Beyond the Script: 5 Surprising Techniques That Make 'An Inspector Calls' Unforgettable
For decades, J.B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls" has remained a cornerstone of modern theatre and a fixture in classrooms around the world. Its plot, at first glance, is a classic drawing-room mystery: a prosperous family's celebratory dinner is interrupted by a police inspector investigating the suicide of a young woman. The story unfolds in a single room, over a single evening, yet its impact reverberates long after the final curtain.
But what is it that gives this seemingly simple mystery its lasting, haunting power? The answer lies beyond the surface of the plot, woven into the very fabric of the play's construction. Priestley was not just telling a story; he was building a meticulous moral argument, using a series of sophisticated theatrical and literary techniques to challenge his audience.
This article will deconstruct the five strategic choices Priestley made - from weaponising stage lighting to manipulating time itself - that transform this drawing-room mystery into an unforgettable moral interrogation. These are the surprising, often-missed details that elevate "An Inspector Calls" from a period piece into a timeless examination of human responsibility.
1. The Inspector Isn't Just a Detective - He's a Moral Force
One of the most compelling interpretations of Inspector Goole is that he is not a real police officer at all. Instead, he can be seen as a supernatural entity or the personification of a collective conscience, sent to force the Birlings to confront their sins. Priestley drops several hints about his otherworldly nature, starting with his name, "Goole," which sounds deliberately like "ghoul." His purpose is not to make an arrest but to make the Birlings - and the audience - face their moral failings. This is made explicit in the play's structure: the Inspector's entrance is timed to immediately interrupt Mr Birling's speech on individualism ("a man has to mind his own business..."). His arrival isn't just an event; it's a structural argument, a direct and immediate rebuttal of the capitalist ideology Birling champions.
The Inspector is not interested in legal justice but in a higher form of accountability. His final speech abandons any pretence of a police investigation and becomes a direct sermon on social responsibility.
We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other.
This interpretation is so powerful because it suggests that morality is an active, unavoidable force. The Inspector's potential fraudulence is irrelevant; his message remains. Priestley implies that conscience itself will hold us accountable, regardless of whether a crime has been legally committed.
2. The Stage Lighting Is an Active Interrogator
Priestley masterfully employs pathetic fallacy - where the environment reflects the emotional mood - but applies it not to the weather, but to the stage lighting itself. In his initial stage directions, he specifies that the lighting should be "pink and intimate," reflecting the Birlings' smug, self-satisfied bubble as they celebrate their good fortune. This warm glow suggests a world viewed through rose-tinted glasses, insulated from harsh realities.
Upon the Inspector's arrival, the lighting undergoes a dramatic shift, becoming "brighter and harder." This is not a subtle change; it is an immediate and deliberate assault on the family's comfort. The light itself becomes a tool of interrogation, stripping away the cosy illusions and placing the characters under an unforgiving spotlight. This harsh glare transforms the comfortable dining room into a psychological trap, a courtroom of conscience from which there is no escape.
3. The Play's Most Haunting Line Is a Simple Rhetorical Trick
The Inspector's final warning is one of the most memorable and prophetic moments in 20th-century theatre. Just before he departs, leaving the family in disarray, he delivers a chilling prophecy about the consequences of ignoring social responsibility.
"They will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish".
The immense power of this line stems from a classical rhetorical device known as the "Rule of Three," or a tricolon. By structuring his warning this way, Priestley creates a "lasting, haunting rhythm" that builds in intensity. But for the play's original 1945 audience, this was more than just a rhythmic device; it was a deeply resonant and immediate trigger. They had just lived through the "fire and blood and anguish" of two world wars. The line wasn't a distant prophecy; it was a recent memory, transforming the Inspector's warning into a catastrophic historical echo and underscoring the urgent cost of the Birlings' selfish worldview.
4. Priestley Uses History as a Weapon Against His Characters
A key technique Priestley employs is dramatic irony, leveraging the fact that the play, written in 1945, is set in 1912. The audience knows what the characters do not: that their comfortable world is on the brink of two world wars and immense social upheaval. Priestley weaponises this knowledge against his most arrogant character, Mr Birling.
Birling confidently makes a series of pronouncements that the audience knows to be tragically wrong. He declares the Titanic to be "unsinkable, absolutely unsinkable" and dismisses any possibility of conflict, stating that "there isn’t a chance of war."
Priestley's goal is more profound than mere character assassination. By making Birling so spectacularly wrong about the future, he completely dismantles his credibility before the main action even begins. The strategy is devastating: Priestley ensures the audience cannot trust the worldview of the man at the head of the table. By weaponising our knowledge of future suffering, he frames Birling's capitalist ideology as not just incorrect, but dangerously, catastrophically complacent.
5. The Most Important Character Never Appears on Stage
Perhaps Priestley’s most radical choice is to deny his central character a voice. Eva Smith, the young woman at the absolute centre of the play, is never seen or heard. Her entire story is constructed through the flawed, biased, and self-serving memories of her abusers.
This absence is a deliberate and powerful strategy. By remaining an unseen figure, Eva Smith avoids being just one individual victim; she becomes a blank slate onto which societal sins are projected, a symbol for all the voiceless and exploited. This makes the audience, not the Birlings, her only true witness. The Inspector makes this universal connection explicit in his final speech.
"There are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us…"
Her invisibility makes the play's message of social responsibility more urgent and universal. It forces the Birlings and the audience to confront not just their actions toward one person, but their responsibility to all the unseen people who may be impacted by their choices every day.
Conclusion: A Final Inspection
The enduring power of "An Inspector Calls" is not rooted in who is guilty, but in Priestley's meticulous construction of a moral trap from which neither the characters - nor the audience - can escape. He uses the Inspector's ambiguous nature, symbolic stagecraft, resonant rhetoric, dramatic irony, and the powerful absence of his central character to create a layered and resonant work of art.
These strategic choices transform a simple story about a single family into a profound and timeless moral examination of society as a whole. Priestley's play forces us to confront the "chain of events" in the Birlings' lives, but what happens when the final curtain falls, and we are left to inspect our own?