An Inspector Calls:Inspector Goole's role in the play

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Write about Inspector Goole’s role in the play. How far is he a believable policeman? How does Priestley use the Inspector in the play?

   The Inspector holds the most important role in the play. He controls how the events in the play occur. He enters the play just after Arthur Birling has made his speech on his anti socialist ideas as the Inspector rings the doorbell- Mr. Birling basically states that a man has to only look after number one; himself – “a man has to make his own way – has to look after himself”. The Inspector’s role in the play is to prove Mr. Birling wrong and put across J.B. Priestley’s social message that all people are part of an interdependent community.

   Mr. Birling is already proved wrong even before the Inspector enters the dwelling. Mr. Birling is used to show the audience how correct the Inspector is in his views. Priestley uses dramatic irony to emphasise this point. This is because the play was written in 1945 but set in 1912. Mr. Birling talks about how a war will not occur; “Just because the Kaiser makes a speech or two, a few German officers have too much to drink and begin talking nonsense, you’ll hear some people say war’s inevitable. And to that I say – fiddlesticks! The Germans don’t want war”. Ironically, World War I (which is considered the war to end all wars) occurred in just two years after Mr. Birling stated these words.

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   J.B. Priestley also became amazed by theories about time such as Ouspensky’s theory and Dunne’s theory (Source: York notes). Priestley’s idea of socialism comes from his father who kept a circle of socialist friends. This was a scene which Priestley soon found himself involved in, which he used in his later works such as An Inspector Calls.

   The Inspector is man in his fifties as said in the following description which is stated in the text; “The inspector need not be a big man but creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity ...

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