Inspector Goole in An inspector calls

I will be answering the question "What is the importance of the inspector in J. B Preisley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’". I think the Inspector is the characters guilty conscience. To prove this I will go through every character and comment on how they react to the Inspector and I shall also comment on how the Inspector reacts to the Birlings and Gerald.
Inspector Goole makes his entrance in the middle of the Birlings celebration, they are celebrating the engagement of Sheila (their daughter) to Gerald Croft son of sir George Croft of Crofts Limited. At the time the Inspector enters Mrs. Birling and Sheila have left the room so Mr. Birling, Gerald and Eric (his son) are left in the room.
Mr. Birling is in the middle of a speech to Eric and Gerald:

"a man has to make his own way-has to look after himself-and his family to".

He is cut off when the maid Edna tells Mr. Birling that an Inspector is here to see him this might be a secret message by J.B Priestly (the writer of the play) saying that life shouldn't be like people shouldn't just look after their family and friends they should be caring to other people and during the evening the characters learn that lesson because if they had treated Eva Smith well she wouldn't have died.
The Inspector first questions Mr. Birling, a proud man who is very old fashioned. The Inspector came down on them straight away saying:

"a young girl has just committed suicide by drinking some disinfectant"

. Mr. Birling doesn't take him seriously telling the Inspector that it is nothing to do with him even when the Inspector tells him that Eva Smith use to work for him. Mr. Birling still doesn't feel any remorse. The Inspector shows Birling a photograph of Eva Smith and, Birling can remember her now, then Gerald and Eric ask to see the photograph of the girl but in a quiet but firm tone the Inspector replies

"all in good time"

I think that Gerald and Eric should of demanded to see the photograph because they have every right to and they could of uncovered out the Inspector right from the beginning but they didn't. The Inspector then tells Birling that she used to work for him and her name was Eva Smith

"now I remember her" said Birling "she wanted a pay rise to 25 shillings from 22/6d so they went on strike and it was all over soon I let everyone back in except for the ringleaders and Eva Smith was one of them. Then the Inspector asked him why he sacked him in a loud voice. A real Inspector wouldn't speak like that to a respectable businessman, Birling replies

"if you don't come down sharply on some of these people they will soon be asking for the earth".

The Inspector challenges Birling

"they might but ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

"if you don't come down sharply on some of these people they will soon be asking for the earth".

The Inspector challenges Birling

"they might but its better to ask for the earth than to take it".

That surprised Birling as his views had never been challenged before.
Then Sheila enters and Birling tells Sheila to go out but the Inspector tells her to stay by this time Birling is starting to lose his patience with the Inspector and the other way around. Sheila asks whats going on and the Inspector tells her and Sheila was very shocked, Sheila is very spoilt and selfish and she says

"I wish you had never have told me, Ive been so happy tonight"

Sheila is very selfish and just thinks about it ruining her night and not about a young girl ruining her life. Sheila asks another stupid question

"was she pretty" and the Inspector makes it worse by saying

"not when I saw her she wasn't" and he knows that him saying that would upset Sheila even more and so does Birling. The Inspector showed Sheila a picture of the girl and Sheila runs out crying. Sheila takes it worst than the rest of the others and she feels that she is more to blame, Sheila was an easy target for the Inspector because she was more emotional and wasn't use to the police so she came clean and didn't lie. heila enters and confessed to getting Eva Smith the sack from a respectable shop called Millwards that is where the Birlings shop,

"Id gone to try something on-mother had been against it and so had the assistant-but I insisted. As I tried it on I knew they'd been right-this girl held the dress up as if she was wearing it. And it suited her-and that didn't make me feel any better",

so Sheila went to the manager and told him that if he didn't sack her she would get her mother to close their account so Sheila used her power to get this girl the sack which proves how immature Sheila is. But later on when her mother (Mrs. Birling) was being questioned by the Inspector Sheila was trying to warn her mother about the Inspector. Gerald and Eric once again asked if they could see the photograph but the Inspector once again refused them to look at it.
The Inspector then moves on to Gerald he says that Eva Smith had changed her name to Daisy Renton and straight away Gerald gave himself away by his reaction and even Sheila realised, and Gerald wanted to keep it from the Inspector but Sheila knows the Inspector already knows. It finally comes out that Gerald had been with Daisy Renton during the previous summer when he stayed away from Sheila. But at least Gerald kept her happy for a time said the Inspector he gave her money and a place to live which is more than the rest of them did.
Mrs. Birling is next to be questioned and Sheila is telling her not to build a wall between them and the girl but Mrs. Birling doesn't understand, Mrs. Birling works at charity organisation which helps young pregnant women and Eva Smith went there for help. The Inspector is trying to make Mrs. Birling feel ashamed but it isn't working

"I don't feel ashamed for my actions I was only doing my duty”.

Now the, Mrs. Birling tells the Inspector that the father of Eva Smith's child should be dealt with very severely this statement will haunt her and she will regret saying it later on.
Eric is last to be questioned and it is probably the most significant of the he rest of them he got Eva Smith pregnant he stole a lot of money from his father and it had come out that he had a drink problem and Eric found out that his mother had killed his son. When Eric had found out that his mother had turned away Eva Smith he went mad then Mrs. Birling had realised that she had sent away her son's girlfriend and her grandchild she was upset for the first time because she blamed the father for what had happened to Eva Smith and the father was Eric, and it could have been her first grandchild.

The central message for this play is basically to get the reader thinking about segregation of different classes (such as upper, lower, middle etc etc.) How we should all work together as a community and not disrespect, ignore, close out other people because of who they are, how they’ve grown up or how wealthy they are. This was especially important in the time this play was written (1945) just after the war. Times were hard and everyone needed to work together, that was the point that J.B Priestly was trying to make.

The was Inspector Goole is introduced is quiet sudden and unexpected. As the actual book quotes ‘The inspector need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purpose’

Also the time chosen for the Inspector to be introduced is chosen well. Mr Birling is in the middle of a speech:

“ But you take my word for it, you youngsters- and I’ve learnt in the good hard school of experience – that a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own – and –“

At this point Edna (the maid) announces that the inspector is at the door. The inspector arriving at this point in the book promotes even more about whats the inspector is there to do, and it promotes everything the inspector says even more. It’s the total opposite of Mr. Birling’s speech.

The inspectors’ final speech:

“But just remember this. One Eva Smith has gone- but there are millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes, their fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do. We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in the fire and blood and anguish. Good night.”

Leaves a big impact on the reader. After building up to this speech since he entered the Birling home, you realise the purpose of the inspector and it all floods out at once. It s a strong speech and you can’t really argue with it – Mr Birling doesn’t, he just starts blaming other people. The inspector refers to the Second World War in his speech also ‘then they will be taught in the fire and blood and anguish’. Since the lay is set in 1912 the characters don’t know what he is talking about but we know better.

The ending of the story and book is when the Birling house gets a phone call saying that a young girl has just died and as been bought to the infirmary. This gives a great twist to the story as they thought they were off the hook after calling the infirmary just beforehand to see if anyone had been bought in matching Eva Smiths description. The only people who had really learnt a lesson from Inspector Gooles visit are Sheila and Eric. Mr Birling tries to make a joke of it as we can see form this statement:

“Now look at the pair of them (referring to Sheila and Gerald) – the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke-“

I think that secretly Mr Birling is very, very relieved (as are all the people involved) and although he knows he’s been made a fool out of he’s still trying to act ‘cool’ by putting on a front. Mr Birling hasn’t learnt any lesson and is still as obnoxious as before inspector Goole called. Maybe, if they hadn’t had found out that Goole wasn’t actually an inspector he would have put more thought into his actions. My opinion is Mr Birling is all about power. He refers to his high status all the time and his comments are littered with referrals to whom he knows and who he is.

“Perhaps I ought to warn you that he’s an old friend of mine”

There’s an example of Mr Birling name-dropping about Chief Constable Roberts.

My view on Mr Birling is that he was only worried about people who have more power than him, or are more well known. He seems to have the right contacts in the right places.

My final conclusion on the Inspector is he could have been one of many of things. His name “Goole” sounds like “ghoul” which might be a link. This suggests this he could have just been an apparition, a ghost, a figment of the imagination of a guilty members of the family. It also gives an eerie atmosphere. There’s also the idea that Inspector Goole could be Eva Smith/Daisy Renton taking on the form of the inspector to make them feel guilty and to know what had happened to her after what the family had done to her.

The Inspector is the main part in the story and is simply there to stand for justice for the lower class who have been neglected by higher class citizens such as Mr Birling and his wife and people like them.