This play is a Whodunit but it is quite different from a normal whodunit play because normally there is one person who is responsible but in ‘An Inspector Calls’, there is not one person who is responsible it is a collective responsibility. The moral of this play is that everyone is responsible for each other. Leading to Act 3 an inspector interrupts Mr Birling’s speech at the engagement party to say that a girl has died at the infirmary. She had drunk some strong disinfectant. The inspector told the Birlings that he has to ask the whole family some questions. He investigates them one by one “One line of enquiry at a time” By Act 3 everyone apart from Eric has been questioned. They have all been involved in Eva Smith’s life. Mr Birling started a chain of events by sacking her; Sheila was jealous and got her sacked again; Gerald had an affair with her. Lust got the better of him but then he left her. Mrs Birling was too proud to help a helpless Eva Smith when she came to Mrs Birling’s Committee in her hour of need. Eric is the only person left.
At the start of at Act 3, Eric comes in the room of staring eyes the first line in Act 3 is “You know, don’t you?” At this point, everyone knows that Eric has made Eva Smith pregnant, Eric forced himself on Eva. They know this because Eric is the only one who has not been questioned yet, the inspector says he is waiting for the father of the baby to arrive, and he will do what he needs to do. Funnily enough at the start of Act 2, everyone was waiting to hear what was going on with Gerald and Eva the same way as Act 3 when everyone was waiting to hear what was going on with Eric and Eva.
The inspector is trying to say that you only know one Eva Smith but remember this there are many more Eva Smiths and John Smiths in this world “their lives, hopes, fears, sufferings and happiness join with our lives. We do not just live alone we are member of one group we are all responsible for each other”. The inspector gives a last speech “One Eva Smith has gone but there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us”. Unlike what Mr Birling thinks, “Just look after yourself and no harm will come to you, unlike some other people who think we should look after someone else as if we were mixed up together like bees in a hive and part of a massive group or something”. Fire, Blood and anguish are all the staff Eva Smith had to deal with when she was alive and that’s what everyone else will have to deal with if they don’t start caring a bit.. The inspector says that Eva Smith went a lot of pain such as Fire, Blood and Anguish through her painful life. The speech makes a big impact on the audience because of them expected a police Inspector to give a sermon/ Lecture
When the Birlings heard that the inspector was not a real inspector the older generation like Mr & Mrs Birling both thought yes we got way with it, even though they didn’t say it you could tell from there expressions. However, unlike the younger generation Eric and Sheila were more worried about, who was that man? How did he know? Did this really happen? Mr Birling phoned the police so that he could find out once and for all if there really was a new inspector called Inspector Ghoul. Inspector Ghoul has a double meaning one is the name of a inspector and the other meaning of Ghoul is a ghost. The ghost was trying to warn them off but when they found out that, the inspector was a fake perhaps they thought that they got away with it, unlike the younger generation Eric and Sheila, were saying did you not learn anything? A girl has just died because of us maybe the inspector was a fake but still we all played a horrific part in a poor girl’s life. Mr Birling Phoned the infirmary to check if a young girl had died that night drinking some strong disinfectant the infirmary say that no young girl has died in the infirmary. The Birling’s feel relief but the audiences feel a shiver down their backs we feel that the inspector is from the spirit world.
Gerald tries to be clever and suggest that they all saw a photograph of Eva smith but how do we know it was the same Eva smith that Mr Birling had saw and probably Sheila saw some different picture of a different young girl. “We’ve no proof we saw the same photograph and therefore no proof it was the same girl” However, Eric and Sheila know that they have done wrong it does not matter if it is the same girl or not because we all did something bad. They all committed offences some of the seven deadly sins: Sheila JEALOUSY, Mr Birling GREED, Mrs Birling PRIDE, Gerald LUST, DISONESTY, and Eric COUETOUSNESS, SLOTH. These are all the things that the Birlings and Gerald have done to a young girl or many different young girls it does not matter because they all have done staff that they should not be proud of.
The Older generation were thinking that they got away with everything but suddenly when phone rang everyone went quiet and they all found out that a girl has just died on the her way to the infirmary after swallowing some disinfectant and a police inspector’s on his way to ask some questions. Priestley is trying to say everyone is responsible for each other if you do not learn the message then you must suffer the consequence of your actions.
I think we should not be like Mr Birling and we should be more like Mr Priestley and help the people who need our support we should not be selfish after all we are all responsible for each other we are members of one massive group.
