Inspector

• Inspector takes charge

  • arrives unexpectedly
  • doesn't have anything in common with the Birlings
  • Inspector leaves after giving speech on responsibility - when Gerald finds out he's a fake - the older characters forget it
  • described as authorities and imposing - not a big man but presence fills the room
• Goole drives the play forward by asking questions


  start of the summary of events with 'suicide of course'

  asks bluntly, no emotion - 'And you decided to keep her as your mistress?' - to Gerald
• inspector calls = detective fiction -- doesn't follow normal story (detective narrows down suspects to one). Priestly uses Inspector to show not one but all are responsible for Eva's death - 'each of you helped kill her' - Priestly inverts normal inspector novels to show how we are all members of one body, we all have responsibility for each other - He wanted social/political change
• He's used to show Birling and Gerald's social responsibility
• Anadiplosis


  second clause of the sentence begins by repeating the clause of the previous clause
• uses anadiplosis to show links between different people and events - actions are interconnected (they all have a part in Eva's death)


  'Because what happened to then may have determined what happened to her afterwards and what happened to her afterwards may have driven her to suicide'
• Mysterious character


  Priestly is very detailed in the stage directions in the opening of the play - contrast the description of the Inspector - there's barely anything - even his dialogue doesn't show us much - it shows what he isn't not what he is -- 'I don't play golf' and 'i never take offence' - vagueness draws attention of a sense of ambiguity and mystery
• vagueness helps us focus less on the character and more on the message he is trying to portray
• Goole - sounds like ghoul - ghost/spirit; not seen but there, not always believed in (fake), haunts people - such as the Birlings and Gerald, he knows a lot about a girl who has just died an hour ago, by only reading a letter and 'some sort of diary' - supernatural being?
• most dialogue = questions - interrogates -- number of times when Goole gives long dialogue portraying Priestley's views on social responsibilities - embodies him
• final words


  'Fire and blood and anguish'

  Christian view's of hell - Good deeds = heaven, bad deeds = hell

  reminds audience if they are like Birlings, they will go to hell as they have done bad deeds that led to a girls death