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In Priestley’s 1945 play, “An Inspector calls”, social change is highlighted as one of the many quintessential requirements for societal improvement. Priestley constructs the Inspector as a proxy in order to foreshadow the impacts of capitalism and, therefore, highlight the necessity for change in society.

In the beginning of the play, Priestley establishes the arrogance of capitalists such as Mr Birling at the time, which must be changed. Mr Birling’s statement of the Titanic being “unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”, where the Titanic is a symbol of capitalism, as only the avaricious were able to afford it, in this lens Birling is implying how capitalism will never cease to exist just as the Titanic will. To Priestley’s audience at the time, this is rather ironic, as they would know the Titanic were to sink on its first voyage due to the lack of attention from the captain, in a way inciting the audience to satirise Mr Birling for his view and thus capitalism. Through a Freudian lens, Priestley could be highlighting the consequences of a hyper-developed “superego” and “id”, as Mr Birling has become so corrupted by his desires that he now thinks himself and his ideology as unstoppable. By extension, the reader would realise how just like the iceberg came to sink the “unsinkable” Titanic, the Inspector has arrived to exemplify the flaws and, thus, ultimately the need to sink capitalism.

Secondly, Priestley outlines the devastating impacts that capitalism has on proletarians and introduces the Inspector to foreshadow these impacts. In Mr Birling’s sophisticated speech, he reiterates how “a man has to make his own way” and, more importantly “, has to look after himself, and his family.” This is a clear example of a bourgeois culture corrupting the minds of their followers, as they would believe in this ideology wholeheartedly. This corruption is seen through the chremamorphism of the workers who are described as “labour”; this dehumanisation brings a greater income to the already wealthy but depreciates the lower class “to count pennies”. During this speech, the Inspector was almost produced from an incantation, perhaps Priestley structured the Inspector’s arrival at this point in order to portray how the proletariats are breaking free from the “chains” of society that capitalism has trapped them in - Highlighting how, through the Inspector, society should no longer tolerate the impropriety of capitalists. Priestley has crafted this archetypal capitalistic character in order to warn his audience of the results of capitalism, so they too will not succumb to this chauvinistic viewpoint about society, but strive for the labour government the Inspector implies which would promise to care for all in society.

Priestley uses the Inspector to make clear what should be substituted in place of capitalism in order for society to progress. The Inspector attempts to convey how everybody in society “don’t live alone, are members of one body, we are responsible for each other” through the use of this didactic metaphor. In the phrase, the use of three short and blunt sentences could simply be to provide an emphasis on the Inspector’s main message of social responsibility, but on another level, it could be reflecting the simplicity of socialism through the brief length of the clauses, and therefore how easy it is to perform. Moreover, it could also be referring to how socialism is objectively correct; there is no counter argument, just like how the Inspector’s triadic phrase has no counter-argument. Thus, to the reader, would depict how socialism or any social change would be the morally correct action in order to prevent society from stagnating or even deteriorating.

At the end of the play, the Inspector leaves with the message, “if men do not learn that lesson, they will be taught it in fire, and blood and anguish”. This polysyndetic tricolon gives connotations of an eternal and impending doom, which capitalism is carrying due to the use of 3 words from the semantic field of hell. To the reader, this would highlight the immorality of a capitalist ideology and, therefore, didactically reinforce the need for social change. Moreover, the use of “men” suggests how only males were told to change as females would have little to no power due to patriarchy, so they would not even be able to change. This was due to businesses being solely owned by male capitalists who were unjust to their workers, exploiting them for their own financial gains. Therefore, Priestley welcomes the audience’s dissociation from the upper-class traditionalism as they would believe that possessing capitalistic qualities would lead to an eternal damnation which the Inspector warns of.

To conclude, Priestley utilises the Inspector as a proxy in order to reveal the issues with the ideology that the avaricious had, influencing the reader to dissociate themselves from this social system, and therefore exploits this to convey his own viewpoint of a socialist system. To his audience at the time, this would be a didactic play that would promote a labour government rather than a conservative one, due to their manifesto which promised care for everybody.