Who is Inspector Goole in the J.B. Priestley play,

of paranormal being. When he says, “I’m losing all patience with you people”; it gives the impression that the Inspector is not any normal person, but something more unearthly. Also, it sounds like a speech that would come from an exasperated God, after seeing how uncaring the people of this household are. Another idea that branches off from the Angel of The Lord theory, is that the Inspector is some sort of ‘cosmic inspector’, sent down to uncover whether or not the people of the family deserve to go to heaven or hell. This may explain why the Inspector makes constant references to his obligation (“I’m waiting…to do my duty”) and promotes his own sense of power in his words. For instance, when he says, “Some things are left to me” he could well be referring to his power to judge the souls of people. This idea is also used in evidence to support the theory that the Inspector is in fact the Devil, sent down to judge the hearts of all of the participants in Eva Smith’s death. To me, it seems more likely that the Inspector is the Devil rather than an angel, considering his “frightening” appearance and nature. However, although there are many quotes to support this fact, I do not believe that the Inspector is Satan, and will explain why later on in this essay. Subconscious ejaculation can also be used in support the theory of the Inspector being the devil, with lines such as, “I was in a hell of a state” and, “Why the devil would you want to go upsetting the child like that.” These characters possibly have picked up on the Inspector’s dark sinister line of questioning without knowing it. This is why they are dropping clues in their speech that they have subconsciously realized that he is not an ordinary policeman. One of the main speeches that people who support this theory bring into play, is when the Inspector roars, “If men don’t learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.” It is of course a shattering line, which supports not only the Devil theory, but also the Angel of The Lord and the Socialist Revolutionary theories. This is the point; perhaps this Inspector was not supposed to be one particular disposition, maybe he was just created in a way to bring across all these things in one. The thought of the Inspector being a socialist revolutionary is a good idea for many reasons. Not only is there an astounding amount of evidence to support this fact, but it is also worth consideration because the play’s writer, J.B. Priestley, was a socialist himself. Priestley grew up amongst his father’s socialist friends, and the ideas he learnt as a child influenced him very strongly in his later life. These views came across in the arguments he had with the richer people during his Political Science degree, and framed the values that were later to predominate Priestley’s writing. In this play Priestley observes the world around him, and is trying to put across the socialist point of how terribly the working class were being treated by the rich at the time. This is why the Inspector, who is in most respects the main character in this play, must in theory carry an overall socialist message. This can be supported in simple quotes such as, “I don’t play golf.” Golf was at the time, and usually still is, regarded as a game played by the rich. Golf club memberships are expensive and only affluent people are accepted. This shows that the Inspector disagrees with the well-heeled attitude associated with golf. Priestley continues with his views when the Inspector says, “Public men… have responsibilities as well as privileges.” This is more of a statement than a line and portrays the idea of the whole play in a couple of words. This is why the Inspector is such a strong character, because he is the personification of Priestley’s values that are channelled into this play. But the Inspector is not the only character which gets Priestley’s messages across, Sheila is another strong character because of the way she changes throughout the play to see the way that the Inspector wants all the characters to see. The Inspector is continually played off Sheila’s lines to create sharp, fantastic socialist speeches. For instance, when Shelia says, “These girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people”, the Inspector replies, “I’ve had that notion myself from time to time. In fact, I’ve thought that it would do us good if we put ourselves in the place of those young women counting their pennies in their dingy little back bedrooms.” This is an incredible speech, as the passion that can be imagined from the Inspector as he says his lines is immense. The two characters work off each other, from a socialist from the working class to a reformed wealthy daughter from a prosperous family. The other characters in the play that the Inspector’s messages seem to hold little value to, such as Mr and Mrs Birling, somehow bring across the message of the play as well. For example, Mr Birling’s speech about how  “a man has to make his own way – has to look after himself” and how you shouldn’t listen to people who think “everyone has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive” is in a way promoting socialism. This is because we know that everything that Birling has said, such as the war not happening, and the Titanic being unsinkable, has been wrong. The problem with the arguments that people have had over whether the Inspector is a Socialist revolutionary, or something more surreal such as the Devil, is that no one has considered the character being both. It would be easy to say that maybe this character is a mysterious unearthly presence, with ideas of a socialist. Personally, I think this is the case, and I think the real question is what kind of mysterious force is this character? There have been many theories about who the character of the Inspector is supposed to be. One final idea is from the writer himself. When J.B. Priestley was quizzed upon how his character was to be portrayed as, he said that he wrote in the character with a ghost in mind. You can see the idea of this coming through in a number of instances throughout the book. For instance, the Inspector’s name “Goole” is a play on the word ‘Ghoul’; another world for phantom or ghost.  If you really wanted to look into the lines, even the word ‘Inspector’ contains ‘spectre’. Personally, I don’t think that Priestley set out to make the Inspector any specific position, and the idea of the character being either an Angel of the Lord or Socialist revolutionary is not necessary. It is perfectly reasonable to accept the Inspector as an epitome of a socialist’s views rolled into a single character.   Maybe there are instances where the Inspector seems similar to a dominant paranormal presence such as an Angel or the Devil himself, but perhaps that is just because of the strength of his words, and feeling of the writer as he was writing. The important thing is not to classify exactly who this Inspector is, but to acknowledge that Priestley was influenced to promote a supernatural being in the character, to increase the potency of his message.