As the inspector Goole enters the home he immediately created an impression of being superior this instantly has an impact on the audience, giving them a taster of how confident he is. As he begins to inspect he brings attention to Mr Birling, the employer of Eva Smith. The inspector now takes the role of Mr Birling’s conscience “I think you know Eva smith don’t you Mr Birling”, Mr Birling then replies by saying, “Yes I do, she was one of my employees and then I discharged her”. Its here the guilt within him starts to reveal itself slightly. As both him and the audience know this could be associated with her death, as it was her job, her only source of income allowing her survival to prolong. It’s when the inspectors asks Mr Birling why he discharged Eva. The guilt within him here reveals itself, as the answer was; she went on strike for a raise in her income. At this point he knows for sure the discharge was associated with the catastrophic death of Eva Smith.
Sporadically the inspector speaks harshly to the characters as he is determined to find out how Eva died. When speaking to the other characters especially the one he is talking to, he knows if he or she is partly responsible for Eva’s death. This giving an essence to the characters of how serious this is. The inspector is often harsh for example “yes but you cant it’s to late she’s dead”. At one point he says “If you’re easy with me I’m easy with you”. This meaning you can answer his questions easily and things will go fine, or if not there will be consequences. This can be proven, as Sheila answered all her questions easily and everything went fine for her. The inspector’s tone towards the family shows that he’s good at what he does and his final results show that he gets the job done.
The next victim for the inspector is Sheila, Mr Birling’s daughter. Her entrance to the scene immediately grabs the inspector’s attention. His vague knowledge of knowing she’s involved inspires him to know precisely what happened. Its here the inspector symbolizes her conscience; Sheila unlike her father was willing to answer the questions and tell the truth. When the inspector begins to mention milwards, a place Sheila travels too often she starts think what milwards has got to do with this. The inspector then gives Sheila clues to how she was connected to death of Eva. Sheila than realises and admits to her tragic outrageous actions “I went to the manager at milwards and I told him that if they didn’t get rid of that girl, I’d never go near that place again and ill ask mother to close there account with them”, the girl being Eva Smith. This gives the audience an essence of what Sheila can really be like, how jealous and antagonistic she can be.
The inspectors knowledge is often more then what we would expect “and anyhow I new already”. Like with Sheila, he already new vaguely she had something to do with the death. Other than this, before the inspectors depart his knowledge about the death of Eva is immense. By the end of the play he knows in detail how each character contributed to the death of Eva Smith.
Gerald, the next victim to be inspected, is engaged to Sheila and is said to be more or less exactly like her father, a greedy, ruthless and ambitious businessman. For example when the inspector talks about Eva Smith being sacked from Mr Birling's factory, Gerald agrees with what Mr Birling did. Birling says "If you don't come down sharply on some of these people, they'd soon be asking for the earth". Gerald instantly agrees with him "I should say so". He is then brought in to the conversation when the Inspector declares "she changed her name to Daisy Renton". The inspector had now caught him out and was determined to catch Gerald out in his lies which were soon to be exposed. As soon as the Inspector said the name Daisy Renton, Gerald’s reaction showed he was aware of that name. He was startled "What", then going on to say "Do you mind if I give myself a drink, Sheila?", to escape the intensity of the inspector. This immediately gave the Inspector a chance to put Gerald through the test, as his guilty conscience finds him out. As soon as he left Sheila the Fiancé of Gerald got curious and was eager to know, how he knew Eva Smith or in other words Daisy Renton. The look on Gerald's face when the inspector mentions the name of daisy Renton gave away his secret to Sheila. All of this was due to the inspector's dramatic intervention.
The inspector makes each of the characters think about what they’ve done and related it to the brutal death of Eva Smith. This makes the characters feel responsible for this tragic event, and so they are left with a guilty conscience. Each character that is inspected, is intimidated and left full of guilt and sorrow. This gives the audience the ability to know more about the character, and what they can be like. Like with Sheila no one really new how jealous and antagonistic she could be, until the inspector manipulated there conversation and got her to tell him everything.
The inspector gradually brings his questioning to his next convict, Mrs Birling. She’s a traditional woman who respects her husband. Her actions show how parallel she is to Mr Birling, and how critical and self centred. The inspectors interrogating shows how she discredits Eva “Girls of that class” this is the sought of capitalists view priestly is trying to bring out. Mrs Birling was a member of the Brumbleys woman’s charity organisation; this Organisation was to protect destitute women who were in need and desperate for money. However Mrs Birling was responsible for rejecting Eva smith's plea for money when she was destitute. “I didn’t like her manner she’d impertantly made use of our name”, this shows how critical and unjust she is. As she only rejects Eva because she made use of her family name, however the play entails why Eva Smith used that name. This also shows us that she didn’t have a good relationship with Eva Smith and this was a part of the killing of Eva Smith also this shows that’s Mrs Birling is a upper social class lady in which she doesn’t support the idea of charity to those she detests and dislikes.
Personally I believe Mrs Birling is most to blame for the death of Eva Smith because it was in her hands to help her. But never due to her stubborn self-centred attitude. Her participation in Eva’s death was the most appalling as it was her job and obligation to help people in Eva’s situation, and so I believe she is most to blame.
Eric is the next convict; he is also the last and the youngest, the baby of the family. The inspector asks Mrs Birling about the drinking problems with Eric, Mrs Birling replies "Pretty Hard" this showing us that he is a heavy drinker. Also in Act 3 when the inspector pressures him about Eva Smiths murder he blames it on his mother and then asks for a drink. The excessive drinking caused Eric to sleep with Eva this made the inspector come even closer. Soon after Eric then confesses to taking £50 out of his dad’s office to keep Eva Smith stable “Well she hadn’t a job – and didn’t feel like trying for one- and she had no money left so I insisted on giving her it until she refused to take anymore”. By this he meant that she needed money but then she suddenly refused because she found out that he stole it. This showing how much of an innocent character Eva is. Eric stealing is also one of the deadly sins. The inspector is using Eric to confess single-handedly. I believe Eric is treated like an innocent character, but the inspection clearly shows how he isn’t. The inspector shows this by exploiting Mr and Mrs Birlings to be shocked after hearing the revelation of Eric, the so could baby of the family. Who was an extremely heavy drinker and had got Eva Smith pregnant. This disgusted them, even more due to social class difference this reflects the social discrimination going on.
The inspector manipulates the feelings of the audience. The inspector encourages the audience to pity Eva, by discussing in great detail the struggles in her life that influenced her suicide. I believe this is done to encourage the audience to look out for the “Eva’s in the world”. The inspector is disgusted with the Birlings, but shows some pity toward Sheila and Eric. This is mainly due to their change of attitude to themselves and their actions. The inspector makes a moral judgement on the family. A good example would be “But each of you helped to kill her. Never forget that”. This shows that the, inspector really wants to punish the other characters and really rub it in (them all having a part in the death of Eva Smith). To me the inspector is seen as a punisher and is not letting each character’s participation in the death go.
The supernatural presence of the inspector had a definite effect on the characters his dramatic entrance showed us that he is big in his mind and knows how to get around anything. He works very systematically; he likes to deal with one person and one line of enquiry at a time His method is to confront a suspect with a piece of information and then make them talk - or, as Sheila puts it, "he's giving us the rope - so that we'll hang ourselves.” As we find out he uses these techniques to infinite his knowledge of the death of Eva Smith.
Priestly puts his views across through the inspector. Priestly was a socialist; a socialist is equality and fairness between everyone. A socialist person is equal to everyone. Birlings view is very different to priestly i.e: the rich stay rich or get richer, the poor stay poor or get poorer. By priestly creating characters like the Birlings and making them look bad, he is saying everyone should be equal and should share the wealth of the country. The message is directed at the reader to inform them about both socialist and capitalist people in today’s society.
The word ghoul has two meanings, one is a person with interests the other is demon that eats corpses. I believe the inspector is a ghoul (the first definition). This is mainly because he is an unknown character and no one seems to know him, also he just at the end he just disappears. The play can be watched in two ways, one way would be to entertain. The other is to inform people about both capitalism and socialism. The play was also created for people to understand the consequences that may occur with a capitalist attitude. This play made me understand more about a capitalist’s livelihood, the play also showed me how selfish and prejudge able they are. It also informed me how very different the attitudes of a capitalist and socialists are. But furthermore to look out for the Eva’s in the world. The play’s aim to enlighten society, of how negative a capitalist view can be was successful. What's more it was both enjoyable and knowledgeable.
