The first thing I notice about Inspector Goole is his name and the fact it sounds just the same as ‘Ghoul’. This suggests at the beginning of the play that he is going to be a mysterious character. The first extremely mysterious action he takes in the play, is the fact that he claims to an police inspector investigating a suicide. Surely a normal policeman wouldn’t have the time to investigate something where there is no actual crime. His name also has some significance in anagrams.
Letters from his name can form the word LEGO, which I think could represent him breaking the family down to pieces and he bombards them with his inquiries. One rather far-fetched Conclusion is that that Inspector Goole is the son of Eva Smith who has come back from the future to seek justice on those who drove her to suicide. He might display this in the way that he seems to know an awful lot about her and her personal life. He would probably inherit her belongings after her death including her Journal this theory could explain the way he constantly mentioned her personal details and the child she was carrying.
If this was the case I think there would have been a greater dramatic impact as he met his supposed father in the play just to make the audience think a little. In a way I think that the Inspector is a representative of J. B. Priestly. He acts as a kind of narrator to put forward morals of the play. The Author wants the reader to think about the responsibility of people even if they are not guilty in a legal sense just as the Inspector encourages the family to take moral responsibility.
Priestly wants to make clear people’s dependence on ‘more important’ people with more influence and through the inspector he reveals Gerald’s affair along side the arrogance of rich people towards lower classes. This is also shown in Mrs Birling’s denying of financial help to Eva when she was pregnant and the way Sheila had Eva discharged from the fashion shop. The Author really points out the lack of moral judgement in the family.
I think the entire play is based upon the Inspector being J.B. Priestly’s method of putting his point forward. I also think that the Inspector is a God-like figure in the play getting the family to realise that they have done wrong and to make them see that they should care for others no matter if they are below you Socio-economically. He displays this by being all-knowing and not flaling for anything the family might lye to him about. He knows that they are involved in some way and he knows how to make them see sense.
