Looking at the role of the Inspector in 'An Inspector Calls'

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English literature coursework                Hussain Khan 10BA

Looking at the role of the Inspector in ‘An Inspector Calls’

J.B. Priestley wrote ‘Inspector Calls’ in 1945.  The central character is an Inspector Goole.  In this play his role is ambiguous.  He could be seen as a device or maybe even the voice of a conscience in a human form to get us all to examine our consciences.  I don’t think that it was meant to be realistic but it was an eye-opener.  I think that the Inspector’s name; Goole is a connotation of the word ‘Ghoul’ meaning ghost.  The Inspector need not be a big man but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.  In this play some of the Inspector’s parting words were ‘we do not live alone.  We are all members of one body’.  Priestley himself was particularly interested in the ideas and thoughts of a famous psychologist named Jung.  He believed that in our dreams we lose our identity and enter the world of the ‘collective subconscious’ where we would all share ancient, universal experiences and the things we dream of have a common significance.  

This play was written in 1945 and was first published in 1947.  This play was set in 1912 because this was a year where people thought that nothing bad would ever happen.  The Birling family were symbolic of people that had too much to lose if awful things like war were to happen.  Arthur Birling says, “You’ll hear some people say that war’s inevitable.  And to that I say – fiddlesticks!  The Germans don’t want war.  Nobody wants war, except some half-civilized folks in the Balkans.  And why?  There’s too much at stake these days.  Everything to lose and nothing to gain.”  This speech made by Arthur Birling is ironic because we know that the First World War begins two years from then.

Birling also mentions the Titanic and describes it as “unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable”, and talks about how it is going to sail in a week, again this ironic because we know that the Titanic sinks after it hit an iceberg.  There are more examples of irony during the times that Arthur Birling is talking to both Sheila and Gerald.  He says how they are marrying at the best possible time, and there were a lot of talk about a possible labour trouble in the near future.  He said they were past the worst of it.  He is wrong as there was a general strike in 1926, and the two were not getting married at a good time.

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Towards the end of Birling’s second speech he made a prediction that by 1940 when their future son or daughter may be getting engaged, they’ll be living in a world that will have forgotten all these ‘Capital versus labour agitations’ and the silly war scares.  He also comments on how there will be peace and prosperity everywhere except in Russia.  However, in 1939 the Second World War breaks out, in 1917 there is the Russian Revolution and I’ve already mentioned the general strike in ’26.  These were all examples of irony, he is so wrong on so many occasions. ...

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