His role in the play is not just to confront each character with the truth, but to persuade each character to admit and acknowledge their truth and guilt. He questions the characters one by one in a meticulous method. This is because he realizes that ‘otherwise there’s a muddle’ and that also if the other characters were present they would be able to defend each other or call for outside help in order to deny and avoid the truth.
The Inspector arrives just after Birling has been setting out his views of life: that every man must look out for himself. The Inspector’s role is to prove that this is not the case and throughout the play he tries to show how people are responsible for others. His views are summed up in his dramatic final speech: that ‘we are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.’ There are four key themes to the play: lies, love, pride and status and responsibility. Priestly uses the inspector as a vehicle for putting across his moral and political views.
Without the Inspector many of the events that occur in the play would not have taken place. The characters would not have revealed their secrets because: Birling thought that there was nothing wrong in sacking a troublemaker; Sheila thought that it was not ‘anything terrible at the time’ to have a shop-assistant sacked for being pretty; Gerald did not want his involvement with the girl to come out because of his engagement to Sheila; Mrs. Birling was too cold to ‘have known what [the girl] was feeling’ and needed to conceal the fact that he had stolen money from his father’s office. Without the Inspector’s ‘purposefulness’, each character would not have acknowledged their behavior. Priestly uses the Inspector to show that he is a socialist and that he believes that people have a responsibility to look out for others.
The Inspector’s appearance and the news he brings are very somber and this contrasts with the celebratory mood that the family is in. Inspector’s Goole’s name is an obvious pun on ghoul, a malevolent spirit or ghost. This gives the impression that he has a mysterious, disturbing quality. He could have been sent as some kind of spirit, sent on behalf of the dead girl in order to torment the consciences of the characters. He seems to be an omniscient, god-like character who seems to know what each character has done, without being told.
The Inspector seems to control what the characters say despite their importance. Sheila tells Gerald, ‘somehow he makes you…’ But he does not control the reactions of the characters. He uses his information about the girl’s life and character, her diary and letter, her photograph, and constant reminders of her horrific death, to encourage the others to admit to their shared responsibility. The characters have to choose whether they change their ways. Sheila and Eric do. However, Mr. and Mrs. Birling and perhaps Gerald do not. Sheila and Eric represent the younger generation. Priestly tries to make the audience recognize that there is more hope for the younger generation than perhaps the older generation that is represented by Mr. and Mrs. Birling.
The Inspector has a moral dimension, which 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'.
The Inspector creates a great deal of tension in the play. For example, near the beginning of the play he describes Eva Smith’s death.
“A woman died…burnt her insides out…”
He describes her death in quite graphic detail, which creates tension for the unsuspecting family. He also creates tension within the family because he seems to know a lot about the characters personal lives and many of the members in the family are keeping secrets from each other that they do not wish to be revealed.
Priestly uses the Inspector as a mouthpiece for his personal philosophy. He displays his personal beliefs and his outlook on life through the Inspector. For example, in the Inspector’s final speech he explains that although ‘one Eva Smith has gone…there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us.’ This implies that there are still many people with fears and problems such as those of Eva Smith and that if ‘men will not learn that lesson…’ that these people could be doomed to a future similar to that of Eva Smith’s. Through his presentation of the way the Birling’s and Gerald Croft respond to the Inspector, Priestly shows that denying responsibility for others will lead to the breakdown of society.
