He tried to show Mr Birling’s complacency by letting him say that there aren’t going to be any wars and that the Titanic is “unsinkable”, while we know that there were going to be 2 awful wars and that the Titanic had sunk during its maiden voyage killing many people.
E.g.:
Eric: What about war?
Birling: Glad you mentioned it, Eric. I’m coming to that. Just because the Kaiser makes a speech or two, or a few German officers have too much to drink an begin talking nonsense, you’ll hear some people say that war is inevitable. And to that I say – Fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war. Nobody wants war, except some half-civilised folks in the Balkans. And why? There’s too much at stake these days, everything to lose and nothing to gain by war.
J.B. Priestley
To understand the play properly and find out who the inspector is in your head, you need to know a bit more about J.B. Priestley himself.
John Boynton Priestley was born in Bradford in 1894. He joined the army when the First World War broke out; when he left the army he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge to study Modern History and Political Science. He gained valuable writing experience while writing for the Cambridge Review. After completing his study he found work at the Daily News as a theatre reviewer. He also contributed articles to the Spectator.
Priestley also began writing books and his early (critical) writings (e.g. The English Comic Characters, The English Novel) established his reputation as “an important commentator on literature”.
He was incredibly interested in science fiction; this also helps explain who the actual inspector is. Priestley could have made the inspector represent the Birlings’ and Gerald’s conscience, or maybe it was someone from the future (the time in which Priestley wrote the play) telling them that they shouldn’t be so stupid and complacent. Maybe it was someone who had a gift and knew it was going to happen. Whoever the inspector was… he is Priestley’s mouthpiece to bring the moral message of “Don’t be so complacent, don’t abuse/misuse your status and be nice to everyone around you, even if they have a lower or higher status. They ARE people to you know!” over to the audience of his plays.
John Boynton Priestley died the 14th of August 1984 at the age of 90.
When at the end of act two the family comes to a conclusion that everyone had something to do with it and Eric walks in, the audience can be found on the tip of their seats trying to figure out what’s going to happen next, wanting to know what kind of reaction Eric is going to get from his mother and all of the others; if he owns up to getting the girl pregnant, or if he denies the whole thing; if he admits to stealing the money from the company and being a complete and total drunk.
This piece fits so well in the play because it shows you that everyone actually had something to do with the death of this girl, they have yet to find out that the girl might not actually exist. This would draw the audience into the play and would advise it to their friends because it kept them on their seats so much. It fits in the play as a whole because it shows what Eric actually had to do with it. That everyone had something to do with it.
The Characters:
Mrs Birling:
Mrs Sybil Birling is Arthur Birling’s wife and the mother of Sheila and Eric Birling; she will soon become the mother-in-law to Gerald Croft as he is getting married to Sheila.
Mrs Birling seems to be a very friendly person but also very hard. It wouldn’t be easy to get a compliment out of her and she would probably try to find something which isn’t quite right about your look or yourself and tell everyone about it.
When on stage I would tell the actress to think of herself as if she is better than all of the other actors in the room, the hold her head high and talk as if she is a right snob. I think that Mrs Birling should look like the following (including costume):
She should be tall, elegant, wear a very classy very big dress, should talk with a posh accent and should hold herself high on her body.
I think that Mrs Birling should be portrayed as a very hard very stuck up person, because that is actually the type of character she seems to have.
Mr Birling:
Mr Arthur Birling is Sybil Birling’s wife, the father of Sheila and Eric Birling; he will soon be the Father-in-law to Gerald Croft as he is getting married to Sheila.
Mr Birling seems to think that he is the owner of the world; yet he is quite humble towards his wife, as she is of a higher social class than him, to Gerald Croft, as Gerald is marrying Sheila and is of a higher social class, and he is quite humble towards his own daughter, Sheila. But he isn’t humble towards his son, Eric, to Eric he seems to be rather rough and he seems to keep putting Eric down next to Gerald. He says that the night of the party is the happiest day of his life and this is not only because Sheila is getting married but also because of the mergence that will happen between his business and Crofts LTD.
I would tell the actor who was playing Mr Birling to keep his head up high and to talk “provincial”. I would advise him to do research the province that Mr Birling came from and how they speak. I would also tell him to make sure that he looks like an underdog towards Sybil Birling as she is of a higher social class. I would tell him to look proudly at Sheila and Gerald but to kind of look in disgust towards Eric as he is not proud of him, but rather ashamed. I would also tell him to talk with a strong and kind of loud voice to come across very powerful and strict.
Sheila Birling:
Sheila Birling is Sybil and Arthur’s daughter. She is in her early twenties and a pretty girl. She’s engaged to Gerald Croft and is getting married soon. She’s Eric’s older sister and is described at the beginning of the book as playful and enjoying her life. Even though she comes across as very playful she also has a very serious side which shows when she learns more about Gerald’s involvement in the death of “Eva Smith”. She’s a very clever girl and is the first of the family to realise what her little brother had to do with it. You can see in the way that she speaks to her brother that she knows him well and that she knows something she’s not supposed to tell the rest. As she realises the size of the part that she played in the girl’s death she feels guilty and blames herself for a big part of it. She also warns the others about the inspector and says that “he’s giving us the rope, just so that we’ll hang ourselves”.
I would advise the girl who would be playing Sheila to really dig deep and think of the happiness that the actress herself has had to envision the joy that Sheila is having with Gerald. I would tell her that she would have to keep her head high in the beginning but also be very ashamed of herself towards the end of act 2. I would tell her to think of her own siblings (if she’d have any) to envision her relationship towards Eric.
Eric Birling:
Eric is Sybil and Arthur’s Son and Sheila’s little brother. He too is in his early twenties and a bit younger than Sheila. He is quite playful at the party as he is already a bit “squiffy” (drunk) as Sheila puts it in the play. He is quite sorry for the part that he played in the death of the girl. He also tells his parents (together with Sheila) that they should too, even when they find out that the inspector isn’t a real inspector, he keeps telling them that they still did the things they did and that they still should feel the way they felt before they found out that the inspector doesn’t exist. He is ashamed of the fact that his parents don’t realise that they are still responsible for the things that happened.
I would tell the actor playing Eric that he should play him in a very funny way, as Eric is rather tipsy and still drinking… but I would also tell him to keep it serious, especially when they mention the war. I would tell him to make sure that he looks at his parents in disgust because he despises them. I would tell him to look at his sister in a loving yet hating way, and to put a lot of concern in his look. As he is looking at Gerald I would tell him to look at him in astonishment and in a way that he looks up to Gerald. Yet I think he should also have some hatred in his eyes for taking the attention of his father away from him, as Eric seems to want more attention from his father.
Gerald Croft:
Gerald is Sheila’s fiancé; he is the son of the director of Croft Ltd, one of Birling and Co.’s main competitors. This is why the engagement between Sheila and Gerald is so interesting to Mr. Birling as he has personal interest in partnering with Croft Ltd. He has been sleeping around in the summer with Daisy Renton, and didn’t tell Sheila, though Sheila did have suspicions about it. He is a young guy, mid twenties, he is very keen about his new family and he is very nice to Arthur Birling and treats him with respect. Gerald seems to be in the liking of everyone and seems to be a “pleaser”. He seems to do anything to please the person that he is with at that moment. He seems to want to be seen as a generally nice guy. Yet he is also very keen about himself, he seems to be his own biggest companion.
If I had to give the actor directions I would tell him to be very keen of himself but also very keen of Arthur Birling and Sheila. I would tell him to look eager to listen to everyone’s story but also to speak with interest in his tone. When he gets interrogated by the inspector I would tell him to deliver his lines in a way that he seems to regret what he has done, but not very much. I would tell him to sound as if he is losing the respect for himself.
Inspector Goole:
Inspector Goole, who isn’t really an inspector, jumps up out of nowhere and starts to completely contradict everything that Arthur Birling says without knowing what he’s actually said, nobody knows who he really is. You might have some suspicions but you’re not quite sure if he actually is human, if he is the conscious of Birling in the future who had come back. Yet when I picture him talking I picture him to talk to the family with a tone of disgust, no respect at all. I would tell the actor to look down on the family. To deliver his lines as if the family is quite slow in understanding, not that they are. So that it’s really obvious that he despises them. Yet he seems to have a sense of compassion for Eric and Sheila as they admit to their sins and regret what they have done.
Who is the inspector?
When you get to know him better you start to get questions popping up in your head, well I did anyway:
- Who is he?
- Is he someone’s conscious?
- Is it someone’s ghost?
- Did this girl really exist?
- Why is he doing this?
- Does he want to help this family or just hinder them in their night?
Conclusion:
The audience would probably react at first in disbelief; they wouldn’t believe that the girl didn’t really exist. Then they would be confused, they wouldn’t get who the inspector actually was… they would get more into it and really want to learn more about this girl and the inspector. And by the end of the scene they will be horrified, they will be shocked with the fact that everyone actually had something to do with it.
