inspector calls

 At opening of the play Priestley presents to us a luxurious dining room of a fairly large suburban household, a substantial heavily comfortable homelike house. As they sat down at a large dining table, Arthur Birling at one end and his wife, Sibyl Birling at the other end. Eric is down stage and Sheila up. Champagne glasses and empty desert plates fill the table as a maid is replacing them with cigar boxes and delancanter of port. “The way some of these cranks talk…you’d think every body has to look after every body else…a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and own”. Mr Birling is lecturing at the table, behaving as if he has nothing to do with the amount of wages he gives people and how they live on it is up to them not his fault, Gerald listening intently and nodding in agreement.

As they all sit up at the dining table Mr Birling continues his judgement of the welfare of others as Priestley starts to describe the inspector upon his entrance. He is not big but average but he “creates on an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness”. The inspector has an oldish complexion of someone in their fifties, dressing in a plain darkish suit of the period. He speaks with a careful tone, weightily and has “disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually saying a word”. He definitely wants the people to know he’s deadly serious and it’s all going to be done his way. Priestley created an inspector like this to show a cunning unique person who got you thinking already on his appearance who could this person actually is?  

The inspector Goole is investigating the suicide of Eva also known as Daisy who mysteriously had an involvement with every one within the Birling family. The involvement with Mr Birling was that she used to work at his factory but was unsatisfied with the wage packet and demanded more but was refused and was fired. She was offered a job at Milwards where she fitted in quite well until one day where Shelia Birling came in and had a suspicion that Eva might have been smirking at her where she immediately got Eva fired. But Shelia said that “it’s the only time I’ve ever done something like that and I’ll never do it again to anybody”. With no where to go after that Eva had tried to find another job but was unsuccessful then came across Gerald who was nice enough to buy her dinner and give her a place to stay which turned to an affair and what ended with Eva loving Gerald but he was engaged to Shelia. Broken hearted Eva came across Eric Birling, Mr Birling son. Who was very drunk at that moment in time and forced sexual intercourse with her a bit more than she wanted which continued for a while until she found out she was pregnant with his baby. With her unborn baby she went to a charity for help where she used the name Mr Birling and was refused it by Mrs Birling. The case of Eva was a suicide involving this family but why was the inspector investigating it, it was very usual. He wasn’t out to investigate a crime but to inspect moral issues to bring guilt to every one of these people. He approached every person in the family with his own orderly approach it was all mapped put from who he would start and finish with it had to be done the correct way. This was highly different the Birling family could realise something was strange because they rang the police to see if there was an inspector Goole in there department.