Inspector

• Role of Inspector Goole

  • Used to present the Birling family and Gerlad with the message of social responsibility
  • Variety of techniques and methods Priestley uses to present the message through this character
• Techniques used by Priestley

  1. Inversion of generic expectations

  2. Use of anadiplosis in sentence structure
• An Inspector Calls is a work of detective fiction, and Inspector Goole is the intelligent detective who will solve the case
• In a traditional detective story

  The focus is on narrowing down from a list of numerous suspects to just one
• In An Inspector Calls

  Inspector Goole shows that not one but all are responsible for the death of Eva Smith
• Priestley inverts the generic expectations of detective fiction to present the key message that 'We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other'
• Priestley wanted a social and political shift which took Britain forward to a society based on equality and community after the Second World War
• Anadiplosis


  A sentence structure where the second clause begins by repeating the last words of the previous clause
• Through anadiplosis


  The inspector initiates the idea of connections between different events and people
• Priestley deliberately portrays the Inspector as a mysterious character
• Priestley tells us very little about Inspector Goole, even his dialogue often reveals what he is not, rather than what he is
• Goole


  Sounds like the word 'ghoul', meaning ghost or spirit
• The inspector does seem to know too much about a girl who died two hours ago
• There is no definitive answer about whether the inspector is who he says he is
• The vague and ambiguous depictions of the character help us focus less on the character himself and more on the message he brings
• Priestley uses the character of Inspector Goole to speak directly to the audience about social responsibility, and it's not at all subtle
• Sewell Stoke: ''Then the bell rings and in comes Inspector Goole (Inspector Priestley, to be more exact)''
• The character of Inspector Goole seems to be the embodiment of JB Priestley himself - a mouthpiece used to deliver the key message
• Priestley's use of supernatural imagery in the inspector's final words

  Allusion to the Biblical description of hell as a 'blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'
• Priestley's message seems to be that people need to do good deeds to make their way into heaven, and those who don't, will end up in hell