The Inspector, part 1: how he takes the room apart

Every time the Inspector brings out his photograph of Eva Smith, he shows it to one person - and he makes sure nobody else in the room can see it. He could pass it round the table, but he never does. That one habit decides the order in which the family comes apart.

For the plot in order, An Inspector Calls: An overview is the place to begin. This video is about how the Inspector works.

Before the Inspector asks a single question, Priestley has already changed the room. The lighting should be pink and intimate until the Inspector arrives and then it should be brighter and harder. Pink and intimate is the family's view of itself, soft and flattering. Brighter and harder is a room with nowhere left to hide. A stage direction is an instruction Priestley prints in the script. The one for his entrance says he need not be a big man, but he creates at once an impression of massiveness, solidity and purposefulness. His size is in what he is there to do, not in his body. Think of a head teacher walking into a noisy classroom: the room goes quiet before anyone is told off. Within minutes of arriving, he puts the dead girl in the room with them. Burnt her inside out, of course. The detail is brutal on purpose. And every excuse the Birlings make after that is made next to that image. Why does the lighting change when he arrives, rather than when the questions start? Because his arrival is the moment they start to be examined. The audience is told, before a single question, that the comfortable view is over.

He tells the family his method himself, early in Act One. One person and one line of inquiry at a time. Otherwise, there's a muddle. Watch him work, and the method has five steps. He isolates one person, presents the fact or the photograph, waits while they talk, gets the admission, and moves on. Now, run it on Birling first. He is shown the photograph alone, and he explains the sacking as plain business. When Birling complains about being questioned, the Inspector answers him flatly. It's my duty to ask questions. When Birling says the strikers would soon be asking for the earth, the Inspector answers in Birling's own words. They might. But after all it's better to ask for the earth than to take it. Birling never denies the sacking, so the admission comes quickly. The Inspector has what he needs from him - and he turns away. Birling is done with for now, and the method has to choose its next move. What comes next: the whole family together, Sheila alone, or Gerald about Daisy Renton? Sheila alone, with the photograph. She is the next person in Eva's life, at the shop, and the method takes them one at a time. So it runs again. Sheila looks at the photograph, runs out of the room, and comes back to admit she had Eva sacked from the shop. Then the Inspector mentions the name Eva took next, Daisy Renton, and Gerald gives himself away. The next person has stepped forward on his own. Why does the Inspector never let two of them look at the photograph together? Because each one has to face her alone, with nobody to share the blame with. Together they would argue and close ranks. Alone, each one confesses. And he takes them in the order Eva met them, factory, shop and flat, with one swap near the end that An Inspector Calls: An overview explains. Each confession hands him the next name.

The method is the play's structure. Isolate, present, wait, confirm, move on, and the family comes apart one person at a time, in the order he takes them.

The last thing the Inspector does is make a speech - and it can swallow an essay. There are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us. That line turns one dead girl into a whole class of people. It is why the speech works on stage, and why it is risky in an essay. Take a question on how Priestley uses the Inspector to argue for change. One student writes that the repetition of millions three times makes the speech powerful and emotional. Another writes that Priestley turns one dead girl into millions, so the case against one family becomes a case for changing a society. Which of the two sentences answers that question, the first or the second? The second. The first reads the words closely and then stops, while the second aims the same close reading at what the Inspector is for. One examiner's report, describing weaker answers, names the Inspector's final speech where many candidates analysed it closely but did not link it to the question. In plain words, those students did good close reading and then left it lying there, with no line back to what they had been asked. The habit that fixes it is simple to say: every close reading of that speech ends on a word from the question. What he actually is, a real policeman or something stranger, this video leaves open on purpose. The Inspector, part 2 takes that question on.

Every step of his method pulls on one link, and only one, at a time. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. The Inspector is the hand that pulls the chain tight, one link at a time.

His rule and his light come back first, and then an interrogation this video never walked through. His own rule: one person and one line of inquiry at a what? At a time. Otherwise, he says, there's a muddle, and the family would talk its way out together. A different line to finish now: pink and intimate, then brighter and what? Harder. The light turns from flattering to exposing at the moment he arrives. Here's an interrogation from Act Two that this video skipped. The Inspector turns to Mrs Birling, who chairs the committee. Using his method, what does the Inspector do first with Mrs Birling? He shows her the photograph. She says she does not recognise the girl, he refuses to accept that, and she admits the girl came to her committee. One photograph, one person at a time, all evening long, and that is how a comfortable dinner comes apart.

Give this one a thumbs-up once you're solid on this method and can see his next move coming. Otherwise, save it and come back to it later in the week, when the five steps are easier to spot.

Next in the chapter: The Inspector, part 2, Goole, ghoul, or something else.

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