She next appears in Act Two, the last of the family to greet the Inspector. (She is later the slowest and most reluctant to admit her guilt in the girl's death.) Throughout the rest of the play, she is portrayed as determined but narrow-minded, out of touch with what really matters. She is interested in manners, not people.
She dominates those around her - she calls Sheila a 'child' (p.30) and tells off the Inspector for being 'a trifle impertinent' (p.30). Her lack of understanding of how other people live is shown in her snobbish comments about 'girls of that class' (p.30), 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' (p.38), 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.
She can be seen as hypocritical because:
She claims to be shocked by Eric's drinking and the talk of immoral relationships with the girl, yet she cannot bear not to hear Eric's confession and 'had to know what's happening' (p.53).
She is quite content to lay all the blame on the father of the child, until Eric's involvement is revealed. But at this point, it takes Sheila to remind her of what she had been arguing, for she is unwilling to admit it herself.
She condemns Gerald's affair with the girl as morally 'disgusting', but when Gerald reveals that Goole is not a policeman and therefore poses no threat to them, she eats her words and tells him she is 'most grateful' (p.70). Reputation is evidently more important to her than moral rights and wrongs.
The glowing praise she heaps on Gerald for the clever way he appears to have settled things reflects her desire to remain untouched by outside events and to maintain the appearance of respectability.
Gerald
Priestley describes Gerald in the opening stage directions as 'very much the easy well-bred young man-about-town'. He has the world at his feet: his father is a successful businessman, his mother comes from 'an old country family' (p.8), and he has finally become engaged to Sheila after having been 'trying long enough' (p.3). He behaves respectfully and like a proper gentleman in front of his father-in-law, but it is clear that there is unresolved tension between him and Sheila over what he was doing 'all last summer' (p.3) - the time when, as the play later reveals, he was seeing the girl.
He loyally supports Birling when he is questioned by the Inspector (pp.15, 17), claiming that 'I know we'd have done the same thing' (p.17) even though it upsets Sheila - another example of the fact that, beneath the surface, their relationship is far from perfect- and is taken aback when he hears of her behaviour towards the girl (p.23). He seems chivalrous, like Birling, in trying to protect Sheila from the details of the case - but this is hypocritical in two ways:
it represents his double standards: he is willing to protect Sheila but, as the Inspector says, 'we know one woman who wasn't, don't we?' (p.28); and
it actually allows him to conceal his guilty affair from her.
By the time Mrs Birling enters, breaking the tension, he and Sheila are openly quarrelling. This quarrel is Priestley's way of exposing the family, in which Birling and Mrs Birling place such importance, as a flimsy institution; it also shows both Gerald and Sheila in an unfavourable, petty light as individuals.
He is naive in imagining that his involvement with the girl 'was all over and done with last summer' (p.26), but generally comes to recognise that his actions have had lasting consequences. He finally responds with the same 'My God!' (p.35), as her death sinks in, that Eric used straight away (p.11), and from this point on, Priestley shows us Gerald in a different, more sympathetic light...
He shows a 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' (p.37). 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' (p.56). Gerald is admirably honest in admitting the girl's feelings were stronger than his (p.38) and is now 'troubled' by his behaviour (p.39) and asks to be on his own.
By this point in the play, both he and Sheila - who have each admitted their guilt to others and to themselves - 'aren't the same people who sat down to dinner here' (p.40). The engagement has been broken off but, in view of the tensions in the relationship already hinted at, this is evidently a good thing, and Sheila speaks of a new 'respect' for his honesty (p.40).
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' (p.70), and he says that 'everything's all right now' (p.71). He fails to understand that, whether or not he has actually driven a girl to suicide, he is just as guilty of selfishness and hypocrisy. Sheila's refusal to take back his ring suggests that, despite the Inspector's relatively lenient judgement of him, he is far from exonerated, in her eyes and in ours.
Eric
Unlike Gerald, Priestley 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 his back (p.10), and his father patronises him (p.12). 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' (p.54). 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' (p.52), 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 (p.11), 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 (p.16) - 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' (p.52), although she treated him as a child. Like every character accused by the Inspector, he is shown to be a hypocrite - he is disgusted by the 'fat old tarts round the town' (p.52), 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.
Sheila
Priestley describes Sheila in the opening stage directions as 'a pretty girl' and 'very pleased with life' - later, however, her prettiness is revealed as vanity and her happiness is shown to be selfish, bought at the price of the girl's job.
Her first reaction to the news of the girl's death is superficial - she seems upset that it has spoiled her evening 'and I've been so happy tonight' (p.17), and is interested only in whether she was young and pretty. But, unlike her parents, she quickly comes to see her as an individual: 'these girls aren't cheap labour - they're people' (p.19), she tells Birling. She becomes 'agitated' (p.20) as she realizes her own part in the girl's death, and - like Gerald later in the play - runs out of the room.
However, unlike her fiancé, she returns to accept her guilt rather than to find a way round it. We sense at the start of the play that there is an unresolved tension in her relationship with Gerald; they are actually very different people. But it is Sheila who grows up in the course of the play: at the start she is playful and attention-seeking; at the end, she is thoughtful and reflective. By contrast, Gerald is revealed to be a moral coward, unable to accept the wrongness of his behaviour and taking comfort from the fact that no-one seems to have died after all.
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' (p.23) and is 'trying to tell the truth' (p.23). 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' (p.24). Although she asks 'how could I know what would happen afterwards' (p.24), she does not try to escape from the blame. Priestley 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' (p.24). 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.
Sheila herself warns both Gerald and Mrs Birling not to 'try to build up a kind of wall between us and that girl' (p.30). Once she has admitted her own guilt, her rôle in the rest of the play is to show others the importance of admitting the truth:
- that Gerald knew the girl (p.26)
-
that Mrs Birling can help the Inspector (p.29)
- that Eric has a drink problem (p.32)
She becomes disillusioned and hurt by what she learns about the rest of her family - particularly Gerald, whom she now addresses 'bitterly' (p.33) and 'with sharp sarcasm' and 'irony' (p.38) - but when he has finally told the truth, she respects him 'rather...more than I've ever done before' (p.40). Facing up to our faults, Priestley suggests through Sheila, is painful, but not to do so makes things worse in the long run, as she says. This is part of Priestley's purpose in the play: to make us feel the urgency of rethinking the responsibility we bear towards our fellow men before it is too late.
Sheila emphasizes the importance of everyone learning from the Inspector's visit. She and Eric are the only characters who are not concerned whether Goole was a real Inspector - she says 'it doesn't make any real difference' (p.59), because she acknowledges her behaviour was morally wrong, whether or not it was legally wrong and whether or not it actually resulted in a girl's death.
By the end of the play, she has begun to have some understanding of what the Inspector is doing, so that she is able to see the world, and her responsibility, according to his values instead of those of her family. This is why she can see the trap her mother's arrogance is creating, and why she tries to stop her mother from exposing and condemning the child's father. It is only she and Eric, the two youngest and 'more impressionable' characters (p.30) who, in Priestley's eyes, have profited sufficiently from the lessons on stage in front of them not to repeat their mistakes a second time - as he hopes the audience will have too...
The Inspector
Priestley describes the Inspector, when he first appears on stage, in terms of 'massiveness, solidity and purposefulness' (p.11), symbolising the fact that he is an unstoppable force within the play. His 'disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before speaking' (p.11) gives the impression that he sees through surface appearances to the real person beneath. It also gives him a thoughtfulness that contrasts with the thoughtlessness of each character's treatment of the girl.
His role in the play is not simply to confront each character with the truth, but to force each character to admit the truth they already know. He works methodically through the characters present one at a time, partly because he recognises that 'otherwise, there's a muddle' (p.12), and partly because, given the chance, the characters are all quick to defend each other, or to call upon outside help (such as Colonel Roberts) in order to avoid accepting the truth of what he suggests.
He arrives just after Birling has been setting out his views of life: that every man must only look out for himself. The Inspector's rôle is to show that this is not the case. Throughout the play he demonstrates how people are responsible for how they affect the lives of others; his views are summed up in his visionary and dramatic final speech: that 'we are members of one body. We are responsible for each other' (p.56). Responsibility is one of the play's two key themes, and the Inspector is Priestley's vehicle for putting across his own views of this as a socialist. In this final speech, he is speaking as much to the audience as to the characters on stage. His words here are a warning to an audience in 1945 not to repeat the selfish mistakes that led to the 'fire and blood and anguish' of two World Wars and the years between them.
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' (p.45) 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' (p.37). 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 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]' (p.15). But he also tells the characters that 'if you're easy with me, I'm easy with you' (p.22) - 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.
Summary
The Inspector sees through each character.
He forces each character to admit what they already secretly know.
He is Priestley's vehicle for his views on social responsibility.
He is the catalyst for the play's events.
He controls the play's events.
He has a moral dimension.
He brings about each character's punishment through their own actions.
He is each character's last chance.
