Priestley's fascinating foray into theories of time makes An Inspector Calls a highly compelling drama.
Are you studying An Inspector Calls this year?
Or perhaps you've yet to read it? (If that's the case, look away now, as the following analysis contains spoilers!)
You may think you already know the play's key takeaways. The hypocrisy and immorality of a prosperous middle-class family in Edwardian England, the Birlings ... An enigmatic and assertive police inspector who exposes each of them as having caused the ruin and suicide of a young working-class woman, Eva Smith ... The relentless increase in dramatic tension from the moment the Inspector arrives.
And you'd be right. These characters and structural devices are fundamental to the universal and timeless message of Priestley's play — that everyone is responsible for everyone else.
Just think about the five million plus theatregoers who have seen Stephen Daldry's 1992 revival, now the longest-running revival of a play in history!
Yet for me, Priestley's tantalizing exploration of time — its slips, loops, and circularity — makes An Inspector Calls a play I shall never tire of.
So, let's have a look!
Act I. An engagement party for Sheila Birling and her fiancée, Gerald Croft, is underway at the Birling family home when Edna, the maid, announces Inspector Goole.
INSPECTOR Two hours ago a young woman died in the Infirmary. She'd been taken there this afternoon because she'd swallowed a lot of strong disinfectant. Burnt her inside out, of course.
The Inspector's dramatic entrance precedes his interrogation of each character until their respective role in Eva Smith's death is revealed. However, the Inspector's line of questioning is based on a strangely exact prior knowledge of each character.
Mr Birling is the first to be questioned and is reluctant to admit his knowledge of Eva, but Inspector Goole persists until eventually:
INSPECTOR I think you remember Eva Smith now, don't you Mr Birling?
MR BIRLING Yes, I do. She was one of my employees and then I discharged her.
He then interviews Sheila:
SHEILA You knew it was me all the time, didn't you?
INSPECTOR I had an idea it might be –
...
ERIC But what did Sheila do?
SHEILA (distressed) I went to the manager at Milwards and I told him that if they didn't get rid of that girl, I'd never go near the place again and I'd persuade mother to close our account with them.
And so on, with each character.
Sheila is quick to recognise the Inspector's seemingly omnipresent knowledge. When the Inspector turns his attention to Gerald, Sheila asserts hysterically: ' ... he knows. Of course he knows. And I hate to think how much he knows that we don't know yet. You'll see ... '.
The Inspector's detailed and insightful understanding of events — which he explains by having had access to Eva's diary — and his ability to anticipate the thoughts and feelings of characters before their eventual confessions suggest that he is far from an ordinary inspector.
Let's return to 1912, the year the play is set, to understand Priestley's intentions better.
Mr Arthur Birling is quickly established as an arrogant man who pompously proclaims:
'BIRLING ... I say there isn't a chance of war. The world's developing so fast that it'll make war impossible. Look at the progress we're making ... Why, a friend of mine went over this new liner last week – the Titanic – she sails next week ... unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable.'
Now, fast-forward to 1946 and the play's first UK performance.
The post-war audience would have probably recoiled at Mr Birling's erroneous predictions. They would have been well aware of the loss of human life that resulted from the sinking of the Titanic, whilst the human devastation of two world wars was a harrowing reality they were still recovering from.
Is it possible that Priestley uses the play's vacuum between 1912 and 1946 to create a sense of temporal dislocation and a literary experience that undermines our traditional, chronological understanding of time?
So, what if the Inspector's presence results from a time slip, a sudden transportation from one time period to another? Has Inspector Goole acquired knowledge beyond the present timeline?
Perhaps this idea of temporal dislocation allows us to accept Inspector Goole's intrusion as supernatural and his knowledge of the Birlings as transcendental.
And, of course, there is the pun of his name: Goole or ghoul?
But what inspired Priestley to structure his play in such an original way?
In 1927, a philosopher named John William Dunne published his theories on time and argued that the traditionally linear time structure of past/present/future was merely a construct imposed by man's conscious mind.
In contrast, a non-linear concept of time suggests a web-like structure comprising multiple pathways instead of just one, in which events are interconnected and co-occur.
Dunne's belief that the past, present, and future exist in a non-linear rather than a linear state influenced not only Priestley but also other writers such as Aldous Huxley and H. G. Wells, whose writings explore theories of dystopia, the illusion of time, and, in Wells's work, time travel.
By challenging the idea that time can only be understood on a simple linear continuum, Priestley alludes to Dunne's theory to present a highly innovative play.
Once the Inspector leaves, the Birlings discover that 'no girl has died ... today' and that Inspector Goole is not an inspector after all.
'BIRLING (He puts down the telephone and looks at the others.) There's no Inspector Goole on the police ... As Gerald says — we've been had.'
Despite the Inspector's forceful interrogations and the young Birlings' eventual display of despair, Mr Birling is triumphant. His lack of remorse, together with Mrs Birling in particular, demonstrates that they are effectively back at the play's exposition before his arrival — not having learned anything.
SHEILA So nothing really happened. So there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did!
MRS B Well, why shouldn't we?
Priestley uses these characters' lack of moral integrity to imitate a time loop, which allows us to feel that this lesson in social responsibility needs repeating.
A 1946 audience, who would have experienced the magnitude of the war effort and recognised the significance of post-war reconstruction, would have known how crucial it was for society that these middle and upper-class characters embrace social mobility and gender and economic equality.
The older Birlings' lack of moral integrity essentially commits them to a time loop that will reset and repeat unless they learn the Inspector's lesson.
But if all that isn't enough to convince you of Priestley's temporal excursions, what about the play's unforgettable cliffhanger?
The blameable Birlings are seemingly off the hook at the play's denouement.
BIRLING The telephone rings sharply ... Yes? ... Mr Birling speaking ... What? – here— ... That was the police. A girl has just died ... And a police inspector is on his way here – to ask some – questions—
The astounding twist that concludes the play augments its cyclical structure: the anticipation of a police inspector's arrival at the end mirrors Inspector Goole's arrival at the start. The cliffhanger leaves the characters staring 'guiltily and dumbfounded' and evokes an arresting sense of deja vu. Yet again, Priestley invokes the notion of time's circularity.
But why is it so vital for Priestley to use these concepts of time slips, temporal dislocation, time loops and non-linear time?
If we can think of time as existing on a dimension other than linear, we can recognise that it may be cyclical. Understanding time as cyclical then allows us to see how everything is interconnected. And if we are all interconnected, it's logical that our actions will have consequences on others.
Priestley's message is clear: time will hold the Birlings — and all of us — to account.
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