The Function of the Inspector in J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

The Function of the Inspector in J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

J.B Priestly was a British journalist, novelist, playwright and

essayist. He was born in 1894 in Bradford and died in 1984. The play

"An Inspector Calls" is about a family who, each member without

knowing, have participated in a young girl's suicide. Inspector Goole

makes every member of the family realise that they have played a part

in killing the girl.

At the beginning of the play the Birlings and Gerald Croft are having

an engagement celebration dinner in the evening. The Inspector calls

round half way through the dinner to inform them of the suicide and

ask them a few questions.

The audience expects quite an exciting story from the play. The title

doesn't explain much about the story, which puts a lot of mystery in

the play. This is because the audience does not know what the story is

about and therefore can use their imaginations and create expectations

from it. The genre is murder mystery and detective so the audience

expects it to be quite interesting and mysterious as most murder

mystery stories have a twist in the plot and are difficult to

understand until the end where all will be revealed. The stage

directions at the start suggest that there is quite a joyful mood on

the stage but in the next scene it is all about to change:

"The lighting should be pink and intimate until the Inspector

arrives."

The Inspector's character is that of an intelligent and dominant man.

He was a Socialist, but always waited till the right moment to express

his emotions and views. He gets agitated if he comes across anyone

that refuses to listen to what he has to...

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...e performance I have seen, the

Inspector is shown as a very caring person, but is still very serious

about his views. It took the effect to the audience that he was always

right about what he thought and made the audience feel the same way.

I think that overall, the function of the Inspector was to be a

Socialist speaker and try to get the family to see his views and then

also the whole of the audience. He used Eva Smith as an example to

show the advantages of Socialism and the disadvantages of Capitalism.

Although this is bias, because it only shows the good points of

Socialism, this was Priestly's goal and he has used the Inspector very

well to reach it.

I think that the Inspector was portrayed by Priestly as a role model

to the audience, which was a very effective way of getting them to see

all of his views.