Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

Exploring and exploding the end of An Inspector Calls.

The play has, functionally, two endings:
- the Inspector's "fire and blood and anguish" speech

- the phone call reporting a suicide at the very end

1/

I think of AIC as an inversion of A Christmas Carol -- a supernatural visitation that shows the wealthy what will happen if they don't change their ways. But whereas Scrooge learns his lessons and forestalls tragedy, the Birlings don't.

2/

So the "real" suicide at the end is a fulfilment of the prophecy offered by the Inspector. The Birlings had a chance to change, refused, and now it's all coming true.

3/

The key line here is Sheila's "you're ready to go on in the same old way".

(I don't have my copy to hand so apologies for paraphrasing).

4/

I always tell students the play AIC is a warning. It addresses an audience who, fresh from WW2, can choose what sort of society they want to build now. The play warns against nostalgia for the "innocent" Edwardian era. Don't go back to 1912, JBP says.

5/

The play's audience is the Sheila and Eric generation: in their early 20s in 1912, now in their mid 50s, able to remember life before the wars, and now the ruling generation of post-war Britain.

6/

The critique of Mr and Mrs Birling is a critique of their parents' generation, now passed or passing into history.

7/

What has been causing me trouble is the first ending:

"We are members of one body...And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish."

8/

This has long annoyed me because:

- it seems to suggest that a failure of social responsibility will actually cause the War(s), which doesn't quite seem right?
- the play makes perfect sense without it, which sets my English senses tingling

9/

- the apocalyptic, warlike tone doesn't quite match up with what actually happens, which is the suicide of one girl.

So I'm going to throw a few ideas and see if any stick.

10/

Notions of class were definitely part of the discourse around WW1. Popular imagination has/had the British army as working class Tommies led to their deaths by incompetent toffs -- although there is evidence this isn't true: bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…

11/

In 1912, large-scale labour strikes would have been something of an open wound in the world of capitalism and business. The 1911 Liverpool strike and the 1907 Dublin strike were fresh in the memory.

12/

Russia is also significant here: the 1917 Russian revolution can be (partly?) interpreted as a revolt against aristocratic wartime leadership by a betrayed and battered populace.

13/

It's worth noting that AIC was first performed in Russia and that JBP sent copies of the play himself to Russian contacts. Russia was definitely in his consciousness in 1945.

14/

Also worth noting: modern communist rhetoric at least sees a link between the British labour strikes and the Russian Rev:

15/

So, yes, we could say that JBP's Inspector sees a potential War as being a disruptor of class hierarchy, of having revolutionary potential.

16/

We often think of Goole's words as prophesying the two World Wars we know about, but perhaps they threaten an idealised conflict that didn't quite occur, in Britain at least, in which War dismantles the British hierarchy too.

17/

We think of AIC as belonging to two time periods: pre-war 1912 and post-war 1945. The relationship between these two is the mainstay of considering the play's historical context.

Allow me to muddy the waters by including a third...

18/

I think it's instructive to consider the inter-war years of 1918-1939 as a possible reference point for the tale of Eva and the Birlings.

19/

The world actually endured plenty of "fire and blood and anguish" in WW1. Priestley surely considered whether that conflict led to any societal change in the inter-war years.

Well?

20/

He would have seen soaring unemployment in the wake of the Depression and the end of the wartime manufacturing effort.

He would have seen some limited moves to socialist principles and equality.

Interesting: bbc.com/news/uk-wales-…

21/

I wonder if WW1 was the archetypal lesson that Priestley didn't feel was heeded, and WW2 was the inevitable repeat of history that comes to those who won't learn.

22/

I could be way off but...I like it. The two girls in the Infirmary, the refusal to learn lessons, the two Wars. It makes my English senses tingle again. It feels like I'm On To Something.

23/

To conclude: it's high time for complicating and uplevelling our readings of An Inspector Calls. Reconsidering the ending is one way. I'll be looking for others.

And also: Gerald is the worst. #TeamNoGeralds

Thanks for reading.

/end