An Inspector Calls -The Inspector's Last Speech in the Play.

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Chris Sommers        Page         08/05/2007

An Inspector Calls -The Inspector’s Last Speech in the Play

The Inspector Calls is a play written in the 1945/1946 by JB Priestley. The play involves the Birling family, a prosperous, higher class, family. They are holding a family dinner party in order to celebrate the engagement of Sheila and Gerald. Into the relaxed warm scene infringes the ruthless character of a police inspector investigating the suicide of a young Eva Smith who also called herself Daisy Renton. Under the demands of the inspectors’ investigation, every member of the family turns out to have a shameful underhand, which links them to her death. The Inspector’s role in the play is a very influential one. He opens up the characters personalities with his questioning. The inspector leads the characters to confront their own weaknesses, which makes them feel shocked and guilty, getting them to put across there role in the story of the suicide of Eva Smith (Daisy Renton). He is the moral character in the play, in which the audience takes sides with. The physical characteristics of the Inspector as described by Priestley in his notes are that:

“The Inspector needs not to be a big man. He is a man in his fifties, dressed plain darkish suit of the period.” The Mystery of the Inspector’s identity is one that the play never answers, leaving the question who is the Inspector? Could the Inspector as real as all the other characters, in body; seem that the other characters are all believable and realistic. Another theory might be that the Inspector represents truth and is not a real person at all but just a representative of justice and be a dramatic device. This theory is a very plausible idea and probably the Inspector is Priestley's own thought. When the Inspector calls without warning on the affluent Birling family, his strong investigation not only shatters the very foundations of their lives, but also leads us all to examine our consciences. Inspector Goole is portrayed as quite a ominous character that is quite persistent about finding out the truth. He feels every person should help each other as he quotes,

“We are members of one body-We are responsible for each other”. Priestly himself was particularly interested in the ideas of the famous psychologist Jung, who believed that in our dreams we lose our identity and enter the world of the, ‘Collective subconscious’. Priestley also was very clever in the fact that Goole means Geist, which actually means spirit in death. The inspector enters at a prominent part of the play breaking the equilibrium of the Birling family. He interrogates each character in turn, with each of them he makes a point that they have acted selfishly and used Eva Smith (Daisy Renton) for their own purposes, and they have not thought about the effect they have had on her life; until explained by the Inspector. Priestly uses the inspector as a device, to allow it to move and progress. In addition, he creates tension and adds dramatic effect to the play. He shows us how hypocritical and arrogant the upper middle class men and women were. The Inspector also brings to our attention the vast differences between the upper middle class men and lower class citizens. The inspector refuses to acknowledge the fact that the Birling family is a middle class, knowing that he is more of a threat to them then they are to him. He hovers over the characters acting much like their conscience; creating,

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“An impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. He speaks carefully and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses forcing the truth out of each character in question.” He is the catalyst in the play as he is the controlling the plot and story line of the play. He does not force his opinions of the characters to the audience but very cleverly puts them in situations that put them in context to the audience; the way he does this is through his investigation. Nevertheless, he does say,

“They’re more impressionable (the young ones)”, which could ...

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