The Inspector is the catalyst for the events of the play: without him, none of the characters' secrets would ever have come into the open, for a variety of reasons. For Birling could not see that he did anything memorable or wrong in sacking a troublemaker; Sheila thought her rather spiteful jealousy of a pretty shop-assistant was not 'anything very terrible at the time' (p.24); Gerald needed to conceal his involvement with the girl from a jealous fiancée; Mrs Birling is too cold ever to 'have known what [the girl] was feeling’ and her effect seems lost on her; and Eric had resorted to theft, which he too needed to conceal. Without the inspector's 'purposefulness', each character could not or would not have acknowledged their behaviour.
The inspector's sombre appearance and the news he brings are a contrast with the happy and elegant air of celebration on stage. His name, Goole (ghoul?), Gives him a mysterious, disturbing quality - a ghoul is a spirit which takes fresh life from corpses, and we could certainly argue that the Inspector's existence is a result of the girl's death. If he is not a real inspector, what is he? A clever impostor (but nonetheless human)? The personification of the social conscience the characters all lack or suppress? A supernatural, god-like being (for he certainly seems to know what each character has done, without being told)? The reproachful spirit of the girl's dead child?
Despite the importance in the local community of people like Gerald and the Birlings, he controls the development of events: who will speak and when; who may or may not leave; who will or will not see the photograph. He even seems to control what people say. Sheila tells Gerald: 'somehow he makes you’. But he does not control their reactions - he only uses his information about the girl's life and character, her diary and a letter, her photograph, and constant reminders of the horrific death she has suffered, to create the possibility for others to face up to what they have done. They must decide whether to change or not - Sheila and Eric do; the Birlings and perhaps Gerald do not.
The Inspector has a moral dimension that makes him different from an ordinary policeman: he is more concerned with right and wrong than with what is legal. He sternly tells Birling, for example, that 'it's better to ask for the earth [as a worker might do] than to take it [which Birling does]'. But he also tells the characters that 'if you're easy with me, I’m easy with you' - he has compassion for those who are willing to accept their responsibility, but nothing so simple as forgiveness. After all, 'the girl's [still] dead though'.
Each character is punished in an appropriate way. Birling fears for his family's reputation at the inquest; Sheila feels shame for her selfishness; Gerald has his affair revealed in front of Sheila; Mrs Birling has her illusions about the respectability of her family shattered by Eric; and Eric is revealed before his indulgent parents as a spoilt and inadequate young man. But notice how in each case the punishment is a consequence of their own behaviour; the Inspector himself does not bring punishment from outside. Perhaps this is why they are given a second chance at the end of the play - that their experience should have been a warning to them, and that next time, it is the apocalyptic future predicted by the inspector's final speech that lies in store for them and for us.
As he deals with Birling he tells him that Eva Smith used to work for Birling and company, Birling hardly remembering the name has to be reminded by a photograph. I think that Mr. Birling was a difficult member of the family to get the real truth out of. “Now look here Inspector” Birling does not believe he has a responsibility to society, only to his family: 'a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own'. He is not upset, unlike Eric, at hearing the details of the girl's death, which shows him to be a little heartless. He is suspiciously defensive when he thinks the Inspector is accusing him of causing it, and - like Mrs Birling - is relieved when he thinks the finger is no longer pointing at him. This is hypocritical because, as the Inspector says, 'the girl's [still] dead, though'. It is known that Birling sacked the girl because she was rude and wanted a pay rise. He thought (as an upper class citizen) this was very rude coming from a slave girl.
Next the Inspector moves on to Mr. Birlings daughter, Sheila. Her involvement with the death was similar to her fathers. One day, whilst shopping in a very expensive dress shop, Eva Smith laughed at her trying on one particular dress. Sheila, of course, was very mad and ordered at once that this girl was fired, and so it was. Once she realises what she has done, she quotes ‘so I’m really responsible?’ She blames herself for the death and regrets every move she did, but the Inspector says that won’t help, Eva is dead. From the start Sheila has come across as a young, pretty and sensitive girl. She had a lack of understanding of the outside world, so the death came across as a shock. Like Birling, she readily admits to having met the girl. But her father admits this because he is unable to see that he has done anything wrong; Sheila, on the other hand, admits this because she is genuinely 'ashamed' and is 'trying to tell the truth'. Of all the characters, hers is the only confession that does her credit - Mrs Birling is first obstructive then defiant, and Gerald and Eric both confess at a point when they know they have been already found out.
She is guilty of the sins of pride and envy - she complained about the girl because she thought she was laughing at her, and because 'she was a very pretty girl too... I couldn't be sorry for her'. Although she asks 'how could I know what would happen afterwards', she does not try to escape from the blame. Priestly uses her as an example of someone who is vain and thoughtless, but not heartless: she is genuine when she says 'if I could help her now I would'. But he intends the audience to learn the lesson that good intentions are no good if they come too late; Sheila's predicament is a warning to us.
Enough was said for what Sheila had to do with the death, so the Inspector quickly moved on to Gerald. Gerald thinks he won’t have any involvement with the death, but we now find out that Eva changed her name to Daisy Renton, this sparks of Gerald. He realises that he had become a close friend with her last summer. Everything is told and eventually we find out that he had an affair with her. He is naive in imagining that his involvement with the girl 'was all over and done with last summer', but generally comes to recognise that his actions have had lasting consequences. He finally responds with the same 'My God!’ as her death sinks in, that Eric used straight away, and from this point on, Priestly shows us Gerald in a different, more sympathetic light...
He shows sympathy for the girl's situation, and his willingness at the County Hotel to hear her story shows he thought of her as an individual, unlike Birling or Mrs Birling. He feeds her, listens to her, and gives her money, without asking for 'anything in return’. It is ambiguous whether she ended up as his mistress out of obligation or out of love, however; it is certain, though, that - as the Inspector says - 'he at least had some affection for her and made her happy for a time’. Gerald is admirably honest in admitting the girl's feelings were stronger than his and is now 'troubled' by his behaviour and asks to be on his own.
However, Mrs.Birling will not accept the fact that she also helped kill Eva Smith. We are told that she works for the ‘Brumley Women’s Organisation’, and Eva smith asked for help from her. She asked for money to support her baby, because she told Mrs.Birling that she refused the stolen money that the man (who got her pregnant) offered her. Mrs.Birling took this as likely story and wouldn’t accept it.
She dominates those around her - she calls Sheila a 'child' and tells off the Inspector for being 'a trifle impertinent'. Her lack of understanding of how other people live is shown in her snobbish comments about 'girls of that class’, and in her unwillingness to believe the girl's reasons for refusing to take the stolen money or marry the foolish young man responsible for her pregnancy. Her lack of understanding even extends to her own family and friends as she has been quite unaware of her own son's heavy drinking or of Alderman Meggarty's womanising. She pronounces Gerald's behaviour towards the girl ‘disgusting’, even though - as the Inspector says - he was the only one to make her happy.
She remains untouched by the Inspector's questioning, and refuses to see how her actions could have been responsible for the girl's death, even though the audience can clearly see that her refusal to help the girl could easily have led to her suicide. It is only when she realises that Eric was the child's father that she shows any signs of weakening, but the speed with which she recovers after the Inspector's departure emphasises how cold and unsympathetic a character she is.
And last of all, the Inspector ‘picks on’ Eric. He also had a relationship with her, but this was a result or Eric being drunk and forcing her to make love to him. In other words, rape.
Unlike Gerald, Priestly describes Eric in the opening stage directions as 'not quite at ease'. He has been expensively educated, and yet he is a disappointment to Birling: he and Gerald joke behind Gerald's back, and his father patronises him. He is kept out of the information about his father's possible knighthood, and when he really needed help he felt his father was 'not the kind of father a chap could go to when he's in trouble'. His drinking is an open secret within the family (though Mrs Birling chooses not to admit it to herself), and suggests that he lacks self-discipline. This is borne out by the behaviour that is revealed in the course of the play: he forced himself into the girl's lodgings despite her protests, drunk and 'in that state when a chap easily turns nasty’, has made her pregnant, and has stolen money from his father.
But he also has an honesty that others lack. He is the only one to respond spontaneously to details of the girl's death, and when he is forced to admit how he behaved towards her he has a strong sense of guilt because the consequences of what he did are so serious. We also believe him when he tells Birling that he would have let the girl stay at the factory - but Eric throughout the play is shown to be naive, even if his heart is often in the right place. (Stealing Birling's money, even though a crime in law, might be another example of this.) He does not have the realistic outlook necessary to make a success of his life.
He is also shown to be immature, regarding the girl as a 'good sport’, although she treated him as a child. Like every character accused by the Inspector, he is shown to be a hypocrite - the ‘fat old tarts round the town’ disgust him, yet by this stage in her life, the girl is also a prostitute, though it is not clear whether Eric realises this.
He appears to have learnt very little from his privileged education, yet he has been impressed by the Inspector. At the end, like Sheila, he refuses to pretend things are like they were before, and is frightened by the fact that the older generation appear not to have learnt anything. He wants his parents to admit their mistakes as freely as he has admitted his. Though he is not a particularly pleasant character, we may feel that he is sincerely ashamed of his behaviour and is capable of changing for the better.
Eva smith, a young woman who died on her way to the Infirmary, was involved in many things in her life. She had something to do with every character, and maybe even the Inspector but we can not be too sure. She had a life of ups and downs and I think one of her highest points was when she met Gerald and that little relationship. I think this may have helped her along in life a bit because just before than she was sacked from her second job, it was her only hope, but being sacked pushed her towards the only option…Prostitution.The Inspector says that she had kept a sort of diary, which helped him piece together the last two years of her life: However, in Act III we begin to wonder whether Eva ever really existed.
- Gerald says, "We've no proof it was the same photograph and therefore no proof it was the same girl. - Birling adds, "There wasn't the slightest proof that this Daisy Renton really was Eva Smith. Yet the final phone call, announcing that a police inspector is shortly to arrive at the Birlings' house to investigate the suicide of a young girl, makes us realise that maybe Eva Smith did exist after all.
I think she could represent the devil as she causes trouble in everyone’s life, it’s almost as though she meant to do everything she did do. However, Think about Eva's name. Eva is similar to Eve, the first woman created by God in the Bible. Smith is the most common English surname. So, Eva Smith could represent every woman of her class.
Gerald's final service in the play is to reveal that Goole was not a real Inspector. He also carefully proves that Goole may not have shown everyone the same photograph, and it is he who takes the initiative in phoning the Infirmary to check whether a girl has actually died. His reaction is not 'triumphant' (which is Birling's), but he is described as 'smiling', and he says that 'everything's all right now’. The ‘Whodunnit’ genre contributes towards the effect of the play but creating a great sense of mystery, urging the reader to read to find out who did it. The policeman in a ‘whodunnit’ has a big role to play as he uncovers untold secrets; he is like the chairman of a debate. This is used in the play because is not sided towards one person, but uncovers all of their guilt.
