Towards the end of the play, the Inspector makes a speech, which outlines his political views. He says that we should look after each other and stop thinking about ourselves so much, ‘We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’ This just shows how extreme his belief in socialism is and how he thinks people should live. He tried to teach the Birling’s this through what he says and tried to force socialism on them.
We see these beliefs right from when the Inspector is introduced into the play. Priestley uses the Inspector’s entrance into the play to present and highlight the Inspector’s socialist view. At the beginning of the play, Mr Birling is talking to his family about his political views. He says, ‘a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own-and-’. This shows Mr Birling’s capitalist beliefs, meaning that he believes people should look after their own business and family but nobody else. This shows Mr Birling as being quite selfish and he seems to have forgotten where he came from in the first place. Mr Birling is halfway through his speech when the doorbell rings, interrupting him. It is the Inspector at the door. The way the inspector interrupts Mr Birling shows and represents their clash in views. The Inspector intrudes on the nice cosy family celebration and from then on there is a much less comfortable atmosphere in the house.
The Inspector is presented as quite rude and very intimidating in the play. J.B Priestley does this through his mannerisms and the things he says. For example, when the Inspector asks Mr Birling, ‘Why?’ as to why Mr Birling had refused Eva Smith a raise in rates, Mr Birling is completely taken aback at being questioned on his motives and says ‘(surprised) Did you say ‘Why?’?’ This shows that the Inspector is not prepared to tip toe around the Birlings; he is determined to get the truth by any means possible. The Inspector also interrogates the characters in a particularly harsh and rude manner. He scares them and pressures them until they finally break and confess the truth. He tries to make them feel guilty by continuously trying to make them see their errors and how the have been forgetting socialism, making them seem selfish and obnoxious. He uses a lot of rhetorical questions to make the characters think about what they have done and probe at the truth. A good example of this is when the Inspector is talking to Sheila, just after she admits to having Eva Smith fired from Milwards. He says, ‘And so you used the power you had, as a daughter of a good customer and also of a man well known in the town, to punish the girl just because she made you feel like that?’ he makes Sheila feel guilty and say, ‘And if I could help her now, I would-’. The Inspector then goes on to say, ‘(harshly) Yes, but you can’t. It’s too late. She’s dead.’ Even though Sheila was already feeling guilty, the Inspector continues to remind her what she has done and the fact that Eva Smith is dead, making Sheila feel even worse.
Another way the Inspector is presented is the way Priestley makes him seem so mysterious. At the end of the play, the audience are left not knowing exactly what or who the Inspector was. The Inspector turns up unexpectedly at the beginning of the play and interrupts the Birling family. Mr Birling even mentions he has not heard of any ‘Inspector Goole’ before but says no more of it. The Inspector then proceeds to link all the family to one girl, Eva Smith, having a particular effect on Eric and Sheila who are made to feel very guilty and extremely responsible. Near the end of the play, the Inspector leaves quite abruptly and then the family finds out he was never a real Inspector, but we never actually find out what he is so the characters and audience are all left in mystery. We see this right at the end of the play when the stage direction says, ‘as they stare guiltily and dumbfounded, the curtain falls.’ This shows hoe shocked and confused they are.
Another important presentation of the Inspector is, of course, his name, Inspector Goole. Goole could also be spelt ghoul, which means ‘a malevolent spirit; person with morbid interests; fiend’. This could suggest that the Inspector was just interested in the terrible things the family had done and was therefore just intruding into the families sordid business, or it could mean he was simply trying to make them see what they had done and the affects it had on all the other people around them.
J.B Priestley presents the Inspector in many different ways in the play but I think the most important way is the way he presents the Inspector’s political views. Throughout the play, the Inspector is constantly reminding the Birling’s of what they have done, emphasising the fact that they have not been good social citizens. He outlines what the family have done and manages to get a confession from each member. The Inspector acts more as a moral inspector rather than a police inspector.
