Some characters are not affected as much as Sheila however and try to obstruct him or mislead him; Mrs Birling tries to build “a kind of wall between us and the girl” as Sheila puts it. When the Inspector is revealed to be a fake, Mr and Mrs Birling and Gerald think that it is all a joke and even laugh about it and ridicule them, “The famous younger generation who know it all. And they can’t even take a joke.” The way the Inspector affects the other characters therefore creates a divide between Mr and Mrs Birling and Sheila and Eric (Gerald is somewhere in the middle) which also reveals important middle class values of the time . Mr and Mrs Birling represent the older, arrogant and more conservative generation of Mr and Mrs Birling and the youth who though ignorant at first from their parents will eventually discover the faults of the world that they live; wanting change. This divide also makes the audience feel more hostility and annoyance to the older Birlings while more sympathy to Sheila and Eric who are remorseful and want to change. He uses Eva Smith as a Catalyst for this; he makes the audience feel sympathy and empathy for her by exaggerating the older Birlings actions, making them seem much worse. “It’s better to ask for the earth than to take it.” He makes Eva’s actions against Mr Birling appear tiny in comparison to Mr Birling’s consequences. It makes him look harsh and uncaring; creating the hostility from the audience which is amplified by him not caring and being unremorseful about his actions. By turning the audience against the Birlings (especially Mr and Mrs Birling), Priestley can get his message of socialism and responsibility to the audience and make them feel that they should change and if they didn’t feel this then they would be contradicting their own feelings of hatred and hostility toward Mr and Mrs Birling. In my opinion this is an extremely effective way in making the audience listen.
In order to keep the attention of the audience long enough to be affected by Priestley’s message and reach the climax of the play, Priestley has gifted the Inspector with enormous power in controlling the plot. He controls the pace and heartbeat of the play and unravels the plot slowly in a “whodunit” style; maintaining the tension until the final climax with his technique of “one line of inquiry at a time.” I think that this is one of the Inspectors essential support roles that maintain the aim of Priestley.
He even shows enormous power in his roles within the storyline and to ensure his control over the Birlings and the flow of the plot. He has great amounts of authority and is able to “massively take charge” especially during the family quarrels and attempts at obstructing the Inspector. He dominates the Birlings though he remains calm for most of the situation described as speaking “coolly,” “gravely” and “severely” and “with calm authority”; in emotional control; “Imperturbable”. These stage directions reiterate his power over the Birlings as he does not have to go to great extents to control them with anger.
He is also very manipulative and is able to trap the Birlings in their own blame by using their desire to elude blame against them. Mrs He manipulates Mrs Birling by allowing and encouraging her to condemn and put blame on the father with rhetoric, “No hushing up, eh?” and “public confession of responsibility – um?”. The Inspector replies “certainly I consider it your duty” before unveiling Eric as the baby’s father. By being related to the father she is ridiculing and condemning herself and her own family and has trapped her self in her own blame and trigger emotion from her; guilt and remorse for being partly responsible for the death of her own grandchild. This manipulation helps him with his roles in the play to create feelings of remorse and guilt in the Birlings and convey Priestley’s message. He not only uses this with Mrs Birling but with all of the characters and I think that this is probably his main weapon against the Birlings.
Within this manipulation he uses certain language tools of rhetoric such as with the rhetorical questions used against Mrs Birling, to add to his effectiveness and adds a lasting impact on the audience; He often uses emotive verbs and exaggeration as the bulk of this impact. His rhetoric is most effectively used in the final speech were he gives this final blow to the Birlings, leaving them to think about their actions. “They will be taught in fire and blood and anguish” shows a variety of these devices. The emotive verbs such as “anguish” add forcefulness to his speech and triggers emotion in the other characters and audience. He uses repetition of the word “and” and rule of three to add potency to what he is saying. With these devices he can forcefully put across his message to the audience. He can easily prompt emotion in the audience like this and invoke them to change their ways. I believe that it is the use of these rhetorical techniques such as repetition (e.g. “remember what you did” ) and emotive verbs and rule of three(e.g. “their fears, their sufferings and chance of happiness”) that allows him to be so successful in the final speech of the Inspector in conveying Priestley’s messages to the Birlings and the audience and thus completing his role as Inspector.
He is a god like figure (possibly a supernatural being in his omniscience and omnipotence) who can easily control the plot and characters within it, representing Priestley, socialism and ripping apart the Birlings, revealing their arrogance, idiocy, selfishness and ignorance of everything around them. He makes them show their true colours who have no selfless values living surrounded by money and power, thus becoming arrogant and conservative; wanting to keep things the same and do anything to keep this just as they denied everything that happened during the end of the play. The Inspector patronizes them and is right to as they accept no responsibility for everything and rely on other people such as the working class “Smiths” such as Eva and even Edna to cater for their needs and support them along with money; even to get them out of dilemma “ I’d give thousands – yes – thousands”, despite being tread on and abused by the upper and middle class “well its my duty to keep labour costs down” who look at life as being for the individual rather than the many; Mr Birling says “they could go and work somewhere else” about his workers though he doesn’t consider that there were not many jobs out there; he only cares for himself , even Sheila begins to learn to hate the values of commerce and business, “But these girls aren’t cheap labour – they’re people.”; Only the youth begin to understand. It is these disgusting habits and values that Priestley would like to change and uses the Inspector to make the audience realise the consequences of selfish actions that reflect people of a higher affluence and influence; well off with money which starts to segregate them from the rest of society; they will no longer care for society but themselves. Priestley wants us to realise that we must be responsible for each other and live together as “members of one body”. To reveal this he uses rhetoric devices such as rule of three, repetition and emotive verbs aswell as techniques such as manipulation both of the plot, characters and the emotions of the audience. What Priestley was trying to convey to us (responsibility and socialism) was serious to him and even teaches that if we do not learn then we will be taught in “fire and blood and anguish”; a hint at the coming events in World War one and two, taking advantage of dramatic irony; the world was not as the Birlings thought in the beginning as so many of their predictions were wrong about prosperity. It went in the opposite direction toward chaos and so could we be in a false sense of security also? I think that the Inspectors central roles of passing on the message of responsibility by control of the plot and characters with manipulation and language was very effective especially when looking more closely at it as more than just a story, as it affected me somewhat and so how many others could It also affect or already have imprinted the message of responsibility in society on? The reoccurring phone call from the infirmary may also teach us a lesson; if this irresponsibility keeps going on then maybe the chaos and trauma caused from it may keep reoccurring in a vicious cycle beginning with another “death of Eva Smith”.