How far do you consider the inspector successful in interrogating the Birling Family? To answer this question, consider the whole play.
How far do you consider the inspector successful in interrogating the Birling Family? To answer this question, consider the whole play.
The inspector was very successful in his interrogation of the Birling family; each member revealed their past that was connected to the death of Eva Smith. He also brings out the true nature of each individual. Priestly spends much time detailing the scenery at the beginning of the first Act. He also depicts the family well before the inspector arrives. This indicates that the audience needs to have a clear idea of the kind of family Priestley is portraying. The family represents the upper middle class, becoming rich through business. The theme of class is important to this play. Priestley believed that everyone should be equal and no one fails foul of poverty, which he witnessed in his lifetime. His purpose was to turn society as far as possible into a classless, community-based country. To answer the question we must examine each character and how they react to the questioning.
Mr Birling is the head of the Birling family and he is an arrogant, ignorant overbearing pompous man. In addition, he is very aware of himself and all the things that he has gained. He is very dismissive about the realities of the world and he likes to give advice
"Now you three young people just listen"
Birling's predictions for the future indicate much about his character. The audience can see that he is not as clever as he claims to be about predicting the future. The play was written in the autumn of 1944 and people had learned what happened in history. The Second World War was to have a catastrophic effect on humanity, and Priestley diminishes his character by placing him in ignorance.
" The Titanic - she sails next week - forty six thousand eight hundred tons - forty six thousand eight hundred tons - New York in five days- and every luxury - and unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable. That's what you've got to keep your eye on, facts like that, progress like that."
He views the union between Gerald and Sheila as a business venture which shows that he is far too concerned with himself and the business to consider his children's needs especially Eric's. He refers to himself as a 'Hardhearted Businessman' and is always trying to justify himself and his actions. There is a lot of jealousy and envy towards Gerald's family from Mr Birling because he realises that they are the original aristocracy and he is not. Additionally he realises that he is not as high up as he thought he was. When he speaks to Gerald, he mentions that he feels that
"Your mother-Lady Croft -while she doesn't object to my girl-feels you might have done better for yourself socially."
This raises the issue of society at the time of the play (1912) when people were judged by their social status. The playwright has made it very clear to the audience that this play is going to be about social standings and the way society makes it distinctions from this particular point in the play. Gerald becomes uncomfortable and Birling tries to make himself seem equal to Gerald, he states
"But I wanted to say this is - there's a fair chance that I might find my way into the next Honours List. Just a knighthood, of course. "
This proves his insecurity and his thirst to be acknowledged by those who are higher in status than he is. In a conclusion, Mr Birling is a supercilious, pompous man who puts his business before his family and in doing so he distances himself from his children. It can also be said that he is a man who simply wants to be recognised and seen as someone who is a distinguished member of society and has deep insecurities within himself.
When the Inspector arrives, he reaffirms this point to him
"I was an alderman for years - and Lord Mayor two years ago - and I'm still on the bench - so I know the Brumley police officers pretty well."
In a way he tries to bully the Inspector by stating that he is very close to the chief of police and that he is a high member of authority because he obviously believes that people are as easily impressed by social connections as they are frightened by the authority that people of a higher class have. When the Inspector replies quite dryly he takes this as an insult even though he does not comment. As soon as the Inspector tells him what happened to Eva Smith he replies quite impatiently
"Yes, yes horrid business. But I don't understand why you should come here Inspector"
This shows how little compassion he has for other people and it reiterates the point that he only cares about himself and the social standing of his family. He tells Gerald and Eric that
"A man has to make his own way - has to look after himself - and his family too, of course when he has one - and so long as he does that he won't come to much harm."
Birling keeps reiterating the fact that the whole business has nothing to do with him. The playwright uses this pattern to create the tension between Birling and the Inspector for the reason that he wants to show Birling in a different light. In addition, he wants to show how the mood changes when the inspector arrives and how differently they each behave. In a theatre production, this is emphasised effectively by low lightning and heavy pauses. It is interesting because in the beginning Sheila and Eric are respectful and heed what their father says however when Birling starts telling them the story of why he dismissed Eva Smith they start to disagree immensely.
Eric is the first to disagree but it can be said that Eric is drunk (it is clear from the beginning that he is) and this plays a major part in him disagreeing with his father and also if he was not drunk would he still stand up to his father and challenge everything he says? When Birling tries to justify his actions Eric replies
"He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out."
Birling makes, his authority very clear to Eric by dismissing what Eric says as pure 'rubbish' this demonstrates his view that everything that he says is right and must not be questioned. Birling gets defensive and angry when the inspector questions his authority
"Did you say why?"
He instantly starts to change character at this point and he loses his calmness and starts to get angry with Inspector. As the Inspector probes deeper, Birling changes the subject by asking the Inspector his name again ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
"He could have kept her on instead of throwing her out."
Birling makes, his authority very clear to Eric by dismissing what Eric says as pure 'rubbish' this demonstrates his view that everything that he says is right and must not be questioned. Birling gets defensive and angry when the inspector questions his authority
"Did you say why?"
He instantly starts to change character at this point and he loses his calmness and starts to get angry with Inspector. As the Inspector probes deeper, Birling changes the subject by asking the Inspector his name again and starts to try to bully the Inspector into leaving by stating once again that he knows the chief constable
"Perhaps I ought to warn you that he's an old friend of mine, and I see him fairly frequently."
The Inspector dismisses this comment as if it does not bother him at all and it does not make any difference. Much of the time he is being interrogated he keeps justifying himself to the Inspector as well as to his family and Gerald. He feels no remorse at all and feels that
"If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we'd had anything to do with, it would be very awkward, wouldn't it?"
Earlier in the play when he is speaking to Gerald and Eric, he makes the point
" You'd think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive - community and all that nonsense"
This backs up the idea that he sees society not as a community but as individual prosperity. This shows his lack of emotion at the mention of Eva Smith's death and his emotionless response to inspector.
"As it happened more than eighteen months ago - nearly two years ago - obviously it has nothing whatever to do with the wretched girl's suicide"
He states that the incident involving Eva Smith happened two years ago and so it has nothing to do with him. This shows his need to justify everything he has done and all the things he had said and when the Inspector does not agree, he asks why he does not believe his word, as it is right. The Inspector replies
"Because what happened to her then may have determined what happened to her afterwards, and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide. A chain of events"
After the Inspector makes this point Birling just dismisses it, thus showing that he does not intend to feel guilty at all. At the end of the play when Gerald tells him that, the Inspector was not, an Inspector at all he suddenly changes tone, mood, and starts to pretend things are back where they were at the beginning when they were celebrating. He does not seem to realise that things have changed forever in the family as all the secrets that they kept from each other have come out, his 'happy' family façade has been seen through, and his flawless family image has been shattered. The audience can clearly see that his denial that the family has been transformed by this experience shows his unwillingness to succumb to the truths of reality and also his refusal to come out of his 'own world'.
Sheila is the next to be cross-examined, the playwright describes Sheila in the opening stage directions as 'a pretty girl' and 'very pleased with life' - later, however, her prettiness is revealed as vanity and her happiness is shown to be selfish, bought at the price of Eva Smith's job. Her first reaction to the news of the girl's death is superficial - she seems upset that it has spoiled her evening
"And I've been so happy tonight,"
In addition, she is interested only in whether she was young and pretty. However, unlike her parents, she quickly comes to see her as an individual
"These girls aren't cheap labour - they're people"
The Inspector shows her the picture and she immediately walks out of the room. She becomes agitated as she realises her own part she had to play in Eva Smith's death and runs out of the room. When she returns she has been crying and remarks to the inspector
"You knew it was me all the time, didn't you?"
This signifies to the audience that the Inspector knows everything but only wants to do things in an order so that everything flows well together. She then begins to talk about what happened with Eva Smith. She was in a 'furious temper' and was guilty of the sin of envy. She nearly breaks down as she realises what had happened to Eva Smith. Following that the Inspector comes to a conclusion about her actions
"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"
It is interesting because the Inspector comments on the family's power and the fact that she is from a well off family so she has power over anyone lower in status than her. We sense at the start of the play that there is an unresolved tension in her relationship with Gerald; they are actually very different people. However, it is Sheila who grows up in the course of the play: at the start, she is playful and attention seeking; at the end, she is thoughtful and reflective. By contrast, Gerald is revealed to be a moral coward, unable to accept the wrongness of his behaviour and taking comfort from the fact that no one seems to have died after all. Of all the characters, hers is the only confession that does her credit - Mrs Birling is first obstructive then defiant, and Gerald and Eric both confess at a point when they know they have been already found out. She is guilty of the sins of pride and envy - she complained about the girl because she thought she was laughing at her, and because
"She was a very pretty girl too... I couldn't be sorry for her"
Although she asks:
"How could I know what would happen afterwards"
She does not try to escape from the blame. The playwright uses her as an example of someone who is vain and thoughtless, but not heartless: she is genuine when she says
"if I could help her now I would" .
Nevertheless, he intends the audience to learn the lesson that good intentions are no good if they come too late; Sheila's predicament is a warning to us. Sheila herself warns both Gerald and Mrs Birling not to
"Try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl"
. Once she has admitted her own guilt, her role in the rest of the play is to show others the importance of admitting the truth. She becomes disillusioned and hurt by what she learns about the rest of her family -particularly Gerald, whom she now addresses 'bitterly' and 'with sharp sarcasm' and 'irony' but when he has finally told the truth, she respects him
"Rather...more than I've ever done before"
Facing up to our faults, the playwright suggests through Sheila, is painful, but not to do so makes things worse in the long run, as she says. This is part of the playwright's purpose in the play: to make us feel the urgency of rethinking the responsibility we bear towards other people before it is too late. Sheila emphasizes the importance of everyone learning from the Inspector's visit. She and Eric are the only characters that are not concerned whether Goole was a real Inspector - she says
'It doesn't make any real difference'
Because she acknowledges her behaviour was morally wrong, whether or not it was legally wrong and whether or not it actually resulted in a girl's death.
By the end of the play, she has begun to have some understanding of what the Inspector is doing, so that she is able to see the world, and her responsibility, according to his values instead of those of her family. This is why she can see the trap her mother's arrogance is creating, and why she tries to stop her mother from exposing and condemning the child's father. It is only she and Eric, the two youngest and 'more impressionable' characters who, in the playwright's eyes, have profited sufficiently from the lessons on stage in front of them not to repeat their mistakes a second time.
The playwright describes Gerald in the opening stage directions as 'very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town'. He has the world at his feet: his father is a successful businessman, his mother comes from 'an old country family', and he has finally become engaged to Sheila after having been 'trying long enough'. He behaves respectfully and like a proper gentleman in front of his father-in-law, but it is clear that there is unresolved tension between him and Sheila over what he was doing 'all last summer' - the time when, as the play later reveals, he was seeing Eva Smith.
He loyally supports Birling when the Inspector, claiming that, questions him
"I know we'd have done the same thing"
Even though it upsets Sheila - another example of the fact that, beneath the surface, their relationship is far from perfect- and is taken aback when he hears of her behaviour towards the girl .He seems chivalrous, like Birling, in trying to protect Sheila from the details of the case - but this is hypocritical in two ways:
* it represents his double standards: he is willing to protect Sheila but, as the Inspector says, "we know one woman who wasn't, don't we?" and
* it actually allows him to conceal his guilty affair from her.
When the Inspector mentions Daisy Renton, he immediately gives himself up immediately to the inspector and to Sheila. The playwright chooses to have Sheila and Gerald alone together because he wants to show the underlining flaws within their relationship. At first Gerald refuses is apprehensive and is nervous. Sheila is the dominant speaker whilst Gerald is passive. Gerald knows his secret is out and so tries to keep his cool but that backfires as it makes Sheila more receptive to his body language. Sheila immediately demands an answer and uncovers the truth out for herself. Tension is created at this point with Gerald not speaking and Sheila saying all that needs to be said. Gerald tries to apologise and tells Sheila not to tell the inspector but she replies
"Why - you fool - he knows. Of course, he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don't know yet. You'll see, you'll see"
This last line foreshadows what is going to happen in the play because Sheila does not know the whole story yet. When the Inspector comes back in, he takes the same line as Sheila did by waiting for Gerald to reveal all. Nevertheless, Gerald asks the inspector to let Sheila leave and then he will tell all to the inspector. However, Sheila being stubborn says that she wants to stay and the Inspector replies when Gerald tells Sheila that it is going to be unpleasant and disturbing, he says
"And you think young women ought to be protected against unpleasant and disturbing things?"
The audience knows where this is going and Gerald responds
"If possible- yes"
The audience knows by now that the Inspector is going to start questioning Gerald. Gerald has no choice but to reveal all to the shock of the Birling family. All the members are there including Mrs Birling who suddenly arrives. He keeps justifying his actions and saying that he had no choice and that he was doing the right thing. When asked whether he was in love with her he said he did not feel the same way that she did. Sheila is very upset and emotional and retorts with sharp sarcasm
"Of course not. You were the wonderful Fairy Prince. You must have adored it, Gerald"
This sums up the feelings that Eva Smith had for Gerald; he was her wonderful Prince who had come to rescue her. In a way, it brings home the fact that she is dead for Gerald and he starts to feel guilty. He replies to this by saying
"All right - I did for a time. Nearly any man would have done"
This is an honest answer and Sheila acknowledges this and takes comfort from it. When he is informed of what Eva Smith did next he feels very distressed to hear that she went away to 'make it last longer'. The Inspector makes a point of saying this to make a point that this is serious and how each member affected Eva in a different way. Gerald at the end of the play concludes that the Inspector was not really an Inspector at all and was maybe a fake. He joins Mr and Mrs Birling in thinking that everything is back to normal and they can carry on as things were before.
" That man wasn't really a police officer."
"Everything's all right now Sheila"
He fails to understand that, whether or not he has actually driven a girl to suicide, he is just as guilty of selfishness and hypocrisy. Sheila's refusal to take back his ring suggests that, despite the Inspector's relatively lenient judgement of him, he is far from exonerated, in her eyes.
Mrs Birling and her husband are very much alike because she too takes on the façade of happy families but the difference between is that she places her beliefs onto her children. Mrs Birling's makes this clear to the audience in a stage production by standing above Sheila to suggest her dominances over Sheila. She says when Sheila asks why Gerald was away all summer (which we later find out, it is a foreshadow of what is to come)
"When you're married you'll realise that men have important work to do sometimes have to spend nearly all their time and energy on their business. You'll have to get used to that, just as I had"
She expects Sheila to make the same sacrifices in marriage that she had to she has a clear sense of her duty within the family. At the engagement party, she is unobtrusively in control - dealing with the servants, smoothing over a moment of awkwardness when Sheila does not answer Gerald, prompting Birling to propose the toast and reminding him not to talk shop with Gerald, and with drawing to allow Birling and Gerald a moment alone together. When the inspector arrives, she greets him socially and mentions that she knows why he is here and that
"We'll be glad to tell you anything you want to know, I don't think we can help you much"
The statement shows just how un-moved she is of the whole situation and how unsympathetic she is to the whole 'business'. She dominates those around her - she calls Sheila a 'child' and tells off the Inspector for being 'a trifle impertinent'. Her lack of understanding of how other people live is shown in her snobbish comments about 'girls of that class' and in her unwillingness to believe Eva Smith's reasons for refusing to take the stolen money or marry the foolish young man responsible for her pregnancy. Her lack of understanding even extends to her own family and friends, as she has been quite unaware of her own son's heavy drinking or of Alderman Meggarty's womanising. She pronounces Gerald's behaviour towards Eva Smith 'disgusting', even though - as the Inspector says - he was the only one to make her happy.
She remains untouched by the Inspector's questioning, and refuses to see how her actions could have been responsible for Eva Smith's death, even though the audience can clearly see that her refusal to help Eva could easily have led to her suicide. It is only when she realises that Eric was the child's father that she shows any signs of weakening, but the speed with which she recovers after the Inspector's departure emphasises how cold and unsympathetic a character she is. She can be seen as hypocritical because:
* She claims to be shocked by Eric's drinking and the talk of immoral relationships with Eva Smith, yet she cannot bear not to hear Eric's confession and 'had to know what's happening'.
* She is quite content to lay all the blame on the father of the child, until Eric's involvement is revealed. Nevertheless, at this point, it takes Sheila to remind her of what she had been arguing, for she is unwilling to admit it herself.
* She condemns Gerald's affair with Eva Smith as morally 'disgusting', but when Gerald reveals that Goole is not a policeman and therefore poses no threat to them, she eats her words and tells him she is 'most grateful'. Reputation is evidently more important to her than moral rights and wrongs.
The glowing praise she heaps on Gerald for the clever way he appears to have settled things reflects her desire to remain untouched by outside events and to maintain the appearance of respectability.
Unlike Gerald, Priestley describes Eric in the opening stage directions as 'not quite at ease'. He has been expensively educated, and yet he is a disappointment to Birling: he and Gerald joke behind Birling's back, and his father patronises him. He is kept out of the information about his father's possible knighthood, and when he really needed help, he felt his father was 'not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble'. His drinking is an open secret within the family (though Mrs Birling chooses not to admit it to herself), and suggests that he lacks self-discipline. This is borne out by the behaviour that is revealed in the course of the play: he forced himself into the Eva Smith's accommodation despite her protests, drunk and 'in that state when a chap easily turns nasty', has made her pregnant, and has stolen money from his father. He is also shown to be immature, regarding the girl as a 'good sport', although she treated him as a child. Like every character accused by the Inspector, he is shown to be a hypocrite - he is disgusted by the 'fat old tarts round the town', yet by this stage in her life, Eva is also a prostitute, though it is not clear whether Eric realises this. He appears to have learnt very little from his privileged education, yet the inspector has impressed him. At the end, like Sheila, he refuses to pretend things are like they were before, and is frightened by the fact that the older generation appear not to have learnt anything. He wants his parents to admit their mistakes as freely as he has admitted his.
Priestley describes the Inspector, when he first appears on stage, in terms of 'massiveness, solidity and purposefulness', symbolising the fact that he is an unstoppable force within the play. His 'disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before speaking' gives the impression that he sees through surface appearances to the real person beneath. It also gives him a thoughtfulness that contrasts with the thoughtlessness of each character's treatment of Eva Smith. His reason for calling is stated bluntly and repeated not just to the whole family but to each character, a pattern enforced by the playwright throughout the play. The emphasis is always on the way Eva Smith died with severe suffering. The details are graphic and he suggests that though her death suicidal was brought about by dire circumstances. His manner of showing Eva Smith's photograph is unusual; he only shows her photograph to Birling, Mrs Birling and Sheila. His continues to behave in this mysterious manner throughout the play. The playwright does this to show how mysterious he is and how he has a supernatural presence around him. This adds to the air of mystery surrounding the play and him. He states that he likes to work with 'One person and one line of inquiry at a time' this is important for the structure of the play. 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: that 'we are members of one body, We are responsible for each other'. Responsibility is one of the play's two key themes, and the Inspector is Priestley's medium for putting across his own views of this as a socialist. In this 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. He is different from normal policeman because he focuses on the moral issues rather than the legal issues. He sternly tells Birling, for example, that 'it's better to ask for the earth (as a worker might do) than to take it (which Birling does)'. What's more, the inspector has peeled away the veneer of respectability that the Birling's pride themselves on. Despite the importance in the local community of people like Gerald and the Birlings, he controls the development of events: who will speak and when; who may or may not leave; who will or will not see the photograph. He even 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 Eva Smith'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.
Each character is punished in an appropriate way. Birling fears for his family's reputation at the inquest; Sheila feels shame for her selfishness; Gerald has his affair revealed in front of Sheila; Mrs Birling has her illusions about the respectability of her family shattered by Eric; and Eric is revealed before his indulgent parents as a spoilt and inadequate young man. However, in each case, the punishment is a consequence of their own behaviour; the Inspector himself does not bring punishment from outside. Perhaps this is why they are given a second chance at the end of the play - that their experience should have been a warning to them, and that next time, it is the apocalyptic future predicted by the Inspector's final speech that lies in store for them.
In conclusion, the inspector is very successful in interrogating the family; he brings out to the open the faults of each character and changes the relationship between the characters. He also raises the question of community and how we are all members of a community that need to look after each other. As he says
"We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other."
Mimi Anim-Nyame10KL/10T
Mimi Anim-Nyame10KL/10T
