How is the Inspector presented in An Inspector Calls?

How does the Inspector control the play?

He arrives just as Mr Birling is telling Gerald and Eric that a man should look after himself and his own. The timing is Priestley's first joke at Birling's expense: the lecture on selfishness is interrupted by the man who will take it apart. Priestley's stage directions say the lighting should change when he arrives, from "pink and intimate" to "brighter and harder", as if the comfortable glow of the family is being replaced by an interrogation lamp.

From then on he runs the evening. He questions one character at a time, shows the photograph to one person at a time, and decides who hears what. The play's structure follows his method: each act ends on a new revelation, so the audience is always waiting for the next link in the chain.

He changes his approach to suit each person. He is patient with Sheila, who is quick to feel guilty, and blunt with Mr and Mrs Birling, who are not. When Birling boasts about his connections, he is unmoved. Rank does not impress him, which is exactly why he frightens the family.

What are the key moments for the Inspector?

His entrance. Priestley describes him as creating "an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness", and says he speaks "carefully, weightily". He does not need to be large: his presence comes from his certainty. Next to Birling, who fills silences with speeches, the Inspector says little and means all of it.

His answer to Birling's boast about responsibility. When Birling protests, the Inspector reminds him that "Public men" have "responsibilities as well as privileges". It is a direct challenge to the idea that wealth and position put someone above blame.

His final speech. Before he leaves he warns that there are "millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths" and that "We are members of one body". The repetition makes Eva stand for a whole class of people, and the image of one body says that harming one part harms all of it. He ends with a warning that if people will not learn this lesson, they will be taught it "in fire and blood and anguish", which a 1945 audience, fresh from two world wars, would have heard as prophecy.

What context matters for the Inspector?

Priestley wrote the play in 1945 and set it in 1912. The audience knows things the characters don't: that the Titanic will sink, and that two world wars are coming. The Inspector's warning about "fire and blood and anguish" lands on people who have just lived through that.

Priestley was a socialist, and he believed society had a duty to look after its poorest members. The play was first staged in 1945, the year a Labour government won a landslide victory and began building the welfare state. The Inspector speaks for that belief in shared responsibility, which is why he is often read as Priestley's mouthpiece.

His name invites a second reading. "Goole" sounds like "ghoul", a ghost or spirit, and at the end the family learns that no Inspector Goole works for the local police. Whether he is a hoax, a ghost or a warning from the future, Priestley leaves open. What he cannot be is ignored.

What might an exam question on the Inspector ask?

AQA sets An Inspector Calls in Section A of Paper 2. You choose one of two essay questions, and no extract is printed, so every quotation has to come from memory. The question carries 30 marks, with 4 more for spelling, punctuation and grammar (AO4). Other boards also set an essay on the play, so check your own board's past papers for the exact wording.

Two focuses to practise:

• How does Priestley use the Inspector to present his ideas about responsibility?
• How does Priestley present the Inspector as a mysterious figure?

What does a strong paragraph on the Inspector look like?

Here is an original model paragraph for the first focus.

Priestley uses the Inspector as the voice of his own socialist beliefs. His final speech insists that "We are members of one body", a metaphor that turns society into a single living thing, so that the suffering of a shop girl becomes everyone's injury. Priestley gives the line the weight of a sermon: the Inspector speaks and then leaves, and nobody is allowed to answer. For an audience in 1945, voting for a welfare state after two world wars, the message was a direct challenge to men like Birling, who believe a man need only look after "his own".

Key Inspector quotations to learn

Short phrases you can quote exactly, each with a use.

• "massiveness, solidity and purposefulness" (stage direction, Act 1): his authority comes from certainty, not size.
• "responsibilities as well as privileges": wealth brings duties, not immunity.
• "It's better to ask for the earth than to take it." (Act 1): he defends Eva for wanting higher wages, and turns the charge back on the powerful.
• "millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths" (Act 3): Eva stands for a whole class.
• "We are members of one body" (Act 3): society as one body, where harm to one part is harm to all.
• "fire and blood and anguish" (Act 3): a warning the 1945 audience knew had come true.