1912 or 1945? The two dates Priestley is writing about

J. B. Priestley wrote An Inspector Calls in nineteen forty-five, as the Second World War ended. Then he set it thirty-three years earlier, on one spring evening in nineteen twelve. So when a rich man on stage tells his family there will be no war, everyone watching has just lived through two. Priestley chose that gap on purpose, and this video is about what it does.

If you want the story before the history, An Inspector Calls: An overview tells it from the doorbell on. Come back here for the dates.

Right, start with what happened in the gap between the two dates. In nineteen twelve the Titanic sank on its first voyage. Two years later came the First World War, and in nineteen thirty-nine a second one. Nineteen twelve was a world run by rank. Women could not vote. A factory owner could sack a worker for asking for more pay, and there was no welfare state, no safety net of benefits or free doctors, to catch her. By nineteen forty-five, women had the vote. And that summer the country elected a government promising to look after people from the cradle to the grave. Now put a nineteen twelve man in front of that audience. Birling is sure there will be no war, and he tells Gerald what he expects to be given next. There's a fair chance that I might find my way into the next honours list. Just a knighthood, of course. In nineteen twelve, status is something handed down from above - and Birling is halfway to it. Picture yourself in the seats in nineteen forty-five, hearing him say it. When Birling boasts about the knighthood, do you trust him more, or less? Less. He has already got the war wrong, so every confident line he speaks sounds like the next mistake. That gap has a name. Dramatic irony means the audience knows something a character does not, and Priestley aims it at Birling from the first scene.

Now, Priestley makes one speech do two jobs at once, and Birling's toast shows it most plainly. Before anyone speaks, the stage directions set the price of the room. This is the house of a prosperous manufacturer, solid and comfortable. Birling is pleased that Gerald's family firm and his own may soon join forces. He looks forward to the two companies working together, for lower costs and higher prices. In nineteen twelve, that is character. A proud father is treating his daughter's engagement like a business deal. Now listen with nineteen forty-five ears. Lower costs means lower wages, and higher prices means dearer bread. Who ends up paying for Birling's toast? Workers like Eva Smith, at both ends. The toast is the play's argument, hidden inside a celebration. The Inspector then carries the other nineteen twelve into that same dining room. He talks about these young women counting their pennies, in their dingy little back bedrooms. And when Birling leans on his importance, the Inspector answers with a sentence written for nineteen forty-five. Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.

That is why the play is set in nineteen twelve. Priestley uses nineteen twelve to talk to nineteen forty-five, and the audience's hindsight is his sharpest weapon.

So that changes what context is for in your own writing. Context is the world a text was written in and the world it is set in, used to explain a choice the writer made. Take one fact and use it two ways. First: in nineteen twelve, women could not vote and there was no welfare state. Second: Birling's toast to lower costs and higher prices would reach an audience in nineteen forty-five as the system they had just voted to change. Which of those two sentences is doing work in an answer? The second. The first is true, but it explains nothing - the second uses the date to explain a line. One examiner's report puts the reason plainly: for every question ideas about context are implicit within the wording of the question itself. In plain words, the context is already inside the question, so a separate history paragraph at the start answers nothing. The habit that fixes it: put every piece of context inside a sentence that is answering the question. How much your own paper asks for context depends on your board, and the video on how each board asks about this play settles that.

Now, Priestley's own politics come next, and they are easy to muddle. He was a socialist. Socialism, as Priestley meant it, is the idea that a society should look after all of its members, through fair wages and public services, and win that change through votes. Communism, as the word was used then, meant the state taking over all property, usually after a revolution. Priestley argued for the first, never the second. Three things Birling could be made to do. The workers take over his factory. He pays fair wages and answers for the people he employs. Or he is sent to prison. Which of these would the Inspector argue for? The second one. The Inspector argues for responsibility, not revolution. Birling sneers at people who think like that, and Eric throws his father's word back at him in the last act. These cranks who tell us that everybody has to look after everybody else. Priestley lets the son repeat the father's nineteen twelve sneer after the evening has answered it, and by nineteen forty-five the country had voted with the cranks. One examiner's report names this muddle directly: there was some misunderstanding of political ideas, for example confusing communism with socialism. So the way to avoid it is to call Priestley a socialist and describe what he wanted in one phrase: a society that looks after all its members. Your handle for this chapter still holds here. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. In this video it is a nineteen twelve chain, shown to people who already know how it ends.

Three quick checks now, each one using the two dates. Finish Birling's toast: for lower costs and what? Higher prices. For lower costs and higher prices, a merger dressed up as a celebration. Now the Inspector: public men have responsibilities as well as what? Privileges. Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges. Next, Birling predicts thirty years of peace. How does nineteen forty-five hear it? As a prediction they watched fail. Thirty years on from nineteen twelve, they were in the middle of a second world war. One evening in nineteen twelve, thirty-three years of gap, and every line aimed at the people on the far side of it.

If the two dates now make sense, that is a thumbs-up, because you own this one. If they still blur together, give it a day and look again.

Next in the chapter: Arthur Birling, the man who was sure about the Titanic.

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