The Inspector

The Inspector arrives just as Mr Birling says a man should look after himself. The stage directions say he ‘creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’ (Act 1). He ‘need not be a big man’ (Act 1): his power comes from his manner, not his size.

Priestley also changes the lighting. It is ‘pink and intimate’ before he arrives, then ‘brighter and harder’ (Act 1). The warm, rosy glow of the family's comfortable life is replaced by a harsh light that shows everything.

The Inspector is calm, firm and always in control. He ‘has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually speaking’ (Act 1).

• He shows the photograph to one person at a time, so nobody can compare what they saw.
• He deals with one person and one story at a time, and won't be hurried or put off.
• He isn't impressed by status: ‘Public men, Mr Birling, have responsibilities as well as privileges’ (Act 2).
• He uses shocking details of Eva's suffering to make the family face what happened.

He interrupts, takes charge and refuses to be bullied, and the family cannot stop him.

Before he leaves, the Inspector speaks to the whole family, and through them to the audience. He reminds them that ‘We are members of one body’ (Act 3), and spells out the play's message of social responsibility: ‘We are responsible for each other’ (Act 3).

He warns that if people will not learn this lesson, they will be taught it ‘in fire and blood and anguish’ (Act 3).

For a 1945 audience, this warning had come true: two world wars had followed 1912. The speech sounds like a sermon, with short, forceful sentences and the repeated ‘we’, which includes the audience too.

His name, Goole, sounds like ghoul, a ghost or spirit. He seems to know everything before he is told, and he vanishes once his work is done. There is no Inspector Goole in the police.

Priestley never explains him, so there are several readings:

• a ghost or supernatural visitor;
• the family's conscience, making them face what they did;
• a mouthpiece for Priestley's own socialist views.

Which is true matters less than how each character responds once they think he was a fake.