Sheila: Yes but it didn’t seem to be anything very terrible at the time. Don’t you understand? And if I could help her now, I would-
Inspector: (harshly) Yes, but you can’t. It’s too late. She’s dead.
Eric: My God, it’s a bit thick, when you come to think of it -
The Inspector always appears to have an answer. Whatever questions they throw at him, he has an adequate response. His retaliations can also be seen to imply something. For example, when Birling and Gerald are saying that employees would “soon be asking for the earth.” The Inspector replies
“They might. But after all it’s better to ask for the earth then to take it” (Act One).
This implies that Birling treats his employees badly and takes all they have to give. Again, the upper classes would not expect such impertinent behaviour from a police inspector. His coolness and responsiveness mean he can keep control over certain arrogant characters.
He exerts his control and command over the characters when he will only interview one person at a time because “otherwise there’s a muddle”
Even when under pressure from Birling to question Eric next, he sticks to his guns and tells him “He [Eric] must wait his turn.”
This sort of assertiveness would not be expected, as I’ve mentioned before.
His main technique to gain control is to talk down to them even though they’re upper class citizens. This shocks them into subsidence. The best example of this is found on page 46, when the Inspector says, “don’t stammer and yammer at me again, man. I’m losing all patience with you people.”
The result of this display of superiority and emotion induces Mrs. Birling to reveal what Eva said to her, which is what the Inspector wanted to hear. This clearly shows that the Inspector knows how best to affect this type of people and can control them easily.
The way in which the characters respond to him, gives him the upper hand because he knows exactly how to play each of them to extract the information he wants. In the instance of Mr and Mrs Birling, he is severe and condemning. As the eldest members of the Birling family, they are set in their ways and will not accept that they should have any responsibility and they do not feel guilt or remorse for their actions.
In the end, they do see that they played a part in the death of Eva Smith, and they are quite devastated by it.
In the case of Gerald, Sheila and Eric, he is still harsh and condemning but he seems to be more sympathetic towards them and understands their respective predicaments. They fully accept responsibility and are truly sorry for what they did. For this the Inspector doesn’t forgive them himself but allows them to see that they can seek forgiveness in future good behaviour.
Through the characters responses, he controls their personal distribution of guilt, and also forgiveness. This affects how they feel and act and how they will feel and act in the future.
Priestley has made Inspector Goole dramatically successful by incorporating many different reasons for the audience to like him, empathise with him and wonder about him. For instance, the timing of his entry, which is just as Birling is telling Gerald and Eric that “a man has to make his own way” and that a man has to “look after himself and his own”
He is fully against “the way these cranks talk and write now” – that everyone should look after everyone else. What the audience come to understand is that Inspector Goole is one of “these cranks” and is actively opposing Birling’s views.
The way the Inspector’s presence and manner are felt on stage would also affect how the audience feel towards him. Priestley wrote instructions for the Inspector to create “an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness.”
Also that Inspector Goole has “a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking.” (Act One)
The Inspector is perceived as a representative of truth and justice and more concerned with what is right and wrong, rather than what is legal. He engenders today’s society and it’s beliefs and actions. This would encourage the audience to have a high regard for the Inspector’s judgements and behaviour and also to empathise with him.
His purpose within the wider context of the play is to control the events and to force each character to admit the truths they already know, and ultimately, to convey Priestley’s views on early 20th century England.
Priestley uses dramatic irony throughout the play for several reasons. For one, it allows the audience to become involved. As the play was written in the winter of 1945, but set thirty-three years earlier, in the spring of 1912, the audience are aware of events that the characters are not. So when, at the beginning of Act One, Birling makes his speech about the fact that “there isn’t a chance of war”, the audience know that World War I began just two years later, in 1914. In the same speech he says that the Titanic is “absolutely unsinkable”, when it sank on its maiden voyage and a thousand people died. He also says that in 1940 there will be “ peace and prosperity and rapid progress everywhere” when in 1940 England was in the centre of World War II, which lasted for six years.
The audience can see the irony in his words. This will create an air of dislike towards Birling as it reveals his arrogant, pompous, insular nature. Priestley uses dramatic irony to evoke certain feelings in the audience towards certain characters.
Another reason for Priestley’s use of dramatic irony is to enhance Inspector Goole’s appearance of being in total control of everything and everyone. An example of this is found at the end of Act Two. He provokes Mrs. Birling to the extent that she blames Eva’s suicide on the “father of the child. It’s his responsibility.”
What she hasn’t realised is that the father of Eva’s child is Eric, her own son. So when the Inspector says “No hushing up, eh…public confession of responsibility – um?”
She agrees with him and is subsequently condemning her own son. The audience, on the other hand, would have realised quite early on that Eric was the father, so would be aware of how Mrs. Birling was setting herself up. This illustrates quite clearly, the Inspectors large degree of authority over the characters in the play.
Priestley’s key reason for using dramatic irony throughout the play is so that he can easily develop and reveal his views and opinions of 20th century society.
It has been said that Priestley uses Inspector Goole as a “mouthpiece” for his own views on the social structures of early 20th century England.
I believe this to be true. J.B.Priestley was a socialist. They believe that everybody has a moral obligation to each other and that everyone has equal rights.
From the onset of the play, hints of Priestley’s social beliefs have crept into the Inspector’s speeches. A few examples of this are; when talking about the difference between respectable citizens and criminals he says, “Often, if it was left to me, I wouldn’t know where to draw the line”; also, when he’s talking about why Sheila would want to stay – “if there’s nothing else, we’ll have to share our guilt”
However, the most blatantly obvious display o Priestley’s own views occurs just before the Inspector leaves the play, in his final speech. It is a speech which is now hailed a the most famous and remembered from “An Inspector Calls.” Priestley’s socialist views are visible when the Inspector says -
“We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.” This is a typical socialist viewpoint. Priestley uses a reference to World War I to further prove his point for socialism – “ the time will come…. We will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
This final speech made by Inspector Goole, enforces my belief that the Inspector is J.B.Priestley’s “mouthpiece” for his social views and beliefs.
In agreement with the theatre critic, I think that “Priestley’s play is unusual in that a character, the Inspector, could be said to direct the action of the play.” This is a valid comment. Priestley has created a dramatically successful, controlling character and makes use of dramatic irony to enable the Inspector to voice his own personal views effectively. He has done this by creating a character that puzzles the audience with his behaviour, controls the other characters with his manner and displays socialist values in his speeches. The theatre critic’s comment is very true of the character of Inspector Goole.
