Inspector birling inspector’s birling’s arrival moral family speech

Text	The Inspector Arrives What is especially interesting about the Inspector’s arrival is that it takes place immediately after Birling’s speech in which he chastises the very notion of ‘community and all that nonsense’ and instead declares that a man has to ‘look after himself and his own’ Interrupting this speech is the following stage direction: ‘We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell. Birling stops to listen’. The Inspector disrupts Birling’s speech and therefore represents, from the very start of the play, the disruption of the ideology that Birling was espousing. Notice also Priestley’s use of ‘sharp’: this is not going to be a pleasant encounter, but rather has violent connotations as the Inspector’s arrival pops Birling’s ideological bubble. The Inspector is described as creating ‘an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’ who speaks ‘carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses’. He is also described elsewhere as ‘cutting in’ . What is interesting about this description is the lexical field of ‘solidity’: the Inspector becomes the moral bedrock on which the play is founded and this is in contrast to Birling’s often fragmented speech, which is often interrupted by hyphens. Notice also how he is described as ‘looking hard at the person he addresses’: he is to shine a spotlight on the actions of the Birling family and this is reflected by the way in which the light changes, upon the Inspector’s entrance, from ‘pink and intimate’ to a ‘brighter and harder’ colour. This is further suggested in the National Theatre Production where the Birling family live in a doll’s house, which then swings open upon the Inspector’s arrival: the Inspector is to lay bare and unpick the moral assumptions, which have determined the family’s actions. He is moral compass and Priestley’s mouthpiece: he is the textual mechanism through which the play is able to impart its didactic message. The arrival of the Inspector is a consequence of the behaviour of the Birling family and as such there exists a causal (cause and effect) link between the two: the Inspector exists because the Birling family have abdicated civic responsibility just as the play exists because of the action of society at large. One might even consider Inspector Goole’s name, which is a homonym for ‘ghoul’. A ghoul is a phantom that is said to feed on dead bodies and can also describe a person who is morbidly obsessed with death. Given the Inspector is there to investigate the death of Eva Smith this is an apt description, but it might also suggest that the Inspector is to feed on the Birling family. Mr Birling’s response to the Inspector’s arrival is to seek refuge in his reputation: ‘I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m still on the Bench – so I know the Brumley police officers pretty well’. This again suggests something of his moral vacuity, since he has no ability to defend himself through his own actions and substance, but rather must rely on his connections to other people. It also suggests the corrupt way in which those in power wield their influence to escape civic responsibility, exactly what the Inspector seeks to correct and challenge.

Text

The Inspector Arrives

What is especially interesting about the Inspector’s arrival is that it takes place immediately after Birling’s speech in which he chastises the very notion of ‘community and all that nonsense’ and instead declares that a man has to ‘look after himself and his own’
Interrupting this speech is the following stage direction: ‘We hear the sharp ring of a front door bell. Birling stops to listen’.
The Inspector disrupts Birling’s speech and therefore represents, from the very start of the play, the disruption of the ideology that Birling was espousing. Notice also Priestley’s use of ‘sharp’: this is not going to be a pleasant encounter, but rather has violent connotations as the Inspector’s arrival pops Birling’s ideological bubble.
The Inspector is described as creating ‘an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness’ who speaks ‘carefully, weightily, and has a disconcerting habit of looking hard at the person he addresses’. He is also described elsewhere as ‘cutting in’ .
What is interesting about this description is the lexical field of ‘solidity’: the Inspector becomes the moral bedrock on which the play is founded and this is in contrast to Birling’s often fragmented speech, which is often interrupted by hyphens.
Notice also how he is described as ‘looking hard at the person he addresses’: he is to shine a spotlight on the actions of the Birling family and this is reflected by the way in which the light changes, upon the Inspector’s entrance, from ‘pink and intimate’ to a ‘brighter and harder’ colour.
This is further suggested in the National Theatre Production where the Birling family live in a doll’s house, which then swings open upon the Inspector’s arrival: the Inspector is to lay bare and unpick the moral assumptions, which have determined the family’s actions.
He is moral compass and Priestley’s mouthpiece: he is the textual mechanism through which the play is able to impart its didactic message.
The arrival of the Inspector is a consequence of the behaviour of the Birling family and as such there exists a causal (cause and effect) link between the two: the Inspector exists because the Birling family have abdicated civic responsibility just as the play exists because of the action of society at large.
One might even consider Inspector Goole’s name, which is a homonym for ‘ghoul’. A ghoul is a phantom that is said to feed on dead bodies and can also describe a person who is morbidly obsessed with death. Given the Inspector is there to investigate the death of Eva Smith this is an apt description, but it might also suggest that the Inspector is to feed on the Birling family.
Mr Birling’s response to the Inspector’s arrival is to seek refuge in his reputation: ‘I was an alderman for years – and Lord Mayor two years ago – and I’m still on the Bench – so I know the Brumley police officers pretty well’.
This again suggests something of his moral vacuity, since he has no ability to defend himself through his own actions and substance, but rather must rely on his connections to other people. It also suggests the corrupt way in which those in power wield their influence to escape civic responsibility, exactly what the Inspector seeks to correct and challenge.

Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.