• Play Title: An Inspector Calls
• Author: J. B. Priestley
• First performed:  1945
• Page count: 68

Summary

J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls is a moralistic play about the suicide of a young woman. It is set in the English North Midlands in a fictitious city called Brumley. This is home to an industrialist family of the name Birling. One evening, quite unexpectedly, a police inspector calls to the Birling household. This visitor spoils the engagement party of Sheila Birling and Gerald Croft. The household patriarch, Arthur Birling, had gathered his soon-to-be enlarged family for a celebration. Now everything has turned topsy turvy. Inspector Goole proceeds to brusquely question the family members one by one whereby he convincingly implicates each of them in the young woman’s death. Feelings of guilt, shame and resentment are stirred up, and family secrets are suddenly exposed. Only after the inspector has left does the tragic tale he told, along with his identity as a police officer, come into serious question. One is immediately forced to re-interpret the entire story.

Priestley’s play is a firm favourite, mainly due to the eerie twist at the end. Neither a true detective story nor a proper tragedy, it is best described as a political morality play. The work is set in 1912, and it foreshadows the end of the laissez-faire economic policy of the UK government. The welfare state was finally established in Great Britain in 1948. Eva Smith, Priestley’s key character, suffered a dire end due to the absence of any social safety nets. Rich people like the Birlings were not only the main employers in many towns but the arbiters of charity too. Yet, they are unsuited to, and undeserving of, the power and influence they wield. Like in traditional morality plays, the Birlings represent vices such as avarice, sloth and vanity.

Ways to access the text: listening/reading/watching

It is quite easy to find this play online. For instance, there is a free PDF file available on Scribd. Alternatively, there are several adaptations like the 2015 TV movie version as well as the 1954 film starring Alastair Sim. There are many viewing options listed on IMDB with the title of An Inspector Calls, so just check that J. B. Priestley is listed as a writer.

I chose to listen to a radio dramatization produced by BBC Radio 4. This is available for free on the Internet Archive under the title “JB Priestley: BBC Radio Drama Collection.” The drama has a running time of 1hr 27min. The play is very well suited to a radio drama adaptation.

Why listen to/read An Inspector Calls?

An Inspector Calls is primarily a political work. Priestley depicts a world of privilege and sordid secrets, which is sustained chiefly through the exploitation of working-class people. Like Inspector Goole, the tone of the work is quite moralistic, authoritative and didactic. Written in 1945, it depicts 1912 Britain on the cusp of WWI – an era when the English class system was firmly and unapologetically adhered to. After the experience of two world wars that involved Britain, this system would slowly disintegrate. The joy of reading Priestley’s text comes from the knowledge that English society would later find a more equitable balance. The relevance of the story for a present-day readership is slightly unglamorous – it’s really about wealth redistribution chiefly for the creation of social safety nets. More interestingly, it ponders the issue of social responsibility intertwining with legal safeguards.

Post-reading discussion/interpretation

_{An À La Carte Menu of Responsibilities}

An Inspector Calls is a well-structured, attention-holding, twist-at-the-end type of play. Priestley wrote this work in 1945 but places his characters in the England of 1912. Yet he doesn’t quite leave the onerous task of saying ‘told you so’ to history because Britain in 1945 was not so progressive and far removed from the politics of the earlier era. Inspector Goole is the play’s chief protagonist. He is a representative of democratic socialism, a political ideology that had a fairer society as one of its key aims. Britain operated a free-market economy that had traditionally favoured a laissez-faire policy. Inequalities flourished under this economic system. Inequalities were further underpinned by the class system, a system that prioritised one’s surname, wealth and connections rather than one’s ability. Goole lectures his audience of upper-middle-class industrialists, the Birlings and Mr Croft, about the need for communal responsibility. It is the introduction of an alien concept to them, and they offhandedly reject it. The play represents a contemplation of why two world wars didn’t bring about the total reformation of an unfair society. Eva Smith is depicted as the victim of this iniquity. She’s young, beautiful, hardworking, bright, and ambitious – yet her life ends in suicide. Priestley’s work most obviously shows the need for the support of a fully functioning welfare state, such as the provision of housing, unemployment benefits, and healthcare. The political stance advanced by the play is clear, but the issue of responsibility remains murky. Priestley introduces an agent of the law who proposes to impose moral responsibility, as opposed to legal responsibility, on a privileged class. This imposition is the core talking point of the play and it also enlightens one’s interpretation of the work’s strange denouement.

Who is Inspector Goole? One first learns that he’s in his mid-fifties like Arthur Birling, and quite importantly, he is just as authoritative. His title as a police inspector affords him a large degree of deference, even when the Birlings bristle at the bluntness of his interrogation techniques. Goole is a representative of the law and, therefore, cannot be dismissed or easily cowed down. At the play’s end, one learns that Inspector Goole is a fiction, an imposter who has duped the Birlings. It’s possible to interpret Goole as a socialist avenger who evokes deep shame and guilt along with fear and trepidation in his drawing room audience. Symbolically, he is their conscience(s). The Birlings and Gerald receive a premonition of their collective contribution to the downfall of a young, working-class woman. It’s a forewarning. It also reveals just who is receptive to Goole’s message versus those who reject any responsibility.

The telephone call that closes the play alerts Arthur Birling and the others to the reality of the situation – a young woman has died, and an inspector is coming. The whole scene is about to be replayed. The replay will be led by a local police officer who will be cognisant of the Birlings’ and Croft’s social standing and their influential connections, and it will be carried out with sensitivity and with regard to what is a crime and what is not. In short, the status quo will be restored. Moral responsibility is something that needs to be accepted since it cannot credibly be imposed. Even Inspector Goole could not achieve that feat. Priestley does not foreshadow the downfall of the Birlings and Gerald Croft. Instead, he highlights the weakness of the system.

Eva Smith’s downfall and eventual suicide are brought about by a “chain of events” (Priestley 16). This is Inspector Goole’s argument. Each negative experience that Eva has with various members of the Birling family, and Gerald, has a cumulative and even a determinative effect. The argument is untenable since it posits Eva as a completely helpless figure, but it still evokes a strong emotional reaction. What is true is that Eva is not seen as a complete person by any member of these influential families. Arthur Birling sees only cheap labour, Sheila sees an upstart shopgirl, Gerald sees a grateful mistress, Sybil sees an impertinent liar, and Eric, well, he sees a woman who has no rights at all. The clear implication in the play is that Eric’s first sexual encounter with Eva/Daisy was drunken and forced i.e. rape. Eva also has no protections in labour law or a right to housing or healthcare, so she indeed becomes a victim. She’s punished for starting a strike action to raise wages at the factory; punished for being too pretty; punished for her vulnerability and neediness; punished for her unplanned pregnancy; and punished for having standards (her rejection of Eric). Eva becomes a composite of many different girls in similar situations – they all meld together in her story. This point is cleverly underlined by the fact that none of the family can confirm if they were shown the same photo by the inspector. This woman’s story is a series of chronological, interlinking pieces that describe a class of women – young, poor, and desperate.

In a play that is preoccupied with responsibility, much goes unnoticed. Priestley signals that a blind eye is adopted to problems that are both personal and societal. For instance, there’s Eric’s heavy drinking and Gerald’s affair. Most interestingly, Sybil is unaware of the problem of female prostitution in the local town, even though she is a prominent member of the “Brumley Women’s Charity Organization” (Priestley 41). In contrast, Arthur seems aware of the women and the bars they frequent but he brushes off such matters as simply part of life. With people like the Birlings in charge of local employment opportunities at one side and then charity at the other end of the spectrum, the story does not inspire hope.

Inspector Goole questions all the Birlings and Gerald so one naturally presumes a crime has been committed. After Eva Smith’s suicide, a letter and diary are found in her rooms (Priestley 14). These personal items lead the police directly to the Birling household. Thus, the thrust of the play is that a crime will ultimately be revealed. However, what emerges as the play progresses is a clash of ideologies between Goole and a privileged class of people – whom he invests with special, public responsibilities. Sybil Birling rebuffs the charge of responsibility, saying “I’ve done nothing wrong – and you know it” (43). Similarly, Arthur Birling rejects the inspector’s “chain of events” theory regarding Eva’s death and states, “I can’t accept any responsibility” (16). The playwright is, however, referencing a broader type of responsibility, namely a social responsibility to those less fortunate. Much like the socialist-leaning writers George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells (10), the inspector hopes for an egalitarian society. This contrasts with the views of industrialist families like the Birlings and Crofts who selfishly envision “’working together – for lower costs [labour] and higher prices [profit]” (8).

Arthur Birling: “But the way some of these cranks talk and write now, you’d think everybody has to look after everybody else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive – a man has to mind his own business and look after himself and his own.” (Priestley 12)

This individualist stance is rejected by Goole who holds that along with the privileges awarded to public men come a lot of responsibilities too (40).

Inspector Goole: “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.” (Priestley 54).

The dilemma of the play is that one cannot enforce a moral responsibility. Goole’s methods appear to work well in activating the consciences of a younger, more pliable generation. Sheila and Eric are shown to express deep regret over how they treated Eva/Daisy. On the other hand, the translation of this newfound moral conscience into better working conditions and pay for local female factory staff is wholly uncertain and probably unlikely. Priestley’s convoluted scenario exposes the need for a state-enforced law, such as taxation, to bring about what one may call ‘enforced responsibility’. In practical terms, the improvement would be a taxation system that allowed for the setting up and funding of the welfare state. The 19th-century model of charities funded by wealthy patrons would be scrapped in favour of state-led policies funded through general taxation. This new system eventually came to pass some three years after the play’s publication, namely in 1948.

Responsibility remains a keyword in the play. It is a word that appears straightforward in its meaning, yet it isn’t. Sybil Birling assumes responsibility for those less fortunate than herself via the Brumley Women’s Charity Organization. The Birlings probably contribute to this organization’s funding too. Gerald Croft generously provides free accommodation for Daisy Renton through his social connections, and he also helps her financially. Eric Birling gives Daisy fifty pounds, which is the equivalent of almost five thousand pounds today. Arthur Birling employed Eva Smith and planned to promote her until she led the industrial action. Each of these people took on voluntary responsibilities, which were not enforceable via the law. However, the structure of society in 1912 allowed someone like Eva to fall through the cracks and end up destitute and contemplating prostitution. Her death by suicide is proof that nobody took ultimate responsibility for preventing her downward spiral. Responsibility cannot work when it’s optional for the participants.

In Priestley’s play, a type of crime is committed by a communal force. It’s death via a series of knocks, misfortunes and rejections for Eva. If one inverts this force, then it becomes the masses lifting someone up instead of breaking them down. This way of understanding Priestley’s text explains why he possibly chose such an unusual storyline. Just as Gerald or the Birlings cannot be directly blamed for Eva’s death in strictly legal terms, similarly, a broad-based tax system would not burden just one individual in society with the upkeep of another. Upkeep means a basic right to housing, healthcare and unemployment benefits when necessary. The play highlights the power of the many to do good, just as easily as harm may be done. The only difference is that the good is obligatory when supported by laws, not some à la carte menu of social responsibility.

Inspector Goole excels in unsettling his interviewees and extracting emotional responses. Of note is the fact that he interrogates each of the Birlings and Gerald in the presence of their family, or family-to-be. In short, it reminds one less of an informal police enquiry than a piece of staged, political rhetoric. Tactics are employed to produce shame and humiliation but there is no other obvious consequence for the malignant actions already taken by the family. The humiliation becomes the justice.

Inspector Goole: “This girl killed herself – and died a horrible death. But each of you helped to kill her. Remember that. Never forget it.” (Priestley 53)

This imperative to pinpoint a culprit is explained by Lloyd L. Weinreb who writes that “The larger a harm or loss, the more likely we are to look for a human agent and, having found him, the more likely we are to regard him as morally responsible” (56). In Priestley’s play, the chastisement needs to be carried out by an agent of the law so that the subjects will take the message seriously – so that they will fear punitive consequences. The younger generation does accept moral responsibility for their poor behaviour. However, the whole exercise carried out by Goole is smoke and mirrors. Two quite similar things have been taken to be synonymous – but they are not.

‘“RESPONSIBILITY” is frequently used as a synonym for “liability.” Yet in the criminal law it clearly appears that responsibility and liability are not the same.” (Snyder 204).

For clarity, “Liability is imposed by law. There is no liability unless a law is enacted imposing it.” (Snyder 204). Goole departs from the Birling household with no threat of further action because there is no question of anyone being held legally responsible for Eva’s death. To meet the criteria of criminal responsibility, someone must knowingly do harm through their actions. Furthermore, there must be a clear causal relationship between the action and the harm done and there must be intent or at least knowledge of wrongdoing (Snyder 205). Not Arthur, Sheila, Gerald, Sybil, or even Eric meets these criteria. Priestley is really addressing a responsibility that needs to be adopted by an entire society. The point is truly a political one and the playwright hopes to sway public opinion toward a fairer future.

“Responsibility, it is said, is a moral question. The best view (not universally enunciated, but never excluded) is that an act is wrong when so adjudged by the moral standards of the community.” (Snyder 208).

The play closes with a sharp change in genre from a seeming detective story to something almost supernatural – a premonition delivered by a fake police inspector. It’s as if the previous hour or so has been an elaborate dress rehearsal for what’s to come for the Birlings. In literal terms, this means a new, real police inspector coming to the Birling household and asking questions about a dead woman. Symbolically, it is foreshadowing the shift that two world wars will bring about in British society. The old status quo will eventually be shattered, and new rules will indeed apply. Sheila and Eric show themselves to be open to a modernising society, whereas Arthur, Sybil and Gerald hold fast to their ideas of privilege and superiority. The ending exposes in quite definitive terms who will take up the mantle of responsibility for a fairer society and who will continue to exploit those who are less fortunate in life. Some things, it seems, cannot be left to the whims of individual conscience.

Works Cited

Priestley, J. B. An Inspector Calls. Dramatists Play Service Inc. 1972.

Snyder, Orvill C. “Criminal Responsibility.” Duke Law Journal, vol. 1962, no. 2, 1962, pp. 204–18. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1371224.

Weinreb, Lloyd L. “Desert, Punishment, and Criminal Responsibility.” Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 49, no. 3, 1986, pp. 47–80. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1191625.