Analyzing Inspector Goole's Role and Techniques in An Inspector Calls

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welcome back to click revision now that we've investigated each of the berlings in turn we're going to turn our

attention to inspector [Music] ghoul we're going to look at how he's

described his personal politics and his feelings towards each of the berlings we'll also examine his

interview techniques and how he manipulates each of the characters to get what he wants from them

[Music] but first how should we go about looking at the inspector as a character is he a

man is he a ghost or God or the devil or is he something else entirely well we'll look at this in more detail in a later

video but for now try to think about the inspector as being all of those things try not to get twoo fixed on one

solution because there isn't one single solution in fact the more possible meanings you can take away from the play

the more likely you are to be able to show understanding in your exam ultimately it doesn't matter who or what

you believe the inspector is as long as you recognize that he is a symbolic figure and a way for JB Priestley to put

forward his views of the world and try to promote Community spirit and socialism so let's start by having a

look at how JB Priestley describes him in the stage directions it says that the inspector creates at

once an impression of massiveness solidity and purposefulness so he has to be a physically imposing presence on the

stage he needs to be someone who looks like he can command a room in which he isn't welcome because that's exactly

what the inspector does throughout the play he's in his 50s making him about the same age as Mr Burling and he's

wearing a plain darkish suit he's dressed plainly so that people will expect him to be ordinary when in truth

he is anything but and his suit is dark because represents the dark side of the upstanding respected Berling family he's

like a dark cloud floating from Berling to Berling destroying their secure privileged world he speaks carefully

weightly so you know he's serious and has something important to say and this also shows he's calm and

intelligent and finally he has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses before actually

speaking so he's an intimidating person to have a conversation with the first thing to note about the

inspector is that he is incredibly controlled in his behavior even when he raises his voice he is measured and as

he tells Mrs Burling he never takes offense he's also clearly very determined and will not easily be put

off his investigation upon entering the Burling house the inspector's polite and he

limits himself to very short comments until he's been invited in and offered a seat he gives nothing away until Mr

Burling begins to show impatience and then he gives them all the horrible detail TS of Eva Smith's death all at

once clearly ghoul's intention here is to disarm the three men in the room by Shocking them and though Burling isn't

moved by the girl's death very much it stops him being impatient for long enough for the inspector to start his

questions now as we've established inspector ghoul chooses the order in which he will interview the characters

deliberately and if he's to achieve this then he has to always be in control he claims that he's separating

each character out because it's the way I like to work one person and one line of inquiry at a time otherwise there's a

muddle and Burling seems to respect this calling it sensible however the inspector has deeper motives than this

by keeping the characters separate he is controlling the flow of information and ensuring he can get everybody's story

from them he limits who sees the photograph of Eva Smith possibly because he shows each person a different photo

and he dictates who should stay and leave at any given time and sometimes leaves the room himself in order to give

the Burling a false sense of security he also asks direct questions which means he generally gets the answer

he's looking for and can lead each conversation in the direction he chooses he basically has a divide and

conquer methodology and never puts himself in a position where the other characters can gang up upon him so

inspector ghoul interviews Mr Berling first which makes sense because he's the head of the household and without

getting through him the inspector probably won't get to speak to anyone the inspector clearly doesn't

like Mr Burling very much and is unthreatened by burling's attempts to intimidate him with his status so we can

assume he isn't a very big fan of the upper classes in general he clearly disagrees with burling's philosophy of

taking care of yourself at the expense of everyone else and isn't afraid for Burling to know

it the inspector's comment here is really important because it sums up one of the key messages of the play by

saying it's better to ask for the Earth than to take it ghoul is batting burling's ideas of selfism and taking

care of yourself right back at him and arguing that Berling should be helping those less fortunate than him rather

than punishing them for it the same can be said about this exchange here Burling is angrily

complaining to the inspector about his nice family celebration being turned into a nasty mess and the inspector

instantly flips the conversation back to being about Eva Smith and the nasty mess her suicide made of her the fact the

inspector repeats burling's own words back at him creates a strong contrast and forces the audience audience to

question burling's priorities in fact throughout the evening the inspector continually brings the conversation back

to the dead girl and how impoverished her life was he shows constant empathy for the conditions in which Eva Smith

lived and will not let the berlings forget that people have a moral responsibility to one another the

inspector definitely isn't afraid of offending Mr Burling who calls the inspector's questions uncalled for and

officious and Berling seems to get more angry with the inspector as the evening goes on and the inspector impli Ates his

family more and more so after he's finished with Burling inspector ghoul interviews Sheila and

this is a good example of how the inspector controls the flow of information for his own gain at first

the inspector shocked Sheila with the details of the suicide but then he sits back a bit and answers some of the

questions that she has for him he's particularly harsh here forcing Sheila to really picture the agony of Eva

Smith's death and the horrible state it left her body in then he shows she the picture of Eva Smith which causes her to

break down and run out of the room why does he do this well he already knows that Sheila will be horrified at the

thought of contributing to the girl's death so when she returns she already feels guilty enough to tell him

everything this is another one of the inspector's tricks he doesn't so much as interrogate the others he simply finds a

way to get people to speak and then just listens to them as Sheila says later he's giving us the Rope so that we'll

hang ourselves he simply has to to wind the characters up enough for them to start talking and then just leaves them

to it Sheila lays herself bare for him because she feels guilty about the death of Eva Smith because the inspector has

pushed the right buttons to get the reaction he wants as she tells Gerald later somehow he makes you talk

nonetheless despite his manipulations inspector ghoul clearly has more respect for Sheila than he does for Mr Berling

because he shows her some degree of compassion firstly he says Sheila is not entirely to blame and then later when

Gerald tries to persuade the inspector to send Sheila out of the room he supports her explaining why she feels

compelled to stay she feels responsible and if she leaves now and doesn't hear anymore then

she'll feel she's entirely to blame she'll be alone with her responsibility the rest of tonight all tomorrow all the

next night this kindness draws Sheila to him she's fascinated by him at this point and is definitely part of the

reason she's so quick to start helping him break down the barriers put up by Gerald and Mrs Berling as the inspector

says when Mrs Burling tells him he's made an impression on Sheila we often do on the young ones they're more

impressionable Gerald is interviewed next but the inspector needs to set up the situation to his liking first so he

mentions the name Daisy Renton we know the inspector already knows Gerald is implicated in Eva Smith's death because

he asks him to stay when he first arrives so we can assume that he also knows how Gerald and Daisy Ron knew each

other from reading the dead girl's Di by dropping Daisy renton's name he catches Gerald off guard and Gerald

makes it obvious that he knows the girl to everyone and most importantly to Sheila look at the stage Direction here

Sheila merely nods while she's taking in all the information that's being given to her at this point the inspector makes

an excuse and slips out of the room leaving Sheila to interrogate her fiance for him this is yet another of the

inspector's cunning tricks he is great at turning the characters against each other by leaving the room he forces

Gerald to admit his infidelity to Sheila which in turn makes it much easier for him to tell his full story when the

inspector re-enters basically Gerald only comes clean to the inspector because it's

clear that his secret has already been discovered and he has nothing else to lose by continuing the LIE the inspector

also goes out of his way to make Gerald feel guilty for his behavior and his treatment of Eva Smith compare the snide

nature of this exchange to the generally civil and supportive way he's just handled she

and it becomes clear that the inspector doesn't just ask each person the right questions or push the right buttons to

get them speaking he actually addresses each character in a completely different way to get under their skin for example

during Gerald's questioning the inspector goes out of his way to give Gerald a lot more information about

Daisy Renton than he does the other characters there is little reason for ghoul to pass this information over

unless it is to make Gerald feel worse on a personal level so the inspector is measured but that doesn't mean he isn't

above being br brutal to get what he wants later on he appears to act even more harshly towards Mrs Burling who he

clearly doesn't like in the slightest here Sheila is trying to warn her mother of the inspector's tactics

and when the inspector tells Mrs Burling yes and she'd be right he's basically saying to her I am going to break you

Mrs Berling spends her life hiding behind a wall of her own of course one of propriety and

self-righteousness and the inspector knowing this is the same barrier that caused people like the berlings to

behave so badly towards the lower classes is determined to knock the wind out of her

sales let's have a look at this exchange here Mrs Burling is desperately trying to pretend she doesn't recognize the

girl in the photo and the inspector is clearly out of patience with her he tells her she is deliberately choosing

not to understand and outright accuses her of lying to him which is obviously going to offend someone like Mrs Burling

who thinks the rules of society apply to everyone but herself the same is true of this exchange Mrs

Burling is going out of her way to avoid answering the inspector's direct questions and the inspector is

continually batting each slippery sentence she utters back at her why is he doing this well at this point in the

play the inspector needs Mrs Berling as incensed offended and hay as possible so that when he tries to pass some measure

of blame for Eva Smith's death onto Mrs Berling she will try and wriggle out of it by blaming the girl and the father of

her unborn child he knows she's too arrogant and pompous to accept any responsibility and that she's incapable

of showing empathy for anyone less fortunate than herself and this is just how he gets her to incriminate

Eric so poor Eric by the time he arrives back at the house his sister has revealed he's a drunk and his mother has

unwittingly blamed him for everything so how does the inspector get him talking well quite simply he shows the tiniest

bit of support for Eric against his family of betrayers in short the inspector says yes you can have a drink

when Eric's father says no at this point the inspector knows that Eric is going to be racked with grief over the death

of his ex-girlfriend an unborn child so he only has to show Eric the smallest kindness to get him to open up indeed

the inspector continues to defend Eric from the rest of the family throughout his confession however considering that

ghoul tells Eric he used Eva Smith as if she was an animal a thing and not a person we can assume that he isn't

actually as sympathetic towards Eric as he is towards Sheila and that he offers Eric support solely to get a confession

out of him of course all these methods of interrogation raise a good question about the inspector and points to one of

the big Mysteries of the play that is how much does the inspector already know when he arrives at the house Sheila is

of the opinion that ghoul already has all the details he needs While others believe he simply makes a few smart

guesses based on some smaller details this last quote is from Burling and comes after the inspector has left the

house but it certainly shows how the Burling family realized they have played right into the inspector's hands it's

extremely unlikely you'd be asked to answer an exam question on what the inspector already knows when entering

the house simply because there's no way we can say for sure but it's certainly an interesting thing to consider we know

he had some background on Eva Smith from her diary including her previous jobs and some details about the people she

interacted with this has also given him some information that fills in the blanks between each of the burling's

encounters with her he also knew she was pregnant having just been to the morg and seen her body first hand but beyond

this it's unclear how much of the information given to him by the family is new to him or if he is even telling

the truth on the few occasions when he claims to have not known something such as when Sheila admits to having Eva

Smith sacked from Milwood however it is also entirely possible that the inspector knows far

less than he is letting on as far-fetched as Gerald theory on ghoul's visit is but a man comes here pretending

to be a police officer that it's a hoax of some kind it could be completely correct the inspector could be

pretending he might just be working on bits of information he's picked up here and there he could just be bluffing his

way through the evening offending each of the burling's high class sensibilities enough to get them outside

each of their comfort zones if you want to push this Theory even further you could even argue that

he's lying about Eva Smith keeping a diary ultimately though it doesn't really matter how much the inspector

knows when he arrives and your opinion on this subject is bound to change depending on whether you believe the

inspector is a normal man or something else entir L what's important is that whatever he knows he gets exactly what

he wants from the berlings and when he leaves he knows everything whether they have accepted their guilt or not the

Burling family know that between them they've sent two people to their deaths they're changed for their experience and

it's safe to say the unimpeachable Berling family unit has been broken in a way that can never be fixed by hiding

behind their veneer of respectability so that's all for now we'll be covering more on inspector gou

in the video that focuses on meaning structure and ambiguity later in the season our next video will focus on the

victim of the story Eva Smith but we'd recommend you attempt to write a few sentences in answer to each of these

questions before you move on question one how would you describe the inspector choose five words or

phrases that you feel sum up ghoul's character and write a sentence or two explaining why you feel each one is

appropriate question two how does the inspector behave differently towards each of the

characters explain some of his interrogation techniques question three does the

inspector behave in a professional way towards the Burling throughout the evening try to back up your opinions

with evidence from the text