He uncovers the lack of responsibility the Birlings show towards Eva Smith by getting the individual he is questioning to deny as much as possible. He then comes back at them with the knockout punch piece of evidence, ending their desperate web of lies and deceit in an abrupt degrading surge of embarrassment and exposure.
The structure of the play is very effective dramatically. It is performed in three continuous acts. There is no jump in time as it is set in the same afternoon. There are no changes in props, no scenery changes. The audience’s response is sustained by an engaging storyline – nothing is ever tied up – there are always loose ends and each character’s story crosses and intertwines. The Inspector sums up evidence at regular intervals to avert the audience from confusion, and also to reinforce the fact that each member of the family was responsible for the death of Eva Smith.
There are two temporal perspectives in the play as it is set in 1912 but written in 1942. The audience has the benefit of hindsight – they have experienced both World Wars. Priestley can show through this play what was wrong with society, and help the audience accept that the nation had united in the two World Wars but that there were still people like this in society (and you could argue that there still are in 2003). The ending of the play was to show that if you don’t accept responsibility, history is condemned to repeat itself, a message widely accepted after the World Wars. He also engages the audience. They want to know if the characters will accept responsibility a second time around.
Lighting is a valuable dramatic device. In the stage directions it states that ‘the lighting should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives, and then it should be brighter and harder.’ This pink light symbolises the lack of responsibility. The family are sat around their expensive materialistic abode unaware of what grief they have caused Eva Smith. The harder brighter light that comes when the Inspector arrives takes the phrase ‘shedding light on the matter’ literally.
Priestley’s stage directions are very precise. Through the play, directions show that the characters that don’t except responsibility (such as Mr and Mrs Birling) speak ‘somewhat impatiently’, ‘rather angrily’, ‘abruptly’, ‘cutting in’, ‘annoyed’, ‘haughtily’, ‘rebuking them’, ‘very sharply’ and ‘bitterly’. Overall they are very antisocial, thinking they can use their social status to intimidate people who pose a threat. Stage directions also state that Mrs Birling should ‘stare at the Inspector angrily’ as if trying to psych their visitor out, but without success. The Inspector’s ability to overpower them is shown in stage directions too: ‘he has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking,’ and ‘massively taking charge.’
Some characters are shown to accept responsibility through the stage directions. For instance Sheila and Eric show ‘genuine remorse’ about the girl’s death, contrasted with Birling who is ‘uninterested’. He is a ‘man of business’ and is apathetic about the situation.
Preistley is very careful to recreate 1912 exactly in terms of props and setting. The furniture is ‘good and solid’ and ‘of the period’. The wedding ring Gerald presents Sheila with shows how materialistic the family are and how they perceive possessions and business propositions as a higher priority than sociability. Sheila and Gerald care more about their ring than their relationship. Even in his toast Birling informs his family of how he sees his daughter’s marriage as a business opportunity, he doesn’t once mention the sentimental side of it enthusiastically. At the end of the play Sheila rejects the ring, ‘No, not yet. It’s too soon’, as she has accepted responsibility and has seen the error of her ways.
Dramatic irony involves the audience. They are able to see how wrong Mr Birling is on so many important topics, for example: ‘the world’s developing so fast it’ll make war impossible.’ This encourages the audience to take the Inspector’s side and make Priestley’s message even more momentous.
The play being set in 1912 and written in 1942 gives Priestley an immense advantage to exploit dramatic irony for comical and political purposes. Birling makes numerous erroneous remarks on upcoming events such as the Titanic, which he says is ‘unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.’ He labels himself a ‘hard-headed, practical man of business’, but from what he actually says, we can see he hasn’t a clue.
On the announcement of the Inspector’s arrival, Gerald states his visit is because ‘Eric’s been up to something’. Eric feels ‘uneasy’ about this, as Gerald is partly correct. Along with the rest of the family’s, he contributed to Eva Smith’s death. This shows how unattached and irresponsible the family are with one another – not knowing or either bothering to follow up what other members have been up too in unexplained time away. Gerald later reports to the Inspector that they’re ‘all respectable citizens and not criminals’, when in fact they are all accomplices in murder without even realising. They display a total lack of responsibility.
Mrs Birling, whilst being questioned by the Inspector, reveals her feelings about the father of Eva Smith’s child. She states he was ‘some drunken young idler’ and that he ‘ought to be dealt with severely’. The audience already knows the father is Eric, but Mrs Birling doesn’t and is truly mortified when she finds out. Eric seems to be very separate from the family, and his parents knew little about his alcohol problems. On discovery, Mrs Birling was ‘staggered’, highlighting a serious lack of interest previously.
Characters within the family have seemed to develop an unrealised system of hierarchy. Mrs Birling being the social superior speaks to her grown up offspring as if they were young children. For example she says ‘It would be much better if Sheila didn’t listen to this story at all’, trying to protect her. She also forces her upper class manners upon her husband when he shows lack of proper conduct, for instance when she says ‘Now, Arthur, I don’t think you ought to talk business on occasion like this’.
Although shallow at the start of the play, Sheila is very intelligent. Unlike her parents (and along with Eric) she accepts responsibility thus proving herself to be very mature. She knows ‘It doesn’t matter whether he was an Inspector or not.’ However her parents take no heed of this as they don’t understand the concept of responsibility, so Sheila’s morality goes widely unnoticed, indeed she loses respect within the family hierarchy. Gerald doesn’t seem to fit in with the family either. He and Sheila do not usually interact much, unless they have something criticising to say or are ‘half playful, half serious’.
Birling seems to constantly hark on about his capitalist ways, being a ‘hardheaded businessman’, and having ‘all the experience’. He rarely cuts into conversations unless these obsessions are mentioned. He tries to prove himself to his future son-in-law, by making long drawn out speeches about society, business and war, topics that he has no idea about. He repeats these prolonged monologues throughout the play when he sees fit, reiterating that ‘a man has to mind his own business and look after himself’.
The Inspector speaks ‘harshly’, ‘swiftly’ and ‘sternly’ to the family. When he enters the scene the parents become far firmer with their children as if to show to the Inspector they have total control. The Inspector makes numerous commands to the family and retains order among the emotional havoc he causes.
The use of short sentences is quite frequent, appearing mostly when the Inspector is questioning characters: they often answer simply yes or no. One exception is Mr Birling who usually goes on to talk about profit margins and his business. These keep the audience engrossed. The audience would not wish to hear the same two characters engaging in some tedious conversation. Instead they want language where everyone butts in and anyone could say anything at anytime changing the whole course of questioning the Inspector has to offer. This type of language keeps the audience awake.
Through this play Priestley wanted his audience to understand his socialist views. He made them very clear through powerful dramatic devices such as lighting and dramatic irony, and not least through the Inspector, who is a key character dominating the minds of the family. Priestley argues that socialism was needed in those times and that history should not be allowed to repeat itself. He wanted his audience to know that it should not take two World Wars for the nation’s classes to unite. There was no excuse for society to revert to its pre-war brainless class-divided status quo. At the same time, Priestley is successful in constructing a well-crafted three-act stage play with memorable characters and a good story.
