Dramatic Qualities

• Form


  Techniques that are only found in that text type (e.g. poetic techniques for poems, dramatic devices for plays)
• Plays


  • Writer has lighting, costume, props, staging to help convey ideas, not just the written word
• Staging description at start of play

  1. Establish setting

  2. Establish characters' appearance and dress

  3. Establish lighting
• Microcosm


  Creating a miniature version of Britain within the play
• Fourth wall


  Realistic plays where the audience feels like a fly on the wall, looking in on everyday life
• Realistic set and lighting


  Undermines the realism and creates negative connotations, a sympathetic background for the Birling family
• Lighting changes when Inspector arrives

  Represents the truth and reality coming out, which is difficult for the family to deal with
• Character descriptions


  • Archetypes representing different types of people in 1912 Britain
• Provincial speech


  Accent/dialect suggesting the character is not from the upper class/London
• Priestley uses the characters, setting, and lighting to create symbols and metaphors that convey his key messages and criticisms of British society
• Jarring of the two

  Helps to serve Priestley's criticism of capitalism and class inequality
• Provincial speech of Mr. Burling

  Connotations of suggesting he has an accent that is not Southern received pronunciation, implying he is not wealthy or aristocratic, but likely working class
• Sheila


  Young upper middle class woman
• Mrs. Birling

  Archetype for the older women with wealth
• Sheila


  Archetype for the young women with wealth
• Gerald Croft


  Dandy, well-bred young man about town, archetype for the upper class
• Sheila and Eric exist as dramatic devices to provide points of contrast to Mr. and Mrs. Burling
• Anagnorisis


  When a character recognizes their mistakes and learns from them
• Characters who experience anagnorisis

  • Sheila
  • Eric
• Characters who lack anagnorisis

  • Mr. Burling
  • Mrs. Burling
  • Gerald
• Anagnorisis represents the capacity for change and progress in Britain
• Mr. Burling


  Symbolizes capitalism and individualism
• Inspector


  Represents socialism and collectivism
• Mrs. Burling


  Represents Victorian morals and hypocrisy
• Eric


  Represents toxic masculinity and the experiences of men
• Sheila


  Represents the experiences of women according to class, an example of intersectional feminism
• Eric


  Symbol of modern day toxic masculinity, how men must behave
• Intersectional feminism


  Examining what happens when you take the sexism that a woman experiences and combine it with another form of discrimination they experience due to their identity
• Priestley is not suggesting sexism and gender is the bigger discrimination, but that class is the root of the problem
• Mr Birling's monologue


  Represents the general believed views of people like him in 1912
• Mr Birling's monologue


  Contains dramatic irony to undermine his views and make the audience lose respect for him
• The dramatic irony contrasts the audience's understanding of the world with Mr Birling's
• The dramatic irony in Mr Birling's monologue undermines him before the Inspector arrives, making the audience more receptive to the Inspector's more progressive viewpoint