However, as soon as the Inspector begins his interrogation, we can see that Priestley has done an extremely clever swap. Rather than continue the pattern of questioning the characters in chronological order, he decides to switch Mrs Birling’s questioning, which was the latest in the line of the family’s encounters with Eva, with Eric’s. This enables those vital clues to be dropped, keeping the audience in suspense until the moment they have suspected and waited for all along (Eric admitting he’s the father of the baby) finally happens.
Back to the clues, however, the second clue was dropped early in the interrogation of Mrs Birling. This was when Mrs Birling quoted Eva saying “she said her name was Mrs Birling.” Unknown the characters at the time, although it could be true that Eva was using the title of Mrs Birling (her story was her husband abandoned her and her baby) in order to gain sympathy and thus gain support from the committee, she wasn’t as distant from getting married as she was made out to be. She called Mrs Birling because obviously Eric was her “partner”. Saying that though, Eric only really used Eva for sex when he wanted, without really being concerned about her.
This seems to be a concern throughout the play – how the higher classes could use the lower classes for what they want, where they want and when they want. They can then dispose of them as if they were not human and were just objects that were useful at the time. The play also seems to promote communism. This is seen throughout the play and even at the start, when the arrival of the Inspector interrupted Mr Birling’s speech about the importance of capitalism.
The third clue was dropped after the Inspector revealed to the stunned characters that Eva was bearing a child when she died. Mr Birling, quickly reacting after hearing this information asked if the child was conceived during Gerald’s short affair with Eva. To which the Inspector replied “No, this has nothing to do with him”. When combined with the previous two clues, the audience is now virtually assured that the father of the child is Eric.
The fourth clue was dropped after intense pressure from the Inspector was applied in order for Mrs Birling to finally come out with an answer to his question. She said “the father was only a youngster – silly and wild and drinking too much.” We had already learned earlier in the play that Eric was a heavy drinker and was very familiar with alcohol despite his young age. Priestley deliberately makes the characters ignore this clue as the suspense needs to be kept until the end of the Act. Furthermore, Mrs Birling always seemed to have never believed Sheila when her daughter told her that Eric was a heavy drinker. She seemed determine to see her son as an innocent, young man who has yet to be exposed to the evils of the world.
The audience is now almost certain that Eric is the father of the baby, only waiting for the moment in which it’s revealed to the rest of the characters. This creates incredible suspense for the audience, cleverly implemented by Priestley.
These clues also create a bad image for Eric. He seems to be a young, spoilt teenager who uses his position of power to use others for his own enjoyment. This enables the audience to feel sorry for Eva and wait in anticipation as this “bad person” gets his deserved punishment. It also creates a sense of sympathy later for Eric when he admits he is truly sorry for what he did to Eva.
Throughout the play, tension arises between the family and the Inspector, as well as between themselves. This is especially true for Mrs Birling and the Inspector as we neared the end of Act 2.
The first thing we notice about the interrogation is the intense pressure the Inspector applies on Mrs Birling. An example of this can be seen after Mrs Birling tries to divert the question away with an irrelevant answer, to which the Inspector replied “I’m not asking you if you believed it. I want to know what she said.”
It is this type of persistence that cracked Mrs Birling, allowing the truth to pour out. It is also this type of persistence and pressure that we notice another interesting point of the interrogation.
As the interview went on with the Inspector asking more question, all the time applying pressure to Mrs Birling, she said less. From a 1/3 page speech at the start of the interview, she ended on virtually one word answers by the end of it.
Mrs Birling is also the source for an incredible amount of dramatic irony. This basically means that the audience is always one step ahead of the characters on stage and knows things that the characters will find out later.
An excellent example of this is when she says “you’re quite wrong to suppose I shall regret what I did.” She does indeed end up later regretting what she did. However, the audience already knew this because all along, we knew that she was talking about Eric. And reading her behaviour and attitude towards her son up to the point, we can see that he is very dear to her heart, meaning she would not have did the things she did had she knew.
One of the main causes of tension between the Inspector and Mrs Birling was her constant attempts to divert the blame away from herself. This obviously annoyed the Inspector, who persists his questions anyway which leads to Mrs Birling being frustrated because her efforts were not working. This was evident at the end of Act 2 where Mrs Birling said she suggested to Eva that her “partner” should at least support her. The Inspector then asked “And what did she reply to that?” Mrs Birling did not answer the question directly and went on to criticise Eva’s reply. The Inspector pressed on but Mrs Birling once again avoided the question. This led to the Inspector losing his patience and temper and very aggressively asked the question for a third time.
This act also opens up quite a few points about Mrs Birling’s prejudice against the working class. As a representative of the working class, Eva felt the full wrath of this prejudice. Mrs Birling’s attitude towards the working class could be seen throughout the whole act with lines such as “She was giving herself ridiculous airs.”, “She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position” and “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!”
With these points, we can speculate on Priestley’s intention. How does he want the audience to react to these characters by implementing the mentioned points into the play?
He wants the audience to feel sympathy for Eva while disliking Mrs Birling for pushing Eva to her death. I think he wants the audience to think of the Inspector as some kind of hero, who is trying to expose the injustice of the class system and show how the lower classes are being used.
I believe he intends to show the audience how a “typical upper class citizen” acts towards the lower classes. The time this play was shown, the idea of communism was still being weighed and this play could have swung the opinion of the audience towards it. Also, the way in which the upper class is portrayed in the play puts it in a very bad light and will push the audience closer to demanding the abolishment of capitalism.
This conflict fits in well with the play’s central themes and issues. Priestley has been promoting communism throughout the play and this is no exception.
The last seventeen lines builds up the suspense to an almost unbearable point through three dramatic devices we have not yet looked at – stage directions, interruption and incomplete sentences.
The use of stage directions in the last five lines builds up the suspense incredibly before the drop dead moment of Eric entering. The variety of emotions that the stage directions indicate the characters on stage are feeling also gives the audience a variety of emotions. Some in the audience might feel sorry for the family, that they have to find out Eric is involved this way. However most of us will feel “schadenfrende”. This basically means taking joy from someone’s despair. Many in the audience will feel this way because Mrs Birling was so quick to condemn the “young man who was the father of the child” to his fate before stopping to think whether she would say the same thing if this “young man” turned out to be her son.
The incomplete sentences add a bit to the suspense that has already been built up. This is because the audience is anxious to see if the speaker can find an alternative way out of the mystery that the Inspector has bought upon the family. This can be seen from the line where Mrs Birling says “But surely…I mean…it’s ridiculous…” We can see that she is desperately trying to search for an alternative answer to the problem and this also leads to the audience feeling “schadenfrende”.
Finally, interruption also adds to the suspense being built up. When Sheila interrupts Mrs Birling’s speech on how the “young man” should be dealt with, the audience will be waiting in anticipation to see if Sheila’s warning will be done in time. The suspense continues to build up when Sheila is ignored and the audience are still on the edge of their seats, waiting for the suspense to be relieved.
The use of suspense and tension is cleverly implemented through many dramatic devices by Priestley. He builds the suspense up until an almost unbearable while still keeping the tension going at a high level between the Inspector and Mrs Birling.
The incredible amount of suspense built up throughout the act is never truly relieved. The few seconds that Eric appears at the end of the act virtually confirms what the audience has been led to believe by the clues dropped. However, without speaking, the audience cannot fully confirm this. This lets the suspense and anticipation carry on to the next act, making the audience very interested in what is about to happen and keeping them in suspense throughout the break between the two acts.