- Mr Birling is very arrogant, very stubborn towards the Inspector in general, the Inspector is not intimidated though by Mr Birling whilst he is trying extremely hard to get Mr Birling to admit his part in the death of Eva Smith. During the interview, Mr Birling keeps trying to enforce his personal status onto the Inspector for example he says to the Inspector “do you know Chief Constable Colonel Rogers.” “We play golf together sometimes up at West Brumley”. In those days, only rich people could play golf so he is showing he knows important people. Mr Birling’s status has no effect on the Inspector. The Inspector is now even more determined to get the truth. Eventually the Inspector manages to get Mr Birling to admit his part in Eva Smith’s death. “She was one of my employees” at Birling & Co, “then I discharged her.” Before the Inspector could say anything of relative importance to Mr Birling, Mr Birling says, “It was nearly two years ago-obviously it has nothing to do with this wretched girl’s suicide.” Mr Birling also does not think she is any more than working-class. Also he tells the inspector that, “if you do not come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth.” The inspector des not like this and replies sharply, “it is better to ask for the earth than to take it.”
- The Inspector’s role in interviewing Eric is again to establish his involvement in Eva Smith’s death and to make him admit his guilt. Unlike his father, his response is one of what remorse and sadness. During the interview he admits he “didn’t love her or anything-but he did like her.” He then goes on to say “I insisted on giving her money to keep going” and this money he stole to give to her from his own father so he must like her. At the beginning of the play, he is very reluctant to speak with the Inspector and he shows this by saying “you don’t want to see me.” Even during the later stages of the play, he has to be forced to talk to the Inspector. Eric has a very sympathetic over Eva Smith’s death “it’s a damn shame.” He is also very surprised “my god.” Eric thinks that his father “could have kept her on instead of throwing her out.” This is also before he finds out it is the girl that he made pregnant.
The Inspector enters the Birling’s house during a joyful celebration of Sheila and Gerald Crofts engagement. He enters whilst Mr Birling, Gerald Croft and Eric are enjoying a glass of port that was very expensive in those days. As soon as the Inspector enters, Mr Birling tries to put him in his place by using his status “I was an alderman for years” however, he is not intimidated and goes straight to suggesting, “it may be you” who killed Eva Smith. He also makes a great impression on the audience. For a start he is quite short as stated at the begging of the play but still manages although Mr Birling is socially superior to him the Inspector does not take any notice of how rude Mr Birling is being and carries on trying to get Mr Birling to admit his guilt and involvement in Eva Smith’s death.
Going back to what I started in the introduction is the Inspector real or supernatural? If we start from the very beginning and work on. All we know about the inspector without deeper investigation is that he is lower middle class and he is very secretive. I will be looking in more depth to uncover the true inspector. First, I will be looking for each non-Inspector type thing that he does. To start with, he starts the investigation only two hours after Eva Smith’s death and some how ‘he has been round to the room she had’ ‘she’d left a sort of diary’ and had read it. To start with, Eva Smith’s diary is of everything that has happened in the last few troublesome years from before she joined Birling & Co to her death so there would be a lot to read and he can remember it word for word and down to the exact minute of each day. Furthermore, he would not find out about the death for at least 30 minutes after she died, limiting his time in the girls household if he has got round to the Birling’s two hours after the death.
Another non-Inspector thing that he performs during the play is entering the Birling’s house without showing any I.D. Carrying on Eva Smith’s death was a suicide and they are never normally investigated so why is hers. Another mysterious fact about the so-called Inspector is he does not know the Chief Constable who would normally be the first to talk to new recruit. The inspector calls himself inspector Goole G - double O – L – E, which sounds a lot like ghoul another word for ghost. Then the two most unusual things are that after the Inspector leaves the Birling’s house they immediately ring the police station and they told them they have never heard or had an Inspector Goole. Then they phone the hospital and there has not been any one brought in having committed suicide let alone from drinking disinfectant. Then creepily five minutes later they get a call from the hospital saying, “some ones just died and she is on her way to the infirmary after drinking disinfectant and an Inspector is on there way round to your house now.” The last supernatural element I thought was how he knew all about the Birling family and Gerald Croft’s involvement before they even confessed, Mr Birling starts by admitting, “I discharged her” then the Inspector somehow knew “early end of September 1910” and the inspector then tells Mr Birling “your not telling the truth.” He seems to know all.
During the play many relationships in the family are severely exposed and damaged, I am going to focus on the downfall of Sheila and Gerald’s relationship. The relationship between these two was already on shaky ground as Gerald had been away for six months last summer and would not tell Sheila the truth of what he was doing which as we find out later on is housing Eva Smith was at that time known as Daisy Renton.
The inspector is actually the perfect mouthpiece for the author J.B. Priestly he gets across all the points that need to be made and still implies nowadays as well. “One Eva Smith has gone but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us.” This is mentioning the people on the streets with no homes if one dies another will appear and will always be among us. “We are members of one body” we are each responsible for one another. The Inspector then says, “If men will not learn that lesson then they will be taught in fire and blood and anguish. This is highly relevant because World War 1 occurred only two years later. Obviously they did not learn there lesson!
Overall, I think that J.B. Priestly has succeeded in creating at first glance a realistic character. It is only when you look in much finer detail you discover how supernatural the Inspector actually is. I think J.B. Priestly has successfully chose the best dramatic device to get his own views across, “public men...have responsibilities too.” In short, J.B. Priestly has achieved his goal of getting his views on social structure across however high up the person may be they do still feel guilt. To conclude the play could not run smoothly, no could not run at all without
“INSPECTOR GOOLE”
Written By Darren Linter
02/05/2007
8:37 PM
