The biggest entrance during the play is that of the inspector during Birlings speech about “looking after himself and his own family, yet when the inspector leaves he makes a speech about not living alone but looking after everyone and that we are responsible for one another.”
This creates another feeling of unease as this is the complete opposite of what Birling said at the start.
This leaves a cliff-hanger which J.B. Priestly also uses to great effect.
The cliff-hanger which leaves the biggest impression on the audiences mind is that at the end of act 1 between Gerald and the inspector, it leaves the audience wondering what will happen as Gerald has given his connection with Daisy Renton away and is trying to cover it up.
This leads to dramatic irony as the audience knows what is going on, but still not all the characters know.
The best case of dramatic irony is between Eric, Mrs B and Eva Smith towards the end of act 2, when Mrs B is going on about, “that father of Eva Smith’s baby needs to be taken in hand and dealt with and he should accept his responsibility.”
The audience know that the father is Eric, but still Mrs B was making it worse as she was still blissfully unaware.
Mrs B finally realises what is going on when Eric enters and the room goes silent.
These sudden silences create feelings of mystery and suspense throughout the family as nobody seems to know what is going on.
When the inspector accuses Gerald of having a connection with daisy Renton, Gerald goes silent, this lets the audience know that something is going on and that the storyline is not what was originally expected.
The photograph proves a lot to the family during the course of the play, but towards the end when the family start to have doubts about the inspector, they also have doubts about the photo, as at no one time did two people see the same photo, so they start to wonder, and make the audience wonder at the same time, did they all see the same photo? And was the inspector talking about the same girl?
The phone call gives a lot of the storyline away. As the infirmary claim to have had no suicides or murders in months this creates another feeling of suspense and mystery, the Inspector had questioned them all about the death of Eva Smith, and now the infirmary know nothing about any of it.
Suddenly whilst Mr Birling and his family are laughing and joking about the fake inspector the phone rings, and the Birling family get quite a shock, when it turns out to be from the infirmary, claiming to have a recent death due to the same reasons that Mr Birling had explained.
This makes the audience and the family wonder how the ‘inspector’ knew about the death when it hadn’t even happened.
When the infirmary say the “a girl died a few minutes ago in the infirmary after drinking some strong disinfectant, and a police inspector is on his way over to ask some questions” this leaves an air of suspense as neither the family or the audience know what is going to happen, or who will the inspector be?
