The social and historical context of the play is important. In the days where the play was set social position was more important than it is today. Men who invested in their own companies, like Mr.Birling were very wealthy. Marriage was an important thing especially when a woman was marrying a man socially superior, for example Shelia & Gerald. In 1893 workers like Eva Smith didn’t have rights and weren’t taken seriously by employer. If they didn’t like how much they were getting paid or didn’t like the work conditions, they could leave and no one would care. , Birling discusses the war and how it would never happen and that the Titanic is “unsinkable”. However, because it was set in 1912 and was showed in 1946, the audience knew that was untrue, and because of this they don’t take Birling serious.
The inspectors name “Goole”, sounds like ghoul which is a ghost. He’s like the ghost of Eva smith, making sure that the Birling family and Gerald understands what they have done to her. Also inspector Goole is like a conscience and makes them realise that their actions affect other people. We never find out whether Inspector Goole was real or not, Priestley left it to the audience to decide which made the play more interesting and stays in the audiences mind.
In the play the Inspector enters the scene after Mr.Birling says “a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own”. Priestley chose to introduce the inspector at that time because the play teaches about responsibility and how your actions affect other people. A normal inspector is very different to the inspector in the play. The inspector is a very mysterious character. The mysterious side to him contributes a lot to making him a very interesting character. The audience does not find out much about the Inspector. We are given hints from the way he acts & says. Inspector Goole is there to move the play along as he encourages the characters to tell their stories.
The Inspector seems to already know of the incidents that the family tell him. When Eric and Sheila find out what their parents and Gerald did towards Eva, they are shocked. The Inspectors reaction was perfectly calm and shows no surprise at what is being said which tells us he already knows. Sheila notices this and says 'We hardly ever told him anything he didn't know.' The characters cannot hide the truth from the Inspector because he knows already. The Birlings won’t accept any blame and just try to justify what they have done by saying 'the girl had been causing trouble in the works.’ Eric and Sheila learn to take responsibility for their actions.
Before the Inspector leaves he turns the blame onto the whole of the community, but it was the 'millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us’ The Inspector shows no respect towards Mr.Birling, such as when he says 'Don't stammer and yammer at me again, man.' Even though Mr.Birling is socially inferior then the inspector he treats people the same no matter what their position is. Birling says that it is his 'duty to keep labour costs down' which indicates that he does not think of each worker as a person and cares only about money.
I think Priestley’s message was that everyone’s actions affect other people, and that we need to think about other people. Mr and Mrs.Birling don’t believe the inspector is real but they fail to realise whether or not he existed it doesn’t change anything. The important thing is that the family has been told what could happen when they “mind their own business and look after themselves and their own” When Sheila says 'he inspected us all right' shows maturity and tells us that she and Eric were the only ones that learnt to take responsibility for their actions. Even if the Inspector was not real, it does not make any difference to the guilt that the characters felt before they found out he didn’t exist.
