Wall building is the effect described in play that is used by the inspector to tap into the individuals psychologically. Sheila says ‘ you mustn’t try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl. If you do, then the inspector will just break it down.’ This shows that the inspector openly lets them build up a wall, whether its out of sympathy- like Sheila, or by getting angry and agitated like Birling, ready to break it down if you put one foot wrong. With Birling the inspector gets him ruffled and hot under the collar until he blurts out the information he wanted, no wall left. ‘ Well it’s my duty to keep labour costs down, and if I’d agreed to this demand for a new rate we’d have added about 12 per cent to our labour costs.’ By this point Birling has crossed the line and leaked the information that the inspector wants. That’s because the inspector changed his personality depending on which character he is interviewing that way he can manipulate them psychologically without them knowing and make them confess in very different ways. Like with Birling, the Inspector takes on a patronising role to annoy Birling and get him agitated, after all ‘there’s a fair chance that I might find my way into the next Honours list’- says Birling before the inspector arrives. However, with Sheila the inspector matches her taking on an equally sympathetic personality in order to make her feel worse when she realises what she has done. Sheila seems incredibly concerned about the young girl who sounds just like herself, therefore digging herself a bigger hole, or building a bigger wall.’ What was she like? Quite Young? … Pretty?’ This way Sheila builds up her wall through sounding sympathetic and empathetic towards the suicide when in fact it turns out she is one of the reasons this miserable incident took place.
Sheila is a young and intelligent woman whose engagement party is rudely interrupted by the inspector. She has a more liberal minded overview of that time. In 1912 there were major party wars between Capitalists who believed in the big business men pocketing all the cash and the 1st class, 2nd class and 3rd class system in society, and the Liberals who were fighting for the rights of the bottom class people in society so that they can live a better lifestyle. Throughout the play Sheila shows many an objection to her fathers capitalist views on labour costs. ‘ But these girls aren’t cheap labour- they’re people’, shows on obvious objection to Birlings main priority in life, ‘Lower cost and higher prices’. Sheila also rejects her parent’s morals when it comes to accepting moral responsibility, if nothing else. The inspector is used to pull away at the family and to bring up the different parts of each individual in order to cause cracks within bonds. Mr and Mrs Birling point blank refuse to take any responsibility for the death of Eva and aliases. Sheila is intent on staying in the dining room after the inspector has finished his inquiries with her as she wishes to fid out how her mistakes tie in with the other 4 family members. The inspector is used as a dramatic to unravel the story bit by bit and show the audience as well as the family, the moral in just taking place within this 1 family. Then Sheila is interviewed by the inspector he chooses not to say much and instead lets Sheila piece together her mysterious participation in the cruel suicide, which took place on the night of her engagement. This way the inspector adds drama because yet again he has changed his personality to suit the interviewee. In the National Theatre Production Sheila’s confession speech is made at the front of the stage with the rest of the stage in darkness, and with a spotlight she admits to her part in the disappointed life of Eva Smith. The fact that the stage is in darkness isolates Sheila for those few moments making her think about what she has done, bringing her closer to the audience as she is being more personal- talking to the audience braking the ‘fourth wall’ on stage.
Birling’s personality is that of a very Capitalist minded businessman. ‘ Hard headed business men’ he calls himself – ‘Lower costs and higher prices’.
He claims its his ‘duty’ to keep labour costs down, without a care for the under-privileged children who cant go to school because their parents don’t get paid enough, doesn’t matter about the lower class of Britain. I would have thought that because Birling had to grow up in such a lifestyle and had to find his own way to where he is today he would have returned the favour by showing others the way to being financially better off, give them the opportunity he got given himself. This play was written in 1946 and since the play was written 34 years earlier there are many things that happened that the characters don’t know about, obviously because its in the future. Therefore, Priestley makes Birling appear pompous and wrong from the very start. In a speech at the engagement party Birling says ‘ the Titanic…unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.’ Which of course the audience know is wrong because the Titanic did in fact sink on its first voyage when it hit an iceberg and sank. This is almost comic to the audience as Birling is set up to be made a fool out it, without even realising. He carries on to say ‘The world’s developing so fast that it’ll make war impossible’, that is also wrong as the audience in 1946 would have realised of course that WW1 and WW2 had just taken place and for an even older audience such as ourselves we know there have been several wars since including the 2 world wars, war in Iraq, the Gulf war and the Falklands wars. This is humorous too as once again Mr Birling is incorrect, even though he believes he is completely correct and that he knows everything, which of course the audience know is false. The inspector can then use this against him when interrogating him.
In conclusion I think it is a fair comment to say that the Inspector role is written fabulously, bring in mystery at the same time as unravelling the mystery, which is there to start with. The inspector easily changes persona to identify and tap mentally into the character he is examining. Sheila although false at the start, has morals, which her father seems to lack. Her liberal views of life in general come across well in this play, just as Birling appears pompous and incorrect. As far as extracting information from these two charcters I think its fair to say that the inspector scratched all he could as he started them off and let them extract the rest themselves, leaving them to unravel the reasoning behind this girls horrific suicide. The inspector exposes the weaknesses in personality and drains them morally of any dignity they believed they had. As a narrator the inspector talks us through the story of Eva Smith slowly unravelling clues and discovering suspects, just like any other detective story. Apart from the fact that to this date no one knows who the inspector was/is and what purpose he had to be at the Birlings house that night. It could have been a warning but only Priestleys knows the thinking behind the Inspector, that leaves one thing still left a mystery, that’s the inspector. So, overall I believe Prietleys vision of the Inspector and using him as a dramatic device, has left so many gaps to be filled in by the audience and characters themselves, this play, as whole would not have worked had the Inspector not been used so well as a dramatic device.