Inspector Calls Women

Women play a major part in enabling J.B. Priestley, the writer of the morality play ‘An Inspector Calls’, and John Steinbeck, the author of the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’, to successfully portray their messages. In ‘An Inspector Calls’, Priestley is able to enforce his message that there was a great need for change in 1945 post war Britain, away from the unjust and unavailing capitalist society to a socialist one where everyone is responsible for their counterparts through women. This is achieved by providing the audience with two female figures, allowing the audience to observe the developing plot to recognise how their course of change differs between the contrasting classes. On the other hand, Steinbeck displays how the persistent negative impression he gives of women is due to the desperation they face to survive, driving them to take unsavoury measures. Steinbeck also cleverly delays the reader’s understanding of this, manipulating the structure in order to increase the impact and therefore importance of his message that the
As a whole, both texts have the recurring theme that if nothing changes, if the people of the time don’t stop deluding themselves then the rich are going to carry on getting richer and the poor will continue to get poorer. If nothing is done by the audience or the reader and their perceptions remain the same the squalor, hardships and injustice will carry on for generations to
J.B. Priestley and John Steinbeck both set their work in a time where women were inferior to men yet their role in each tale and its message is far from