Eric also is able to recognise his mistakes and also doesn’t try to hide things from the inspector. He seems to play the same role as Mrs Birling while his views are the exact opposite. He has his opinions that are opposite to Mrs Birling however he is less outspoken about them and lets Sheila do most of the talking. Whenever Sheila makes a point he agrees with it, however makes little important points himself. When Sheila says how it makes little difference weather Goole was a real inspector or not Eric backs her up and says ‘No Sheila’s Right. It doesn’t.’ (59) but keeps it at that, he seems more scared and hesitant to disagree with his father. This may be to do with him being younger than Sheila, or the fact that he owes his father money. Together Sheila and Eric are like the Modern Mr and Mrs Birling, and use each other as support when stating their points.
Gerald seems to fall between the two sets of characters. He is able to admit to what he has done and agree to it being wrong. He is on the one hand moved by Eva’s story, but still tries to make himself out to be the hero, the one who rescued her in a time of need, not the one who was off with another woman when he was supposed to be too busy to see his fiancée. He at first is able to understand how each role effected Eva and therefor the ‘talk of community’ is less nonsense to him than Birling makes it out to be, he understands what the inspector is trying to say. However, when it is realised that the police officer was not in fact real he goes back to the view of Mr Birling and tries to pretend that the event wasn’t real just because the person who made them confess wasn’t. He begins to try to think of reasons to prove that nothing happened, just to get them off the hook.
I think that the inspector is trying to warn Mr and Mrs Birling about what may happen if they do not change their opinions of society. I think perhaps he knows that they will eventually find out he is not real, but by saying: ‘One Eva Smith is gone – but there are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lived and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives and what we think and say and do.’(56) It reminds them that although this incident didn’t happen, another could happen at any moment and they need to be more careful about what they say and do in the future. He contradicts Mr Birling and says: ‘We do not live alone, We are members of one body. We are responsible for one another.’(56) The exact opposite of what Mr Birling says on page 10: But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else.’ I think by contradicting the two it will make them think more, perhaps he is trying to anger Mr Birling in order to make him think about what is being said more carefully.
In contrast I think that the speech is meant to encourage Sheila and Eric to continue the way they are, to support them and help them not to give in to the conservative views of the time. I can imagine how hard it would be constantly battling against people as ignorant as Mr and Mrs B and that speech by the inspector could give that little extra push to Sheila and Eric not to let others silence them.
To Gerald I think it is meant to have the effect that it makes him turn around, he has the ability to change his way for life, if he changes now he will have 40 or 50 years to help change society whereas Mr and Mrs B do not have that.
I think overall it is a warning, meant to frighten Mr and Mrs Birling, encourage Sheila and Eric and also encourage Gerald to turn around. It was written after both world wars, but set before, to the characters it is a warning of what happens if you do not take responsibility for your own actions and accept how they effect others.
I think it is meant to remind the audience of what sort of ignorance caused the wars. They will have lived through at least one and will know the effect of them, but may not remember or realise the routs of it. Somewhere down the line somebody must have been as ignorant and arrogant as Mr Birling, not have admitted when they were in the wrong and not had the courage to stop it going to far. I think the message here is. ‘You know what happened, now don’t let it happen again.’ Unlike the characters in the play, the audience are real people with the ability to make a difference. I think Priestly’s thinking was that every character must have resembled someone in the audience and maybe the speech was meant to trigger something inside the audience to make them wake up to things.
In both cases it would seem that the inspectors speech was a warning and word of encouragement for a more moralistic society.
The inspector uses some common techniques of speech making, which have been analysed by a writer called Max Atkinson and proved soccessful and popular. The rhythm is such that it creates a comfortable flow to listen to, each word seems to fall off each other making every word seem more important than the last.
He says ‘Their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness.’ This is grouped into three and uses contrasting words: hopes ~ fears, suffering ~ happiness. He talked about us and we, (We are responsible for each other) this makes the audience identify and feel like part of the play. He also uses ‘I’ a lot to make himself seem superior and sincere - ‘And I tell you this,’
It is structured so that it does not sound like ordinary conversation and would make people listen carefully. I Think the inspector should speak clearly and loudly, his speech is long and drawn out and has few sentences within the paragraph, and so I think that if he emphasises these with pauses it will be more effective. I think that as he makes each point he should look at the character it relates to. He should keep an expressionless face so that the words of his speech are what influence the listener, not his expressions.
The Inspector says at the end of his speech ‘if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire blood and anguish. These are very powerful words and would stick in the minds of any listener but they do have a much deeper meaning than at face value. They were written at the end of a war, a war that had seen the holocaust and written by a man who had served on the western front in the first world war, where he had seen horrors so terrifying that they could haunt for a lifetime. Priestly had lived through both the first and Second World War, he would have seen the damage done to mankind and been so frustrated and angered to see the lesson was unlearned and that out of the first war came, not an improvement, but another war. In an extract form Suicide in the trenches, by Siegfried Sassoon it says , ‘You smug faced cowards with kindling eye who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you’ll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.’’ I think Priestley is making a connection between the ‘smug faced cowards’ and Mr Birling. He is connecting Birlings arrogance, with how the cowards in the extract are perfectly happy to cheer for the soldiers and watch them go off to hell but hope and pray for themselves, not for the ones who are out there fighting for them.
Priestley has seen what happens when people don’t take responsibility for their actions and knows that if people do not learn they will be taught that lesson in much more than public embarrassment. He trys to show this in the inspectors speech.
Here is what I think Preistley is trying to represent by each of these words.
- Fire – Hell, anger.
- Blood – death, murder, suffering.
- Anguish – Pain, guilt.
Overall I think he means that what they do can come back to haunt you in much more that loosing an honours, and do much more damage than the death of one girl – the death of millions.
The play never answers the mystery of who the inspector is meant to represent and what his identity is. All the other characters are realistic and believable and have a role to play, the inspector too has a role to play as the play would not happen without him, however it would seem out of contrast if the inspector was nothing more than a dramatic device.
The inspector seems to know what is going to happen on several occasions. An example of this is on page 48 where he says ‘not yet, I’m waiting.’ It is then discovered that Eric was the father of Eva’s child and almost straight after that Eric enters. From this is could be said that the inspector was a time traveller from the future, however I think that there was a much stringer link between Priestly himself and the inspector. Priestly shared many of the inspector’s views, and I think was trying to express his opinions through the inspector and what he says. The play centres mainly on the inspector and so it would seem fitting that Priestly chose the most important character to represent himself and what he feels. If he felt so strongly on a subject, I do not think that he would have the main character undermining his opinion. And so I think that the inspector was actually the voice of Priestly.