused by that term, and they're not sure what you should be talking about and what you should say. So we're going to make sure you understand not just what the different dramatic devices are in An Inspector Calls, but from an English literature perspective, what you can be saying about them, how you can be analyzing them, and how you can be using them in your essays.

And in terms of how you can be using them in your essays, it's the same way you would use language analysis. Essentially, when J.B. Priestley is creating An Inspector Calls, he has an idea he wants to get across, and absolutely every decision he makes is about trying to convey that idea to his audience. But while with novels or poetry the writer literally just has the written word—with poetry they can also play about with layout, but they basically have the words on the page to communicate it—with a play, Priestley has so many more tools at his disposal. He has lighting, he has costume, props, staging; he has so many different things that he can use to help him convey these ideas. And that's why it's so important to look at how he manipulates not just the written word, but all of those different techniques, those dramatic devices, in order to convey his key messages.

Now, if you're not sure what his key messages are and you want me to do a video on that, of sort of talking through all the different key ideas that Priestley has in this play, then you'll have to comment below and let me know. But I'm going to work on the assumption that you know the themes of An Inspector Calls and you know what Priestley is trying to achieve. So we're going to look at how those dramatic devices help him achieve those messages.

The first one we're going to look at is from right when the play starts: the actual staging description of what Priestley wants the stage to look like, the characters to look like, and the lighting to be like.

So what we've got here is really interesting, and from a dramatic device perspective, there's a lot to unpack. Because typically, if a playwright has put in a detail of something they really want in their play—like they want people dressed a certain way, they want people to look a certain way, they want people to act a certain way—they've got a real reason for that. Because, of course, there are actors, there are producers, there are directors that would typically take the script and then use their own creative ideas of how to present that on the stage. So if a playwright has put something in that they want, then they really must want it for a reason. So all of this is going to be purposeful, and something that we can really look at.

So, first of all:

"The dining-room is of a fairly large suburban house, belonging to a prosperous manufacturer. It has good solid furniture of the period."

Now, this would be the sort of setting that he is creating, okay? And I would essentially argue that this really fits with a key point I'm going to be making about a lot of his use of dramatic devices, and that is that he is trying to essentially create a microcosm of Britain.

Now, microcosm is one of the vocab words I go through in my An Inspector Calls vocabulary video, so have a look at that if you haven't seen it, but essentially that means he's trying to create like Britain in miniature within his play. He wants it to feel really realistic and authentic to British life, so it's very of the period; it is as you would expect for people of that class, of that time period. It's all very normal.

That also fits in when we think about the dramatic device of the fourth wall. Now, this is how a lot of realistic plays work, okay? So it's like you've got a room, and you've just removed a wall of that room that the audience can see into, so it's like we are the fourth wall. This is classically used in a lot of TV sitcoms and television shows, and also it originates from plays. And what that is about is making the audience almost feel like they are a fly on the wall, if you will—like they are just looking in on everyday life.

Now, how does all of that serve Priestley? How does it serve him to create a realistic Britain? Well, you've got to think about what he's trying to do: he's trying to critique and challenge what Britain used to be like. So the first thing he has to do is establish what Britain used to be like and create that realism around it.

If we look at the additional details about this setting, we can also start to see him sort of undermining that realistic Britain, too, and what life was like back then, and creating sort of negative connotations. So we're told that it:

"...should be substantial and heavily comfortable, but not cosy and homelike."

It feels quite almost superficial, like it all looks great, but it isn't a nice experience; it isn't a nice atmosphere. And that, of course, could arguably serve as a sort of sympathetic background for the Birling family themselves.

Now, I'm going to explain what sympathetic background is. You know pathetic fallacy, right? I bet you know pathetic fallacy: pathetic fallacy is when the weather symbolizes the emotions that we're seeing in the scene, right? So someone's really angry, there's a thunderstorm; someone's really sad, there are rain clouds. Sympathetic background is that same idea for the setting, okay? So not the weather anymore, but, like, the chairs, and the tables, and the curtains—they are all in some way symbolizing, representing the characters or the emotions going on in a particular scene, or chapter, or whatever it is.

In this case, it's essentially like their home is a metaphor for them: they are all about the way things look, they fit in with the time period, but there is nothing warm, there is nothing supportive about them. So the "not cosy and homelike"—it's trying to start, if you think about how that's shaping audience opinion before anybody's opened their mouths when they're watching this as a play, they'll already feel a little bit of that perhaps sort of stiffness, coldness, lack of support that we're later going to find out really exists within this family.

What he then says about:

"If a realistic set is used, then it should be swung back... by doing this, you can have the dining-table center..."

A lot of that is just like technical information that isn't as useful; it's basically highlighting to us that he wants the fourth wall, okay? Priestley wants that realism of it feeling like you've just walked into their dining room—well, not even you're walking into their dining room: as the audience, you're sitting in a chair and their dining room appears in front of you.

What is really important, though, is this last line that he says about the lighting:

"The lighting should be pink and intimate until the INSPECTOR arrives, and then it should be brighter and harder."

So the "pink and intimate" before the Inspector arrives: it really fits with that old saying about wearing rose-tinted spectacles. It creates, yes, an atmosphere of warmth, of happiness, of nostalgia—because remember, our audience are watching this in 1945 and it's set in 1912, so there might be an element of nostalgia for some of our audience—but also of things being, if you again think of that saying of rose-tinted spectacles, of things being too good to be true. It's all sort of a performance; it's not authentic, it's not the reality.

Yet, meanwhile, for that lighting to change when the Inspector arrives and becomes "brighter and harder," thinking about what that can symbolize: it's, of course, that the Inspector represents, you know, the truth coming out. He is going to get to the reality of what this family are like; he's going to get them to confess the things that they've done. He's like representing knowledge, truth, reality. And so with it being brighter and harder, it fits with this idea of the truth coming out, and that being sort of difficult to deal with.

So already, Priestley has used the way the stage looks and the way the lighting is to have such deep metaphorical, symbolic meaning. And you're going to be able to talk about that in your essays, because if you think about it: the lighting, "pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives"—that's a great thing to look at if you're writing an essay about the Inspector and what that tells us about his role in the play. And that's something I'm going to be talking about in a bit: the fact that all of the characters are dramatic devices, because they are all symbols with a clear purpose in this play. But that's something you're going to be able to talk about: the symbolism of the staging, and the fact that it is essentially a metaphor for the family, and what it tells the audience about our family. That's something you're going to be able to talk about if you've got questions about the Birlings, or how he presents the Birlings, or anything like that.

We then go to this next part of the description of staging where we get a sort of breakdown of the different characters. And again, all of that is important in understanding our characters as the symbols that they are supposed to represent. And the symbols that they are supposed to represent, at least on one level, is again fitting with that microcosm: they are supposed to be almost archetypes for types of people that you would find in 1912 Britain.

The costume is also interesting here, because we're told that they're in:

"...evening dress of the period, the men in tails and white ties..."

Now, part of that is, of course, the fact that this is all taking place at dinner, but I think we have to ask ourselves: well, why did Priestley want it at dinner? My personal opinion is this description of them being in tails and white ties: they are dressed particularly fancily for dinner.

Now, if you're a Downton Abbey fan, you're going to know all about the distinction between dinner jackets and tails and white ties, and you'll already be with me in knowing this: "Would you think I might have a drink?" "Alexis, I thought you were a waiter!" Those of you who aren't fans of Downton Abbey need to go sort that out right now, and then come and understand the fact that tails and white tie is the sort of fancier version of what you would wear to dinner in this time period; dinner jackets is the slightly more casual version.

So the fact that Priestley has gone through the effort to specify, "I want them in tails," makes it clear that their costume was also incredibly important. And if their costume is important, we have to understand why it's important. What do those tails and white ties represent?

Now, we could argue with the likes of Mr. Birling that it's his attempt to fit in with the upper classes, because they would typically wear the tails and white ties and dress more formally. But we could also argue that part of what Priestley constantly wants to have in our minds and constantly remind us of is the power and privilege that these people hold. And he can't do that by showing us the Birlings' factory or Gerald's stately home, but he can do it by having them dressed to the nines—by having, you know, the ladies in their pearls and beautiful dresses, and the men in their coattails, while they're hearing about a woman who was starving, friendless, penniless, had nothing, and killed herself.

So it's that juxtaposition between the story that the audience are hearing of a woman who was utterly desolate, and what they are visually seeing of—remember that setting, the staging of the Birling family home: substantial, comfortable, the way they are dressed in their tails. It's that jarring of the two that helps to serve Priestley's criticism of these people, of capitalism, of class inequality. He really wants us to have their class at the forefront of our minds, and never forget how much money they have visually through their costume.

When we then look at the descriptions of the characters, as I've already said, they are all essentially archetypes of different types of people:

So the fact that Mr. Birling is:

"...provincial in his speech..."

"Provincial" essentially has connotations of suggesting, like, you sound like you're from the country. So maybe you've got a northern accent, maybe you've got a Scottish accent, Welsh accent, Shropshire accent—whatever it is, you've got an accent that is not southern Received Pronunciation, Queen's English, posh kind of accent. And the connotations of that, especially back then, would essentially be: you're not wealthy, you're not aristocratic, you're probably working class. Because, of course, our aristocrats, our wealthy—even if they were the Earl of Yorkshire or the Duke of Wales or whatever—they would have received such a quality education that they would have all sounded the same, regardless of where in the United Kingdom they were from.

So him being provincial: what Priestley essentially is trying to suggest here is Arthur Birling could be a working-class lad done good; he is someone who has climbed the ladder and now made himself successful. That's a really important part to his character, which, if you've seen my video analyzing his character, you'll know, because I go through this quote in a lot of detail in that video. It's an essential part to understanding his character because it helps us understand:

1. Number one: the inherent insecurity we see him have constantly around Gerald, that he isn't good enough, he's new money, he needs to show he has power and superiority when he's around Gerald—it helps explain his insecurity.

2. It also, if we're thinking of Priestley's messages, helps to highlight his hypocrisy: if he was someone who perhaps started from humbler beginnings and has made it and is now slamming the door behind him or, you know, kicking other people further down the ladder off, it's that hypocrisy of: he doesn't want to give support and opportunity to people who perhaps were like him.

Now, the reason I keep saying "perhaps" is because, of course, there's nothing outright explicitly said in this that Mr. Birling used to be working class; that's me inferring that from the word "provincial." So make sure when you're writing about this in your essays, you are equally tentative: "provincial" has connotations of this, and therefore could suggest this about Mr. Birling's background; if that was the case, this is what it would tell us about Mr. Birling. Make sure you're just as tentative.

We then get Mrs. Birling, and the key details about her are not just that essentially she's cold and emotionless, but also:

"...her husband's social superior."

So, again, that's clearly an important dynamic that J.B. Priestley wanted to have in the play. Mrs. Birling as a dramatic device is supposed to be representing those upper classes, the upper-class women in particular.

Meanwhile, her daughter, who is:

"...very pleased with life and rather excited..."

—is your young upper-middle-class woman. So Sheila is the archetype for the young women with wealth; Mrs. Birling is the archetype for the older women with wealth. And, of course, so when we see the conflict between Sheila and Mrs. Birling, it links to that difference in the values they're being raised with.

So Mrs. Birling: she's 50 in 1912; she was, of course, actually, you know, her formative years were the Victorian era, so she's had more of those kinds of values. Whereas Sheila, if she is in her early 20s in 1912, she is shaped much more by the Edwardian era: she is going to be shaped much more by things like the suffragette movement and World War I and all those events that are to come. (Don't write in your essay that Sheila is shaped by World War I—it's not going to happen yet!) But either way, they represent that generational difference of how Britain has really been changing in the early 20th century.

You then, of course, have got Gerald Croft, who is our dandy, but:

"...very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town."

So he's supposed to be the archetype for the upper class. Now, "dandy" is really hard to try and explain what a dandy is, because it's such a culture-to-that-time specific concept, but the best way I would describe it from modern-day understanding is that he is someone who dressed well, knew how to party, was, you know, very desired by others, and was just kind of seen as being, like, really cool.

The fact, though, that he is also "well-bred"—that's your classic phrase used with the upper classes: he comes from a good family, an aristocratic family. And the fact that he's a "man-about-town": he's single, he's not sort of committed to anybody. So he's the archetype of that young upper class.

Eric being in his early 20s: just as with Sheila and Mrs. Birling being like the generational difference, Mr. Birling and Eric are the generational difference.

So overall, when we consider our characters as dramatic devices, they are symbols of the different kinds of people.

So a question for us: why does Priestley do that? Why does Priestley bother to have Sheila and Eric exist? Why not just have Mr. and Mrs. Birling, and critique the system that way? And, of course, we know it's because Sheila and Eric aren't going to react in the same way as their parents. So as dramatic devices, they essentially serve as points of contrast to one another.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they are necessarily foils of one another, which means they're almost like direct opposites—the Inspector and Birling, they are foils of one another—but definitely Sheila and Eric become greatly contrasted to their parents. And so what Priestley is able to do is, through the conflict between these characters, he is able to point out the flaws in individualism, in capitalism; he's able to really highlight how arrogant and stuck in their ways Mr. Birling and Mrs. Birling are by the fact that their children do change.

So he's able to really highlight all of his key ideas by being like: look how different these characters are to one another! And, of course, the other conflicts that they get in against one another, against each other's values, also helps to explore his key ideas, because it's essentially like a live debate of collectivism versus individualism, socialism versus capitalism happening live on stage, where, of course, he makes sure socialism and collectivism wins the argument, but we're still seeing that battling of wits. And so it's really important that that wasn't just via the Inspector; it comes from Eric as well, it comes from Sheila as well.

And then when it comes to Gerald, of course, his dramatic device as a representative of the upper-class person is linked to the fact that he doesn't change: he does not learn his lesson. And so he represents this idea that the upper class cannot change; they cannot learn from their lesson, they are so deep and entrenched in their power and privilege they cannot give it up. Even the young ones—like, the young middle classes can change; the young upper classes almost seem incapable of change, because for them the power is too much, they're too entrenched in it all.

There is actually a name for that concept of learning to change and learning from your mistakes, and that is anagnorisis.

Now, anagnorisis is a really interesting dramatic device that essentially just means when a character in a play has recognized their mistakes and learned from their mistakes. And so when it comes to An Inspector Calls, you've essentially got two camps: you've got those who experience anagnorisis and who learn and change, and those who don't.

• So in the camp of those who learn and change, you've got Sheila and you've got Eric.

• Meanwhile, in the camp of those who lack anagnorisis and don't change, you've got Mr. Birling, you've got Mrs. Birling, and you have got Gerald.

So when you realize that anagnorisis, we see another function, a dramatic function of our characters: whether or not they learn their lesson tells us a lot about them as the archetype that they represent. It tells us about the extent to which capitalists can change, older generations can change, women can change, men can change, etc.

So when Sheila and Eric are capable of change, we essentially get the message from—as said by Whitney Houston—"Teach them well and let them lead the way..." The young are going to save us all! They can progress, they can learn.

Meanwhile, while Mr. and Mrs. Birling refuse to change, it's that kind of classic "old dog can't learn new tricks": they're stuck in their ways, they need to be sort of forced to move along, if you will, as the ending shows, because they won't do it by themselves.

And, of course, Gerald represents what I was literally just talking about, of that upper class being incapable of change.

So our characters are not only symbolic archetypes of different types of people, they also, via their anagnorisis, represent the capacity for change and progress in Britain. And what Priestley is essentially saying is that progress and change is absolutely possible. Not everybody's going to be on board with it, not everybody's going to do it, but it has to be done anyway; those people have to be made to move along.

And that's what the ending of the play essentially represents: by ending on a cliffhanger, where Birling has been made to think that everything's fine and then suddenly it's not again, he's being made to learn his lesson. He's being made to realize, as the Inspector said in his final speech, you know: "they will be taught it in fire and bloody and anguish." He's being forced: right, you didn't learn before, let's make you go through it all over again until you learn!

So if you're looking for more detail on analyzing the ending of An Inspector Calls, you need to go have a look at my video, because I've literally made an entire video just analyzing that ending. But the key thing to understand about the ending right now, from a dramatic device perspective, and why Priestley ends the play on a cliffhanger, is that it's about needing to learn your lesson: you need to learn from your mistakes, you need to change, you need to have this anagnorisis.

Of course, there's another classic way that the characters are used: they're not just representing archetypes of different groups of people in Britain, they are representing ideologies, viewpoints, stances.

So if we do a little run-through of all the different characters and what they represent:

• Let's start with Mr. Birling. Now, you're going to have finished this sentence before I've even written it down, because you know the answer to this, I have no doubt: he symbolizes capitalism, and he symbolizes individualism.

• Meanwhile, the Inspector is essentially the opposite: the Inspector represents socialism and collectivism.

• Mrs. Birling: yes, she is also an individualist, but I would also argue that she represents Victorian morals—so that sort of Victorian morals way of how you judge women, the sort of "you must be a model of Christian values," but there's also a little bit of hypocrisy in how you follow those values; the way she views the role of women in the home, and that kind of thing.

• When it comes to Eric and Sheila and the ideologies they represent, it becomes a little bit more complicated, because—and again, you'll know this if you've watched my videos on these characters—when the play starts, before the Inspector has appeared, they agree with their parents: their way of viewing the world, their way of thinking about the world is with their parents. By the end of the play, their way of thinking about the world, their way of viewing the world is much more in line with the Inspector. So in some ways, they don't present a sort of set ideology already; they present, again, that sort of youthful ability to learn and change your mind, and to have different points of view. If anything, what they represent is at the beginning the influence that our parents can have on us, and then later on the way we can start thinking for ourselves and develop our own views.

That being said, I think although they don't have clear-cut political ideologies, I think they do have clear-cut gender ideologies:

• Eric is, some would argue, modern-day toxic masculinity, but certainly he is a symbol of men, masculinity, how men must behave. So it's that sort of complexity around the way that he treats Eva. This would be true of Gerald as well. All of the men are symbols of men in this play, the same way all of the women are symbols of women, but definitely for Eric, it's a big thing with his relationship with Eva and the way that he behaves: he represents that sort of masculinity.

• You've also got Sheila, who absolutely is designed to be as a contrast to Eva as women, and in particular the sort of roles and experiences of women according to class.

Now, that has a name, and it is called intersectional feminism. Now, Priestley would not be familiar with this term of intersectional feminism—I'm just going to put that straight out there. I'm pretty sure the concept of intersectional feminism as a sort of term was not really established until long after An Inspector Calls was written. Nevertheless, it's still what he's looking at: he's essentially looking at how class and gender intersect. That is what intersectional feminism means: like if you think about an intersection in a road, it's two roads crossing over each other. Intersectional feminism is that question of: what happens when you take the sexism that a woman experiences and combine it with another form of discrimination that they experience because of some other aspect of their identity—whether that be sexism and homophobia, sexism and racism, sexism and ageism, sexism and ableism, whatever it is—it's that intersection between, obviously, potentially more than two, but at least two different forms of prejudice.

So what we've got here is an exploration of the fact that Sheila is middle class, Eva is working class, but they're both women, they're both young: what are the similarities in their experiences, and what are the differences? Both of them are treated terribly by men in that they're sort of objectified, not taken seriously; but they also have incredibly different life experiences as a result of their class.

So as a dramatic device for both Eva and Sheila, their class and their gender are incredibly important to what they symbolize.

The question of whether J.B. Priestley is a feminist and making a feminist argument is a whole other debate for a whole other—like, I don't even think I'm going to make a video, we can just discuss it in the comments! But I would suggest, I would argue that he is not suggesting sexism and gender is the sort of bigger discrimination, the worst impact here. I would argue he's obviously highlighting the mistreatment of women, there's no doubt about that; he's pointing out the problem of gender inequality, but more in just a sense of: we need to be more equal in general, all equality of all kinds is necessary. And actually, what he seems to suggest is that when you take two women, there is still going to be a massive difference in their experience caused by class, because class is essentially the root of all evil; class is the problem.

So in terms of what Eva and Sheila symbolize, class-gender is everything, and they are sort of studies in the treatment of women and how that varies according to class.

So when it comes to talking about our characters as symbols, what you're able to talk about here is obviously potentially huge and completely dependent on the question that you're dealing with. But in all cases, you're able to essentially talk about how Priestley uses that character as a tool. They are a tool to examine a viewpoint, a type of identity, and to deconstruct the harm that that identity causes: the exploitation of women by men, the exploitation of the working class by the middle class, the conflict between the younger and older generations—he's able to examine all of that because our characters represent the different kinds of types of people you'll find in British society.

So if you're talking about your characters as symbols, make sure you keep using phrases like that, like: "Priestley uses them to...", "they are tools", "they are dramatic devices for Priestley to do this", rather than just being like, "Eric is a man, and men are like this." Make sure you're making it really explicit that they're being used as tools.

The next thing I want to talk about is still linked to the characters, specifically of Mr. Birling and the Inspector, because they both have dramatic monologues, and inside of both of those monologues is dramatic irony.

So if we start off with Mr. Birling and his monologue: now, his monologue comes right at the start of the play. I've only got this chunk of it because it's quite long and he gets interrupted by other characters multiple times, but this is the part that is, you know, particularly powerful with the most dramatic irony in it anyway.

So the significance of his monologue: we've already established he is a symbol of middle-class men and capitalistic and individualistic ideologies. And if we think about what I was saying before about the fact that at the opening of the play, J.B. Priestley is essentially trying to create a realistic status quo—this is Britain of 1912—Mr. Birling's monologue is really important to that, because, well, there's a few things about it.

There's first Mr. Birling himself, right? He has all the power and the control in the conversation; he is largely being respected. I mean, his wife interrupts him for being inappropriate, and his son attempts to interrupt him to question him, but by and large, everybody is listening to him: he is the patriarch of the family. And so when he gives his monologue, essentially what it represents is that these are the general, believed views of people like him in this time period; this is the way people thought back then.

Now, the term "monologue" just means like one long speech by a character, and the very nature of the fact that he says all this in a monologue could perhaps be a symbol for how much these kinds of people, people like Mr. Birling, dominated viewpoints of the time. Eric tries to provide an alternative viewpoint with this whole "What about war?", and Mr. Birling shuts that down fast. So Mr. Birling is just about: "I know best. I'm the practical, hard-headed businessman. I've had the experience, I know," etc.

Now, I'm not going to analyze this in detail because I've done a load of that in my video about Mr. Birling, but I do, for the purposes of this video, want to point out the significance of the dramatic irony.

So the dramatic monologue: the significance of his dramatic monologue is its position in the play right at the start, when Priestley is establishing what Britain used to be like, and the content of his monologue is essentially: these are the views people had back then. The purpose of the dramatic irony is to then undermine all of that: it's like, yeah, these are what people thought back then, but people back then were stupid—oh no, "stupid" is an extreme word, but you know what I mean! He wants to make the audience laugh at Mr. Birling, mock Mr. Birling, lose confidence in Mr. Birling. So he seems to be the one with all the power and status and respect, but actually, by the end of this monologue, he doesn't really have the audience's respect at all, because they know that he's just arrogant and full of it, and he's wrong, in other words.

The key there, though, with dramatic irony is that the audience knows something that the characters do not. So, of course, what Priestley is taking advantage of is the fact that it's 1945, it's 1946 when this play is being performed for the first time; all of these characters, on the other hand, are in 1912. World War I hasn't happened yet, World War II hasn't happened yet, the Great Depression, the Titanic sinking—none of that has happened yet. And so he's able to contrast the audience's understanding of the world with Birling's, and that's what makes it all completely undermined.

So in this, you've got a few different things:

• First of all: "I say there isn't a chance of war." Of course, there would be two world wars, the largest wars in history, or certainly modern history.

• "The world's developing so fast that it'll make war impossible." Of course, he's true in the first half: the world was developing incredibly quickly, but we also saw that that just made war develop very quickly! The use of chemical gases, the use of warplanes, the use of machine guns—those were very new things to warfare at the time, whether they were used in World War I or whether they were used in World War II, and it changed the world; the use of these new weapons and these new developments really changed the world.

• He obviously again makes a correct statement in: "we'll have aeroplanes that will be able to go anywhere." So Priestley is sort of mixing in some things he's right about, but then also the things he's wrong about, he's really, really wrong! So we can almost understand why someone would believe him. You know, he's not being utterly ridiculous; he's not being like, "Oh, in 10 years' time, aliens will be here and we'll be best friends with the aliens and we'll be going to space," and all that kind of stuff. He is being plausibly realistic—that's the key thing. His monologue has to be plausible; it has to be plausible that somebody would believe him, and trust him, and respect what he has to say. And it's just thanks to the subtle dramatic—well, it's not subtle dramatic irony, it's really obvious dramatic irony for our audience, but because of that dramatic irony, that's the thing that's sort of—the realistic dramatic irony, there we go!—the realistic dramatic irony that is undermining him.

• The next one you've got: again, I shouldn't have said it was subtle, it's not subtle: "The Titanic... sails next week... and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable." I mean, it sank!

• The next key bit where Priestley is, again, incredibly unsubtle: "in twenty or thirty years’ time—let’s say, in 1940..." Priestley is like: okay, audience, have you got it yet? I'm talking about now! I'm comparing to now! And so in case the audience haven't figured it out yet, let me refer to the decade that we're in right now, just in case the audience aren't getting it. And so he's forcing the audience to really think about the 1940s versus the time back in 1912, and how things have changed. And the fact that Mr. Birling's belief that "by that time you'll be living in a world that'll have forgotten all these Capital versus Labour agitations and all these silly little war scares" could not be further from the truth! The Labour Party are winning their first landslide victory (I can't remember if it's like just before or just after the play is produced), and, of course, they have not remotely forgotten all about the silly little war scares: there is real damage all across the United Kingdom caused by the Blitz and all the various bombings, and, of course, the huge amount of death amongst the male population in particular. And the fact that there is not going to be peace and prosperity: there is going to be uprisings, there's going to be war, there is going to be a Great Depression. There is going to be rapid progress, that's true, but it again gets undermined when he then says: "except of course in Russia." Because the dramatic irony there is that Russia is going to become the Soviet Union, and is on track to become one of the world's superpowers.

So the power of this monologue, especially with it being right at the start of the play, is that Priestley is able to set up his realistic Britain, set up his convincing Britain, but also really start his criticism of it all before the Inspector has even arrived: it's all being undermined. And by undermining it before the Inspector arrives, that then means that once he does arrive and the Inspector starts to provide a much more progressive viewpoint, the audience is also, in turn, more receptive to that—not just because things in Britain were more collectivist, more socialist in 1946 anyway, but because they've already been able to see the sort of flawed thinking, the hypocrisy, the hubris of capitalists and individualists like Mr. Birling.