How does Priestley use the Inspector as a dramatic device in "An Inspector Calls", and how far should we see him as the "mouthpiece" for Priestley's moral and social views?

How does Priestley use the Inspector as a dramatic device in “An Inspector Calls”, and how far should we see him as the “mouthpiece” for Priestley’s moral and social views?

“An Inspector Calls” by J.B Priestley was first performed in 1945. The play was set in 1912 before the war; it centres on the wealthy Birling family. A visit from the mysterious Inspector Goole proves to be a horrifying experience for the Birlings as they learn that they have all played a part in the suicide of a young girl called Eva Smith. Priestley wrote this play intentionally as he saw an urgent need for social change and used the play to express his desire for social equality. Priestly attempts to convey his attitudes and ideas through the characters in the play. He uses the Inspector to voice his own opinions. The Birlings are used to demonstrate how not to behave. The time span between the dates used (1945-1912) is to make us aware of what has happened and learn from mistakes made. Priestley hoped his play would give society the chance to look back on the past and not just carry on life in the same way as before. J B Priestley took full advantage of writing in observation and makes sure that it will make the audience realize how wrong they may have been assuming future events.

The play, is set in 1912, concerns a wealthy industrial Arthur Birling, his family, the fiancé Gerald Croft and an Inspector. It shows how the family each help to destroy a young woman's life-Eva Smith through their selfish and heartless attitudes which results in her death. The Birlings were very worried about appearances. The way they dressed and how their house was decorated. Their house had ‘good solid furniture of the period’. `The general effect is substantial and heavily comfortable but not cosy and homelike’. The lighting is pink and intimate before the Inspector arrives. It become brighter and harder when the Inspector enters.

At the beginning of Act 1 the Birlings are enjoying a meal. The dialogue reveals that the family does not care about anyone but themselves. Arthur Birling believes `a man has to make his own way, has to look after himself- and his family too, of course’. He likes to believe that he is a “hard headed businessman” who is more concerned with high profits than the welfare of his employees. He believes himself to be a fair employer paying only what he has to and no more.

Birling launches into a speech on community. He starts saying `the ways some of these cranks talk and write now you’d think everyone has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive- community and all that nonsense’. He thinks very highly of himself as he might find his way into the next honors list. I think that Priestley intended Mr. Birling to represent the upper middle class man of the time and the rest of the family to represent the average middle class family. Mr. Birling believes that through his experience he knows that there will be no war and as he claims the Titanic is unsinkable the audience are lead to understand that he is a man of many words but little sense. This is just the start of his message, do not be as foolish as to think just because England has won the war it does not mean that it is safe from trouble, the use of dramatic irony helps to express this. Just as Mr. Birling begins to finish his speech, a ring of the doorbell interrupts him.

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When the Inspector calls unexpectedly on the wealthy Birling family his startling revelations shatter the very foundations of their lives. The timing of the entrance of the inspector is quite an important part of the play. Inspector Goole is portrayed as quite a threatening character that is very persistent about finding out the truth. If we contrast the character of Birling with that of the Inspector, we can see Priestly's aims showing. The Inspector is the opposite of Birling. Where Birling's predictions are wrong, the Inspector predicts that if people don't learn their responsibilities, they will be taught in "fire and blood and anguish". This prediction refers to World War I most obviously, but also can refer to World War II. The lessons of World War I weren't learnt so the same mistakes were made and another war started; and though Priestley was unaware of it when the play was written, sixty years on the same mistakes have caused war after war. This makes his message just as relevant to the audience of 2001 as to his intended audience. Another contrast to Birling is that while Birling seemingly knows nothing of his family's affairs, Sheila says of the Inspector "We hardly ever told him anything he didn't know". He believes in quite the opposite to what Mr. Birling believes in. He feels every person should help each other as he quotes, "We are members of one body-We are responsible for each other".

The Inspector interrogates each character in turn, with each of them he makes a point that they have acted selfishly and used Eva Smith for their own purposes and they have not thought about the effect they have had on her life. Priestly uses the inspector to show us how hypocritical and arrogant the upper middle class men and women were. The Inspector also brings to our attention the vast differences between the upper middle class men and lower class citizens. He refuses to acknowledge the fact that the Birling family is a middle class, knowing that he is more of a threat to them than they are to him. He hovers over the characters acting much like their conscience. The Inspector controls the development of the events: who will speak and when; who may or may not leave; who will or will not see the photograph. He is described as creating 'an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness' He speaks carefully and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses, forcing the truth out of each character in question and also gives the impression that he can see through surface appearances to the real person beneath. It also symbolizes the fact that he is an unstoppable force within the play and gives him the thoughtfulness that contrasts with the thoughtlessness of each character’s treatment of the girl.

His role in the play is not simply to confront each character with the truth, but to force each character to admit the truth they already know. He works methodically through the characters present one at a time, partly because he recognizes that 'otherwise, there's a muddle', and partly because, given the chance, the characters are all quick to defend each other, or to call upon outside help (such as Colonel Roberts) in order to avoid accepting the truth of what he suggests.

He arrives just after Birling has been setting out his views of life: that every man must only look out for himself. The Inspector's role is to show that this is not the case. Throughout the play he demonstrates how people are responsible for how they affect the lives of others; his views are summed up in his visionary and dramatic final speech.

Responsibility is one of the play's two key themes, and the Inspector is Priestley's mouthpiece for putting across his own views of this as a socialist. In his final speech, he is speaking as much to the audience as to the characters on stage. His words here are a warning to an audience in 1945 not to repeat the selfish mistakes that led to the 'fire and blood and anguish' of two World Wars and the years between them.

The Inspector is the catalyst for the events of the play: without him, none of the characters' secrets would ever have come into the open, for a variety of reasons. For Birling could not see that he did anything memorable or wrong in sacking a troublemaker; Sheila thought her rather spiteful jealousy of a pretty shop-assistant was not 'anything very terrible at the time'; Gerald needed to conceal his involvement with the girl from a jealous fiancé; Mrs. Birling is too cold ever to 'have known what [the girl] was feeling' and her effect seems lost on her; and Eric had resorted to theft, which he too needed to hide. Without the Inspector's 'purposefulness', each character could not or would not have acknowledged their behavior.

The Inspector's somber appearance and the news he brings are a contrast with the happy and elegant air of celebration on stage. His name, Goole (ghoul?), gives him a mysterious, disturbing quality - a ghoul is a spirit which takes fresh life from corpses, and Inspector's existence is a result of the girl's death. If he is not a real Inspector, what is he? A clever impostor (but nonetheless human)? The representation of the social conscience the characters all lack or restrain? A supernatural, God-like being (for he certainly seems to know what each character has done, without being told)? The reproachful spirit of the girl's dead child? Despite the importance in the local community of people like Gerald and the seems to control what people say. Sheila tells Gerald: 'somehow he makes you'. But he does not control their reactions - he only uses his information about the girl's life and character, her diary and a letter, her photograph, and constant reminders of the horrific death she has suffered, to create the possibility for others to face up to what they have done. They must decide whether to change or not - Sheila and Eric do; the Birlings and perhaps Gerald do not.

Birling attempts to use status and power to influence the Inspector. He was forever reminding him that he was an ex mayor and a magistrate. Here, Priestley tries to show that it’s wrong to use power to try and influence/scare other people into getting themselves out of their problems, because in the end it doesn’t do any good anyway, as you will see later on. The fiancé, Gerald Croft, finds the Inspector similarly disrupting his 'easy manner'. He is distressed by his part in the destruction of the girl's life. Mrs. Birling, however, remains entirely untouched by the Inspector's questioning. She refuses to see how Eva's death could have followed as a consequence of her actions and tries to blame the father of Eva's child for the suicide. As the Inspector questions Eric he becomes entirely weak and helpless in front of his parents. Revealed as the father of Eva's unborn child, Eric reacts in a similar way to his sister. It is not until now in which Mrs. Birling is finally affected, faced now with the realization that her actions eventually lead to the death of her grandchild. The attitudes of Mr. and Mrs. Birling, and to an extent Gerald, and their willingness to explain away the events of the evening to hoaxes and artfully crafted deception, all go towards the final plot twist - the inspector is returning to teach the Birlings their lesson again. This ties in with the idea that if you don't learn the lesson the first time, you will be taught it again, through "fire and blood and anguish". As you can see, with the help of the inspector Priestley keeps putting his thoughts across, as the story unravels, and so shows people what is wrong so they don’t repeat the same mistakes. He also shows that people of that time were ignorant especially when they were rich.

On seeing how they have affected Eva Smith, both Sheila and Eric act remorsefully. During the course of the play Arthur Birling, becomes Priestley's mouthpiece for ideas that he, as the author, disagrees with. By making Mr. Birling a highly un-likeable character Priestley immediately gains the support of the audience in his viewpoints.

The senior Birlings are the examples of the people who will be taught through "Fire and blood and anguish". This is very different to the younger generation. "You seem to have made a great impression on this child Inspector" comments Mrs. Birling, and is answered with the statement "We often do on the young ones. They're more impressionable." This implies that Priestley is trying to say that there is potential for change in the "young ones" which is not as evident in the older generation. Priestley hopes we will realize how the younger generations are the ones who can change the society in which we live. He shows this when Mr. and Mrs. Birling learn nothing from their mistakes while Eric and Sheila learn from their mistakes. The inspector brings the play to a close, summarising Priestley's message when he says, "We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other" exactly the opposite of what we are told to believe by Mr. Birling, that everybody should look after themselves. Priestley conveyed his message well, showing us how the situation can be changed and who to depend on to change it.

Each character is punished in a just way. Birling fears for his family’s reputation; Sheila’s ashamed of her actions; Gerald’s affair has been revealed in front of Sheila; Eric has been revealed in front of his family as a spoilt and laughable man; Mrs. Birling’s illusions about the respectability of her family have been shattered to pieces. But Inspector is not the one who brings about the punishment, it is the consequence of their own actions. when priestly wrote this play he wanted to show us that we can change, and we can decide which views we side with. Priestley wanted the audience and us to learn from the mistakes of the Birling’s. I think Priestley wanted to make a difference in the way that people think. Then, if you think about each person coming out of the play and giving a penny to a beggar on the street or even a little thing as treating a person of lower class with respect that they deserve, I would say that Priestley has achieved his aims in writing the play.

By Diana Rough

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