The Inspector’s questioning technique is very graphic; in order to shock the Birling’s and in some places he becomes very rude and almost violent. When he is questioning Mrs Birling the Inspector becomes increasingly annoyed when she repeatedly blocks his questions:
Inspector: “Don’t stammer and yammer at me again man, I’m losing all patience with you people. What did she say?”
The Inspector shouts this phrase at the Birling’s, this is incredibly rude and most unlike a Police Inspector, Mrs. Birling however seems “rather cowed” as the stage directions say. Despite her earlier doubts about the police Inspector, she responds to his authoritative manner and answers his questions.
The Inspector behaves very oddly throughout the play; he puts people on the spot and forces them to confess through his manner and technique. For example, earlier in the play the Inspector simply looks at Birling:
“The Inspector is watching Birling and now Birling notices him”
This makes Birling feel uncomfortable and also puts him on edge; this is the reaction that the Inspector is looking for so that the family respond to his questions. Nervous people answer more freely than people who are in charge of their situation, the Inspector is also able to block all questions that are directed towards him and give away very little about himself because he is in charge of the situation and controls all the action onstage. When the Inspector wants something to happen the entire family follow his lead and obey his orders.
For example, when the family are rowing at the end of the third act. In the 1992 National Theatre production the family are physically fighting; Mr. Birling is trying to strangle his son, Eric. The Inspector, after Birling has let go orders the entire act to stop, this portrays the Inspector strongly as an onstage Director for the play. The Inspector takes charge of the rowing family and stops them:
Inspector “(taking charge, masterfully): STOP!”
This action by the Inspector stops the whole play and everyone falls silent and stares towards him, this is as though the Director has ordered the act to stop, Inspector Goole then goes on to discuss the section of the play that has just passed, exactly like a Director would during a faulty rehearsal:
Inspector: “And be quiet for a moment and listen to me. I don’t need to know any more. Neither do you.”
After this row onstage the Inspector goes on to drill into the Birling family and Gerald just what it is that they have done to Eva Smith.
Inspector (Talking about Eva Smith): “But each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it.”
Here the Inspector is reinforcing the point he has been driving towards all evening ”
Here the Inspector is reinforcing the point he has been driving towards all evening, that the Birling’s did kill Eva Smith and even though they deny having anything to do with her the guilt lies with them. The Birling’s would not be found guilty in a court of law, but the blame hangs over each of them as they all contributed to her death.
The only people in the entire group who refuse to accept the blame for Eva’s death are Mr. And Mrs. Birling and Gerald. Here the Inspector has been used to show the differences between the older and younger generations reactions to responsibility and also the different classes reactions to responsibility:
Birling: “A man has to mind his won business and look after himself and his own”
However the younger generation fully accept their part in the death of Eva Smith and feel sorry for what they have done:
Sheila (addressing her parents): “The point is, you don’t seem to have learnt anything”
Gerald also refuses to accept any blame for his part and says:
“Everything’s all right now Sheila”
The Inspector has been used as a device here in order to expose the different characteristics of the different age groups and classes, the upper classes believe that it should be every man for himself and that they shouldn’t have to help anyone, the older generation also believe this.
However after the Inspector has left, the lesson that the Birling’s began to learn is soon forgotten:
Sheila: “You began to learn something. And now you’ve stopped. You’re ready to go on in the same old way”
When the Birling’s proceed to prove that the Inspector was not a real Inspector they all begin to relax, except Sheila and Eric who both acknowledge what they have done wrong and remember that they still had a fatal effect on the girl’s life. But when the family discover that a real Inspector is coming the whole family returns to the state of shock and despair that they were in before:
“A police Inspector is on his way here-to ask some-questions”
The Inspector has brought their happy, safe world crashing down around their ears, all their indiscretions have been exposed and they can no longer hide behind the false world that they have created. In the 1992 Royal National Theatre production the Birling’s house explodes at this point and all their possessions spill out of the wrecked house and into the street, this is symbolic of all their secrets being spilled out into the open and their safe world being collapsed by the Inspector’s coming. Although this happens literally in this version of the play it happens symbolically in the original version of the play when the Inspector forces the Birling’s to bring all their hidden secrets into the open.
The Inspector has again been used as a device to extract the truth from the Birling’s, as without him their web of lies would have continued, possibly indefinitely.
The Inspector seems to have been included in the play as an omniscient director, he knows everything about the Birling’s before they even tell him
Sheila: “He knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows.”
Sheila is the first person to pick up on this fact, the Inspector can tell when one of the family is lying because he knows the story already, he seems to be merely confirming what he already knows. The Inspector also seems to know when certain events are about to happen,
“Inspector holds up a hand. We hear the front door”
This occurs at the very end of act two, Eric is re-entering the house, the Inspector holds up a hand to stop the conversation, it is only then that Eric enters, this shows that the Inspector already knew that Eric was coming in, and he stopped the conversation in anticipation of that. This heightens even more the audience’s suspicions of the Inspector as a time traveller, also the fact that he seems to know about the coming of the Second World War:
“If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish”
The point the Inspector is making is that if men do not learn to help each other then it will result in another war where they will be taught that they must learn to help each other in order to live in a working society. The Inspector is included in the play as a device to teach both the Birling’s and the audience this lesson.
There are parts of the play where the Inspector seems to be directly addressing the audience, not just the Birling’s:
“We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other”
The Inspector, in the three versions of the play I have watched (1992 Royal national Theatre production, the 1980’s Television production and the 1954 film adaptation) directs his final speech at the audience, the Birling’s are standing around him but the majority of this speech is directed to the audience.
The Inspector is included in the play in order to try and teach both the Birling’s and also the audience how they should “look after their fellow man.”
The Inspector is portrayed as a sort of time-traveller as he knows about things before they happen and also knows the answers to the questions he asks the Birling’s. He also appears to know that there is another police Inspector coming and that the time he has with he Birling’s is limited:
Inspector: “There’ll be plenty of time when I’m gone”
Inspector: “I’ll be obliged if you’ll let us get on without any further interruptions”
The Inspector rushes some of his questions and presses the Birling family for answers when they are speaking slowly or hesitating, he tries to hurry them on. As if he knows what is going to happen at the end of the evening.
The dramatic function of the Inspector seems mainly to be extracting the truth from the Birling’s and making them realise their part in the death of Eva Smith and try and get them to accept their guilt over her death. He is also there to teach all of us a lesson, that no one can exist alone:
Inspector: “Their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives”
Inspector Goole is one of Mr Birling’s “cranks” and it is with perfect dramatic timing that the Inspector arrived just at the moment that Birling was saying how “A man has to make his own way” Inspector Goole arrived at just the right time to teach Birling an appropriate lesson in responsibility.
The Inspector also tries to tell this to the audience by directing his finishing speech at them. He also acts as though he needs to learn this lesson by referring to “we” and not just “you” this means that the audience will probably leave the theatre feeling more responsible and possibly more guilty about their own secrets than they did when they entered the theatre or watched the film.
The main dramatic function of the Inspector in the play seems to be to teach both the audience and the Birling’s a lesson and also to bring up some important social issues of the time – that the different classes and generations in that particular period had completely different reactions to responsibility.
