An Inspector Calls
J.B. Priestley (1945)
“A mysterious inspector dismantles a wealthy family's respectability in a single evening — and Priestley dismantles an entire class system in three acts.”
Characters in An Inspector Calls
by J.B. Priestley · 1945 · 7 characters analyzed
Cast: Inspector Goole, Arthur Birling, Sybil Birling, Sheila Birling, Eric Birling, Gerald Croft, Eva Smith / Daisy Renton.
Character Analysis
Not a character in the conventional sense but a dramatic device — Priestley's socialist conscience given a body and a warrant card. He controls information, stages revelations, and delivers moral judgments that no police inspector would make. His identity is deliberately ambiguous: ghost, angel, time-traveller, conscience, or fraud. The ambiguity is the point — his reality matters less than his function, which is to force the Birlings to see themselves clearly.
Controlled, precise, authoritative without class markers. Does not defer to wealth or status. His sentences are designed to extract confession, not to impress.
A prosperous manufacturer whose every prediction is wrong and whose every moral instinct is self-serving. Arthur represents the Edwardian capitalist class that Priestley spent his life opposing. His pomposity is not comic relief — it is a precise portrait of the confidence that led Britain into two world wars. He learns nothing because learning would require admitting that his entire worldview is built on exploitation.
Pompous, self-important, prone to long speeches peppered with references to his civic status ('I was Lord Mayor,' 'I'm still on the Bench'). Uses 'these people' to distance himself from the working class.
More socially formidable than her husband and more morally immovable. Sybil's refusal of Eva's charity application is the play's coldest act — bureaucratic cruelty administered with impeccable manners. She cannot imagine that her family might be connected to working-class suffering because her entire identity is constructed on the separation between her class and theirs.
The most formally correct English in the play. Short, authoritative sentences. Never raises her voice. Refers to working-class women as 'girls of that class' with effortless condescension.
Sheila undergoes the play's most complete transformation — from a spoiled young woman admiring her engagement ring to a moral agent who refuses to let her parents retreat into comfortable denial. Her growth is Priestley's argument that change is possible, but only for those willing to accept guilt and act on it. She is the play's hope.
Opens with youthful slang ('lovely,' 'squiffy') and social chatter. After the Inspector's revelations, her language becomes direct and unadorned — shorter sentences, simpler vocabulary, moral clarity.
An alcoholic whose drinking problem the family has wilfully ignored. Eric's assault on Eva and his theft from his father's business are the play's most serious crimes, but his genuine remorse distinguishes him from his parents. Like Sheila, Eric is permanently changed by the Inspector's visit. His tragedy is that his moral awakening comes too late for Eva.
Awkward, halting, prone to unfinished sentences and sudden outbursts. His speech deteriorates as his guilt is exposed — fragmentation reflecting psychological collapse.
Gerald occupies the play's most ambiguous moral position. He treated Eva/Daisy with genuine kindness but within a framework of total economic power. He is the most capable of self-reflection but the quickest to grasp the escape route when the Inspector's credentials collapse. Gerald represents the comfortable centre — decent enough to feel guilt, comfortable enough to overcome it.
Eva never appears on stage — she exists only through the descriptions of those who destroyed her. This absence is Priestley's most powerful dramatic choice: the working class is spoken about, acted upon, and defined by those with power. Eva's refusal of Eric's stolen money is the play's strongest evidence that moral integrity is not a function of class. She is more ethical dead than the Birlings are alive.