Priestley's Use of the Inspector as a Dramatic Device in An Inspector Calls

Priestley's Use of the Inspector as a Dramatic Device in An Inspector Calls

Priestley uses the inspector as a dramatic device to open up the lives

of the Birling family, after the horrible suicide involves a young

lady each family in turn have met and caused misery to, and create

drama whilst using a wall- building method to break into the

characters individually. The Inspector adds mystery to the play as to

where he has come from and to what purpose he is there for. The

inspector adapts his technique to the individual he is interrogating

and links each members stories in an un-ravelling effect. The play was

written 1945 set back in time to1912 so that the audience have the

advantage of knowing what was to happen in the ‘future’.

The inspector has many roles within the play to add drama and

encapsulate the audience, one of which is to insert more mystery to

the play and leave the Birlings reviewing themselves as well as the

so-called inspector who has just appeared on their doorstep. Edna

invites the inspector into the dining room where the Birling family

are celebrating the engagement of Sheila and Gerald. Throughout the

play there are doubts over where the inspector has come from and who

exactly he is. At the end of the play after which the inspector has

left, Gerald comes back form a walk where he had found out that the

inspector in fact hadn’t been part of the local department. This

leaves the family confused and trying to piece together the inspector

and who he is. The last line of the play Birling reads ‘That was the

police. A girl has just died- on her way to the infirmary- after

swallowing some disinfectant. And a police ins...

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... exposes the weaknesses in personality and drains them

morally of any dignity they believed they had. As a narrator the

inspector talks us through the story of Eva Smith slowly unravelling

clues and discovering suspects, just like any other detective story.

Apart from the fact that to this date no one knows who the inspector

was/is and what purpose he had to be at the Birlings house that night.

It could have been a warning but only Priestleys knows the thinking

behind the Inspector, that leaves one thing still left a mystery,

that’s the inspector. So, overall I believe Prietleys vision of the

Inspector and using him as a dramatic device, has left so many gaps to

be filled in by the audience and characters themselves, this play, as

whole would not have worked had the Inspector not been used so well as

a dramatic device.