The Inspector Flashcards
Context
The Inspector is dressed in a minimal “plain darkish suit” and seems to be an ordinary police Inspector. However, the supernatural nature of the Inspector becomes apparent as the play progresses, as the homophone of Goole (“ghoul”) suggests.
Priestley leaves the Inspector’s physical appearance as vague
and, to some extent, unimportant due to his message of social
responsibility being more important than his appearance. He
dictates in the stage directions that the Inspector “need not
be a big man, but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness”.
● The Inspector takes on the role of an omniscient (all-knowing), moral force for good.
● Priestley presents his character as a spiritual avenging angel.
● Socialist values and ideology are channelled through the Inspector.
● Priestley utilises the Inspector as a vehicle to catalyse change in perceptions of
responsibility. He encourages the younger generation to break away from the older, more traditional and individualistic generation.
Socialist views
Priestley demonstrates the Inspector’s conviction that everyone is equally important within society. The Inspector’s views are noticeably too progressive for the pre-suffrage 1912 society and are more aligned with those of the contemporary audience.
➔ Priestley encourages the audience to realise that a person’s class is irrelevant to their degree of responsibility as “public men … have responsibility as well as privilege”.
The Inspector sees Eva as an individual and refuses to refer to her as a “girl” in the same superficial fashion as the Birlings do. Instead, he persists in referring to her by her name, Eva Smith.
◆ The Birlings perceive Eva as insignificant – just a “girl”, due to her lower social status as a working-class citizen.
◆ To the Inspector, Eva is an individual, who has significance. This is evidenced by the Inspector’s acknowledgement of Eva’s “promising little life”.
The Inspector’s morality is due to his awareness of social responsibility and the impact of an individuals’ actions upon all of society. Fundamentally, because he rejects capitalism, he rejects immorality as Priestley presents the two as synonymous
Omniscience
The supernatural element to the character of the Inspector is evident through his apparent omniscience. The Inspector’s purpose is not to convict the Birlings of any crime. His purpose is much deeper and more significant; he attempts to force the Birlings to recognise the immorality of their actions and change their attitudes towards social responsibility. Through Priestley portraying the Inspector as completely moral, the audience is provided with an example of how to act themselves for the improvement of society.
Symbolism
Omniscient, yet not omnipotent [all-knowing yet not all-powerful]
Priestley’s message would be less effective on the audience if the Inspector forced the characters to change. Moreover, this would undermine the message of the play, as the audience needs to accept greater responsibility without an external force.
Priestley uses shocking imagery in an attempt to persuade the characters to change as he frequently refers to Eva’s death as “burnt her inside out”. Persuasion is the Inspector’s greatest form of power, as he relies on rhetorical devices, such as triplets, to evoke empathy: Eva was “friendless, penniless, desperate” and needed “advice, sympathy, friendliness”. The Inspector also attempts to appeal to the maternal side of Mrs Birling in an effort to persuade her: “you’ve had children”. This tactic is flawed as Mrs Birling is, in fact, not a caring mother. This reveals the truth behind Priestley’s opening stage directions, which describe Mrs Birling as “rather cold” .
Agent of God
Priestley incorporates many similarities between the Inspector and the perception of the Judeo-Christian God. Both the Inspector and God are Omniscient, this is revealed in a plethora (lots) of ways. The Inspector arrives immediately after Mr Birling dismisses socialism, saying a man should “mind his own business and look after himself and his own”.
The nature of the enquiry being moral, rather than criminal, elevates the Inspector to that of an agent of God. The Inspector sets about forcing confessions of vices (sins) from the characters, similar to the role of a priest, who accepts confessions of sins in the Catholic Church. This link is strengthened through the allusion to the Book of Genesis as “we are members of one body”, which is also used in Holy Communion. Therefore, through echoing the words of God, Priestley implies that the Inspector is speaking on God’s behalf.
Alternatively, this semantic field (words with a shared association) of morality and religion could simply be Priestley drawing upon existing Christian concepts of responsibility to increase the audience’s acceptance of Priestley’s message. Both Christian mass and the Inspector’s final speech ends with “go forth in peace”. This is, perhaps, Priestley sending the message to the audience that by following the Inspector’s socialist message, society can finally achieve peace.
Authority
The Inspector’s arrival marks a shift in authority from Mr Birling to the Inspector, which can be interpreted as the shift from capitalism to socialism. Mr Birling has, hitherto (until now), dominated the dialogue of the play. His dramatic monologue form of speech excludes the views of others, which is demonstrated by his dismissal of Eric’s protest “What about war?”, with “the Germans don’t want war”. This reflects how capitalism has dominated society throughout the 19th Century and early 20th Century.
Upon arrival, the Inspector challenges the unquestioned authority and dominance not only of Mr Birling, but of the capitalist narrative that has so far controlled the narrative and society. Therefore, his interruption marks a change in attitude as past views have to contend with attempts of reform. Priestley constructs this conflict to mirror the way in which war has acted as a catalyst for post-war society. Therefore, this forces the audience to reconsider how society should be formed if previous systems led to suffering.
Key quotes
5) Act One: Inspector “A nice little promising life there , I thought, and a nasty mess somebody’s made of it”
9) Act Two: Inspector – “Public men..have responsibilities as well as privileges”.
12) Act Three: Inspector – “Just used her for the end of a stupid drunken evening , as if she was an animal, a thing, not a person”
13)Act Three
Inspector: “There are millions and 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”
14) Act Three: Inspector - “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other”
15) Act Three: Inspector- “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.”
A02 analysis
“Burnt her inside out, of course”
Priestley uses shocking imagery in an attempt to persuade the characters to change as he frequently refers to Eva’s death as “burnt her inside out” .
If men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish”
Therefore, the threat of “fire blood and anguish” could be the Inspector warning both the characters and the audience of the religious consequences for neglecting their duty of social responsibility. The religious connotation of “fire” is hell and therefore the punishment for not following the message of both Christianity and socialism to ‘love thy neighbour’.
Yes, but you can’t. It’s too late. She’s dead.”
Here, Priestley uses short sentences and a terse triplet of expressions to convey an impactful message and express the need for radical change.
