The second character I will now comment on is Sheila who is a member of the younger generation. Again the inspector has a methodical approach and is able to receive all the information he requires and doesn’t have to speak a great deal in order to get what he wants. He only talks to one character at a time to stop confusion and so that he doesn’t leave himself in a difficult distressing position. He has an impression of “massiveness, solidity and purposefulness,” which shows us that he grows and remains solid while each of the characters crumble in distress. He is a catalyst, which gives him the advantage against Sheila and his other victims. He is there to bring about change and dissolve the affluent status quo.
His use of economical questioning gives him the aptitude to draw information from Sheila as they have a desired affect, which she isn’t very aware of at this point. The inspector asks his questions relatively fast and in this case of doing so he receives a rather fast answer. But they fail to recognise, they gave him what he wanted. “A nice little promising life there, I thought, and a nasty mess somebody’s made of it.” There is a sense of dryness in the way the inspector speaks and yet he cleverly points out the obvious. He allows Sheila to think, allows here to realise what she has done and since she is a member of the younger generation she accepts her responsibility. “Yes, but it didn’t seem to be anything very terrible at the time. Don’t you understand? And if I could help her now, I would.”
Through Sheila Priestley separates the difference between the older and younger generation. “But these girls aren’t cheap labour, there’re people.” Priestley includes this quote to show that she realises that she has responsibilities for others and how wealth and power has an impact upon her community. However the older generation fail to accept this responsibility. “It isn’t going to do us much good. The press might easily take it up.” This is an example of the older generation. They just cared about appearances and, reputations and fall short to see the impact they have on others and in this case there wasn’t one mention of Eva Smiths case, which backs up the argument even more. Whereas the younger ones accept what they’ve done.
Through Sheila Priestley allows us to see the class system of the time. Priestley helps us understand that the younger generation are the future and through this play he helped people seize opportunity and to build a better, more caring society. It is important to focus our attention on the inspector’s final speech as it has a huge effective impact upon the structures and effectiveness of the play. The inspector is an allegory as he has a fixed symbolic meaning. He acts as a socialist, believes that wealth should not only belong to one person but also be spread all around and share responsibility for each other. “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body.”
After this speech it takes you back to when Mr Birling said, “You’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive.” In contrast the inspector believes we all have collective responsibility and as members of a community, we must live together or we will face “fire, blood and anguish.” From this he clearly means war. However Mr Birling acts as a capitalist, believes that wealth should only be for ones who earned it and be spread through only groups worthy of it. Inspector Goole tries to demonstrate how people are responsible for how they affect the lives of others. He sees the world as districts, were everyone should be helping each other (socialism). The fact of the timing of his entry was very significant because Birling was talking about how every man should look after himself. So now the inspector articulates how everyone has a responsibility.
The inspector is talking about a collective responsibility where everyone in society is linked in the same way that the characters are linked to Eva Smith. Everyone is apart of “one body.” The inspector sees society as more important that individual interests. The views he is propounding are like those of Priestley who was a socialist. The inspector’s final speech has a different impact upon each generation. The old are set in their ways.
They are utterly confidant that they are right and that they see the young as foolish. They have never been forced to examine their consciences before and are unable to do it now – as the old saying goes, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” However the young are open to new ideas. This is first seen early in act one when both Eric and Sheila express sympathy for the strikers, an idea that terrifies Birling, who can only think of production, costs and ignores the human side of the issue. “Just because the miners came out on strike, there’s a lot of wild talk about possible labour trouble in the near future. Don’t worry. We’ve past the worst of it.” Also the young examine their conscience and see the human side of Eva’s story and are troubled by their part in it.
Soon after the inspector’s departure the family discuss what has happened and their suspicions about him. As they find out that the inspector isn’t really what he said to be, the older generation are relieved and already building another fa�ade, as the stage direction says “Has his drink now, and raises his glass.” In contrast the younger generation still accept the part they were involved in. “That’s what’s important-and not whether a man is a police inspector or not.” This quote identifies that the inspector has had a huge impact upon Sheila and has been successful in her case as being her conscience and made her face up to her responsibility. But compared to the older ones they take his true identity nothing but a joke and put the young girl’s death behind them and build another.
We can be optimistic that the young-those who will shape the future society are able to take on board the inspector’s message. “We’ve all been had.” Ultimately we find out the inspectors true identity nearing the end of the play and it makes us wonder, who is the inspector? Well first of all Priestley was concerned with social inequality. Priestley was so concerned that he did all he could to set up a political party called “The common wealth party.”
He wanted public ownership of land, greater democracy and new morality. His party soon merged with the labour party and soon developed the wealth fair state. Priestley may have also thinking partly about the World War they had just lived through – the result of government’s blindly pursuing “national interest” at all costs. Well who was the inspector? I believe the he represents Priestley’s strong moral view. The moral dimension of allowing people like the Birlings to see that they can find forgiveness through future good. Behaviour makes Goole different from the normal policeman. He is more concerned with morality than legality.
Inspector Goole is what puts the structure of this play together. Not only does he teach the characters on stage a lesson but also kept the audience engraced and full of tension and suspense throughout, from beginning to end. As a dramatist he has the skill to provoke thought and debate throughout the world. Priestley made the audience understand that the ruling classes saw no need to change the status quo but afterwards there was a great desire for social change. Since Priestley’s creation of the inspector, times and situations have changed massively since 1945.
