In the middle of Mr Birling giving his very capitalist advice there is a ring at the door, it is an Inspector Goole. The instructions tell us the character should create “at once an impression of massiveness, solidity, and purposefulness.” This implies he is a very imposing and authoritative man. We can tell this when he very properly rejects an offer of a drink, “No, thank you, Mr Birling. I’m on duty.” He isn’t put off by Mr Birling’s boasting about his status, “I was alderman for years-and Lord Mayor two years ago-and I’m still on the bench”. He seems a little annoyed by Mr Birling trying to be commanding, “Well, what can I do for you? Some trouble about a warrant?” He curtly answers, “No, Mr Birling”. Then he very unemotionally cuts straight to the point, “Two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary.” “She’d swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out of course.” He isn’t squeamish about it and spares none of the detail, “Yes, she was in great agony.” “Suicide of course.” He seems to want to shock them into telling him what he wants and goes about it in a clever way. He then asks Mr Birling straight away if he knew the girl, “her real name-was Eva Smith”, he shows Mr Birling a photograph to remind him. This is rather odd because he won’t let the others see it, “It’s the way I like to go to work. One line of enquiry at a time. Otherwise there’s a muddle.” This seems a very logical and organised way to work, he seems to know what he’s doing and perhaps more then he’s letting on. He asks his questions in an accusing manner like he knows the answers already and will get them out of people, “I think you remember Eva Smith now, don’t you, Mr Birling?” He treats the Birling family like suspects and is rude to them like he has reason to, he seems to know they are guilty of something and isn’t afraid to make them pay for it; “No sir I can’t agree with you there”, and “It’s my duty to ask questions”. He appears to be a socialist because of the way he is critical of Mr Birling’s company and expresses his opinion, “It’s better to ask for the earth than to take it.” This isn’t normally how a police officer would behave, he seems to be very sympathetic of Eva and critical of Mr Birling and he isn’t afraid to express this. Mr Birling tries to intimidate him again, “Perhaps I ought to warn you that he’s an old friend of mine, and that I see him fairly frequently. We play golf together sometimes up at West Brumley”. The Inspector seems totally unimpressed and replies “(dryly) I don’t play golf.” Inspector Goole seems to be a very strange police inspector, he isn’t the normal type. He is very intelligent and superior, and asks questions in an astute manner to get the answers he wants. He isn’t bothered by social status and speaks his mind freely, not scared to tell the Birling’s just what he thinks.
The first person the Inspector questions is Mr Birling, he asks how he knew Eva Smith and shows him a photograph, he tells Birling, “she was employed at your works at one time.” Mr Birling remembers her and tells the inspector, “She was a lively good-looking girl – country bred, I fancy – and she’d been working in one of our machine shops for over a year. A good worker too.” But then he tells how “after they came back from their holidays that August” “they suddenly decided to ask for more money.” “They wanted the rates raised so that they could average about twenty-five shillings a week. I refused of course.” This shows us she was a hardworking, spirited girl who just wanted a little more money. She was headstrong and had a little more to say for herself than most; “So they went on strike. That didn’t last long of course.” He let most of them back “except four or five ringleaders, who’d started the trouble.” “And this girl Eva Smith was one of them. She’d had a lot to say- far too much- so she had to go.” So just because she’d needed more money and had actually made a stand to get it she had to go. The fact she was one of the ringleaders shows she had a leading personality and was determined to get what she wanted even though there was a lot at stake. We also know she was of the working classes because she needed the money so didn’t actually have much of an option about trying to get it, however things ended up worse for her and she was out of a job.
The Inspector then tells how she was, “after two months, with no work, no money coming in, and living in lodgings, with no relatives to help her, few friends, lonely, half-starved, she was feeling desperate.” However she was fortunate and got another job, this time “She was taken on in a shop-and a good shop too- Milwards.” This was a very lucky chance “And now she felt she was making a good fresh start.” Until she had another dealing with the Birling family, this time it was Sheila. The Inspector seems to know what happened before Sheila tells him anything, “You knew it was me all the time, didn’t you?” He deliberately plays on her guilty conscience easily making her confess, “you’re partly to blame. Just as your father is.” “I felt rotten about it at the time and now I feel a lot worse.” She explains how she’d gone in to try something on, “It was an idea of my own - mother had been against it, and so had the assistant - but I insisted. As soon as I tried it on, I knew they’d been right. It just didn’t suit me at all. I looked silly in the thing.” So she was already annoyed that she’d been wrong, when she was trying to have independence from her mother and make her own decisions. However when Eva had held up the dress as if she was wearing it, “It just suited her. She was the right type for it, just as I was the wrong type. She was a very pretty girl too”. And when Sheila was trying on the dress, “I caught sight of this girl smiling at Miss Francis-as if to say, “Doesn’t she look awful”-and I was absolutely furious.” So she “went to the manager and told him that this girl had been very impertinent”, and “if they didn’t get rid of that girl, I’d never go near the place again and I’d persuade mother to close our account with them.” So Sheila had been very jealous that Eva looked better in this dress and consequently she lost her job, Sheila acted very selfishly and used her class and position to get rid of Eva. She claims that, “If she’d been some plain little creature, I don’t suppose I’d have done it. But she was pretty and looked as if she could take care of herself. I couldn’t be sorry for her.” So the angry jealousy of Sheila stopped her from feeling sympathetic, she was only thinking of herself not of the consequences for Eva. This story tells us how pretty Eva was to make Sheila jealous and how she was still lively and had a lot to say because of how she was slightly cheeky. But really it just makes us feel even more sorry for Eva because of the way she’s been treated by people of a higher class, through no particular fault of her own she’s been fired twice because of the Birling’s families selfish greed.
The next character who comes into contact with Eva Smith is Gerald Croft, but this time “she changed her name to Daisy Renton.” Gerald tries to cover up his involvement with her but his reaction to the name gives him away, also the Inspector already knows that he knew her. “And anyhow I knew already.” The inspector is very persistent and Gerald has to tell his story; “I met her first, sometime in March last year, in the stalls bar at the Palace.” This is the “Palace Variety theatre” and Gerald “went down into the bar for a drink. It’s a favourite haunt of women of the town.” By this he means prostitutes and says “I hate those hard-eyed, dough-faced women. But then I noticed a girl who looked quite different. She was very pretty - soft brown hair and big grey eyes”. He says she was, “quite out of place down there.” And that, “Old Joe Meggarty, half-drunk and goggle-eyed, had wedged her into a corner with that obscene fat carcase of his”. She was really unhappy in this situation and, “gave me a glance that was nothing less than a cry for help”, so Gerald distracted Meggarty and, “told the girl if she didn’t want any more of that sort of thing, she’d better let me take her out of there.” Then he took her to “the County hotel”, “and we had a drink or two and talked.” She told him vaguely what had happened to her and how she’d ended up where she was, “I couldn’t get and exact details from her about her past life”. However, “What she did let slip - though she didn’t mean to - was that she was desperately hard up and at that moment was actually hungry”, so Gerald bought her some food. They arranged to meet up again and this time he found that, “in fact she hadn’t a penny and was going to be turned out of the miserable back-room she had”. So Gerald let her stay in the flat of a friend who was away on holiday, “I insisted on Daisy moving into it and made her take some money to keep her going there.” But he very sincerely claims, “I didn’t install her there so I could make love to her. That came afterwards.” Instead he says he did it because “I was sorry for her, and didn’t like the idea of her going back to the Palace bar.” He did it out of pity, not to keep her as his mistress, but it was “inevitable.” So they became lovers, “She was young and pretty and warm-hearted – and intensely grateful. I became the most important person in her life.” Gerald says he did have feelings for her but, “I didn’t feel about her as she felt about me.” This relationship shows how very lonely she was because of how much she appreciated Gerald’s company and how he became so important to her. We learn how desperate for money she was to have gone to the Palace theatre; things were going really badly for her which was why she was so grateful Gerald helped her. However she remained proud and didn’t ask for help, she only took it when Gerald insisted. The problem with the relationship was that Gerald was always in control, he was the one with status and money, she was dependant on him and admired him so much, he provided for her. This meant that he ended it, he was in control, “I broke it off definitely”, “she was - very gallant - about it.” “She told me that she’d been happier than she’d ever been before – but that she knew it couldn’t last – hadn’t expected it to last.” This shows that she really loved Gerald but knew they couldn’t have a real relationship between such a class gap, she always knew he was of a higher class than her. She is so used to getting the bad luck she is prepared for it this time and just accepts it. She had been very sensible and “saved a little money during the summer – she’d lived very economically on what I’d allowed her.” This shows she’d grown to think ahead and expect the worst, she was very cautious. The inspector then tells how afterwards she’d gone away, “to some seaside place”, “She had to go away and be quiet and remember “just to make it last longer”. She felt there’d never be anything as good again for her.” This shows Eva, now Daisy, was truly heartbroken and depressed, she thought things couldn’t be that good again. She had to have time to remember what had happened because it was so good for her and she felt so sad it couldn’t happen again.
Next to be questioned is Mrs Birling but she doesn’t take it too well and pretends to have never known the girl. The Inspector is quite rude to her to try and get the truth, “You’re not telling the truth”, and “Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges.” So she tells them how she is a member of “the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization”, and that “it’s an organization to which women in distress can appeal for help in various forms.” And she admits that she has seen Eva Smith, “Mrs Birling spoke and saw her only two weeks ago”, when “she appealed to your organization for help.” This time, “she called herself Mrs Birling”, which Mrs Birling thought, “was simply a piece of gross impertinence” and was “one of the things that prejudiced me against her case.” Mrs Birling was very harsh to Eva and thought, “she had only herself to blame.” It was due to her “influence, as the most prominent member of the committee, that help was refused the girl.” Mrs Birling says she did this because, “I didn’t like her manner. She’d impertinently made use of our name.” First of all the girl lied, “the story she told first – about a husband who’d deserted her – was quite false.” She says that, “I wasn’t satisfied with this girls claim – she seemed to me not a good case – and so I used my influence to have it refused.” Mrs Birling shows no remorse about this claiming what she did was right even how things ended up for the girl. She will not tell them why the girl needed their help, the true reason, so the Inspector tells them, “It was because she was going to have a child that she went for assistance to your mother’s committee.” She had told the girl, “Go and look for the father of the child. It’s his responsibility.” The Inspector is really outraged Mrs Birling did this and isn’t even sorry, and he tells them so, “She came to you for help, at a time when no woman could have needed it more. And you not only refused it yourself but saw to it that the others refused too.” “She needed not only money but advice, sympathy, friendliness.” “And you slammed the door in her face.” But Mrs Birling still claims, “In the circumstances I think I was justified. The girl began by telling a pack of lies.” Mrs Birling thought that as “she knew who the father was” “it was her business to make him responsible”, “he must at least support her.” When Mrs Birling won’t say what the girl had replied to this because, “She was giving herself ridiculous airs. She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl of her position.” This selfish snobbery is too much for the inspector who sternly replies, “Her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab.” “I’m losing all patience with you people.” So she finally tells them, “She said that the father was only a youngster – silly and wild and drinking too much. There couldn’t be any question of marrying him – it would be wrong for them both. He had given her money but she didn’t want to take any more money from him.” She says she didn’t believe this, “As if a girl of that sort would ever refuse money!” Eva had said this was because he had told her something, “when he was drunk, that gave her the idea that it wasn’t his money.” Mrs Birling said she didn’t believe the girl because, “I didn’t see any reason to believe that one story should be any truer than the other.” The Inspector asks whether she feels guilty now but Mrs Birling says, “I’m sorry she should have come to such a horrible end. But I accept no blame for it at all.” She says that “the girl herself” is to blame but mostly, the young man who was the father of the child”, if her story was true “he didn’t belong to her class, and was some drunken young idler.” “he ought to be dealt with very severely.” This tells us that Eva had one last chance and really needed the charity’s help, but it was refused. She must have been desperate for money again which was probably how she ended up pregnant, now she really needed money to provide for a baby. We know she was decent and loyal because she lied to try and stop Eric getting into trouble, she hasn’t told anyone it was him. She is also very moral because she won’t accept the stolen money, even if Mrs Birling won’t believe it. She is also very sensible and mature to realise that Eric would be an unsuitable husband, he is too young and immature. But most of all we learn what a terrible mess she was in and how she was yet again mistreated because of her class by the Birling family, Mrs Birling perhaps is the guiltiest because she cannot see what she has done wrong and she was the last straw for Eva. She has also got Eric in a worse position because she has condemned the father not realising it is Eric. The Inspector plays on this knowing Eric is responsible this is an unusual thing to do for a police inspector; “No hushing up, eh? Make an example of the young man, eh? Public confession of responsibility – um?” This is very clever and leaves Mrs Birling in a very awkward position.
When Eric returns they have all sussed he was the father and he is ready to confess, the Inspector questions him and we learn how he knew Eva Smith. He met her “one night last November”, “In the Palace bar” “I was a bit squiffy”, then “I began talking to her, and stood her a few drinks. I was rather far gone by the time we had to go.” He says that she hadn’t gone there to solicit, “She wasn’t that sort really. But – well, I suppose she didn’t know what to do.” This shows Eva was really desperate and even though she didn’t fit in there she had little choice, she needed money. Then Eric says he went home with her that night, “I insisted it seems”, “she told me she didn’t want me to go in but that – well, I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty – and I threatened to make a row”, this sounds like rape. But Eric says he can’t really remember what happened he was that far gone, “And I don’t even remember that’s the hellish thing.” They met again later, “I couldn’t remember her name or where she lived. It was very vague. But I happened to see her again in the Palace bar.” “that time I wasn’t so bad”, “this time we talked a bit. She told me something about herself and I talked too.” They made love again although, “I wasn’t in love with her or anything – but I liked her – she was pretty and a good sport.” They kept meeting and, “she told me she thought she was going to have a baby.” “I was in a hell of a state about it.” But “She didn’t want me to marry her. Said I didn’t love her – and all that. In a way, she treated me – as if I were a kid.” This shows she was the sensible and mature, responsible one and didn’t want to drag Eric into it. Instead she tried to sort it out by appealing to Mrs Birling. Eric tried to help her by giving her money, “I insisted in giving her enough money to keep her going” , “about- fifty pounds all told.” He got this “from the office”, he stole it but “I intended to pay it back.” Eric says he didn’t tell his father because, “you’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble.” We learn that Eva still had morals because she wouldn’t accept the money when she found out it was stolen, “That was the worst of all. She wouldn’t have any more, and she didn’t want to see me again.” So we learn Eva was very lonely and talked even to Eric who was using her in a bad way. She was very desperate for money but just ended up worse off in the end due to another Birling. She was mature and sensible with how she dealt with the situation and was still moral enough to reject stolen money even though it could have saved her and her baby. She ended up in another awful situation, and then the last bit of help she could get was refused and this all led to her ending her life.
Before the inspector leaves he gives one last warning to the Birling family, trying to teach them a lesson about what they have done. He puts forward his very socialistic opinions about how we all have to look after each other, “One Eva Smith has gone – but there are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives, their hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives, and what we think and say and do.” By this he means that although one poor working class girl, Eva, is dead there are millions more normal working class people like her left in difficult situations. He is saying that although the Birling’s and other middle class capitalists think these people have nothing to do with them, they do, it is up to them whether these people do well or not.
We have to look after each other because it is up to us what happens to others, if capitalists ignore this then they end up making things awful for other people, like the Birling’s did for Eva Smith, their selfish actions led her to such a horrible end. He keeps saying how we are all connected and have to look after each other, “We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other”, these are his socialist views. He warns them what will happen if they do not learn this and carry on with their selfish rampant capitalism, “And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.” He is forewarning them that if men keep this behaviour up it will be very bad for everyone. He is predicting, although he seems to already know, that there will be a war and a revolution due to everyone’s lack of respect and socialism. He feels that if people carry on in this awful manner, as the Birling’s have done, then it will result in violence and war. But he thinks out of this there will be a revolution and people will finally realise the socialist way of thinking and start to look after each other, although this will come with the heavy price of war.
After he has left the Birling’s start to get suspicious about this very strange police inspector. He was very different from the norm and acted in a peculiar manner, they wonder, “was he really a police inspector?” Some of the reasons for their doubts were his odd behaviour, “So – rude – and assertive”, “Look at the way he talked to me. Telling me to shut up and so on.” He asked questions in a way that “made us confess.” Then Mr Birling says, “Probably a socialist or some sort of crank – he talked like one.” This makes Eric realise that “It’s queer – very queer” that the Inspector called just after Mr Birling had said, “that we weren’t to take any notice of these cranks who tell us that everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together.” “Yes – and then one of those cranks walked in – the inspector.” Other suspicious things about him were that he wasn’t bothered by social status, he expressed his opinions and what the Birling’s don’t notice is that his name, Goole, can also be spelt ghoul, meaning ghost. This suggests he isn’t real but is some kind of guilty conscience making them confess. But they realise for sure he wasn’t a real police inspector when Gerald returns who has asked a police inspector who “swore there wasn’t any Inspector Goole or anybody like him on the force here.” Gerald then questions, “how do you know it’s the same girl?,” by this he means that because they all saw different pictures and she had changed her name there is no evidence that it was the same girl. “We’ve no proof it was the same photograph, remember. He caught me out by suddenly announcing that this girl changed her name to Daisy Renton.” Also it doesn’t seem logical that one family all affected one girl and that one girl could be so unlucky. So they believe the Inspector knew a few facts about what each of them had done and had questioned them about these things never giving too much away, it was always them who revealed the main evidence in the end. He made it seem like it had happened to the same girl, but each time he only let one of them see the photograph and he said she had changed her name. This meant it could have easily been different girls, “There were probably four or five different girls.” This makes them wonder if any of it was real, “How do we know any girl killed herself today”, so Gerald rings the Infirmary and finds that, “No girl has died in there today.” This makes them very relieved like it doesn’t matter any more, they believe it was all just a “hoax” and a “joke”, they don’t feel guilty because a girl hasn’t died and although they still did the things they did, they think it is ok because it happened to different girls so no one has died. Eric and Sheila disagree with this and are still very guilty for what they’ve done; “Everything we said had happened really had happened. If it didn’t end tragically, then that’s lucky for us.” By this she means that they are still guilty and have just been lucky that the things they did didn’t happen to the same girl, which they could have done. The Inspector teaches the Birling’s a lesson by saying that they have all affected one girl; this is what makes them feel guilty. On there own these acts don’t seem so bad to them, but put together they could end the life of someone. By making there seem to be one Eva Smith it makes us feel really sorry for her, that she could be so unfortunate. On there own these acts seem bad enough but if one girl was to be so unfortunate it would be terrible. So Priestly uses this idea to make the reader wonder whether these little acts of selfishness are happening everywhere and we don’t hear about them too often because they rarely happen to the same people, which ends in such fatal consequences. He uses this idea to shock the reader that if these things which are probably happening so often were to happen to one person it would be tragic. This should teach that however little the act may seem it could build up to something far worse for that person.
So from this play we do not learn officially about the character Eva Smith, all we know for sure is that she started off at Mr Birling’s factory. We also now find out that a girl has died in the Infirmary just after the Birling’s have forgotten their guilt, the fact that a girl has indeed died completely destroys Mr and Mrs Birling’s arrogance. However the younger generation, Eric and Sheila, still felt guilty and had learnt from the inspector. They are who matter because they will grow up to be the ones with the new ideas so it is a good thing the younger generation seem to have taken on board these socialist views, unlike their parents. Whether the dead girl is Eva we do not know. What we do learn about Eva, whoever she is, are normal human characteristics which make us associate with her. She is a lively, middle class girl who could do so well for herself if she wasn’t so unlucky; she is just trying desperately to make a living. She seems very different to the other characters because she is from a completely different class, and she is the victim so we feel sorry for and they are the bullies. Whether or not she is more than one person it doesn’t matter because Eva stands for all poor, working class people who have been mistreated. She is more of a symbol then a character, which is another thing that makes her different to the other characters in the play. The purpose of her character is to make us feel really sorry for her; she shows what can happen when one person is unlucky enough to be mistreated by so many people. It is her and our sympathies for her that shock us that every little selfish thing we do can lead to such a horrible end. The fact she could be more than one person just makes us see that these things probably affect different people in small ways everywhere, but that doesn’t matter because we shouldn’t do them as they might happen to one person which could destroy them. This final idea shows that no matter how trivial we may think these little acts of capitalism are they could be fatal. Priestly is putting across the idea we must urgently become more socialist and we have to look out for each other. He is trying to appeal to every one of us to try and be more socialist to save all those poor people who end up worse off from our behaviour. The Inspector has already warned of war and a revolution, the audience know this has really happened and this play tells them why it happened, because of rampant capitalism by everyone. He is saying that everyone together with all their little acts of capitalism led to the war. This idea was meant to put people off capitalism, and put forward the new ideas of socialism.
