An inspector comes

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Data
Title: An inspector comes
Original title: To inspector calls
Original language: English
Author: John Boynton Priestley
Publishing year: 1946
Premiere: October 1, 1946
Place of premiere: Noël Coward Theater, London
Place and time of the action: All three acts are set in the dining room of the Birlings in Brumley, a fictional industrial town in the north of England. It is a spring evening in 1912.
people
  • Arthur Birling
  • Sybil Birling , his wife
  • Sheila Birling , his daughter
  • Eric Birling , his son
  • Gerald Croft
  • Edna , maid
  • Inspector Goole

An inspector comes (Original title: An Inspector Calls ) is a social drama by the English author John Boynton Priestley and one of his most famous works. Priestley wrote it within a week in 1944-45. The play celebrated its London premiere on October 1, 1946 at the Noël Coward Theater with Ralph Richardson as Inspector Goole .

content

place and time

The play takes place in 1912 in the fictional "Brumley", an "industrial town in the Northern Midlands". The name can be understood as an echo of the cities of Bradford, Birmingham and Burnley.

Action in brief

In the Birling family, the engagement of Sheila and Gerald is celebrated appropriately . In the middle of Arthur Birling's speech about the fact that everyone has their own fortune and that all talk of social responsibility does not apply, Police Inspector Goole answers the door: He is making inquiries about the suicide of a woman from the lower social class named Eva Smith.

One by one, Goole interrogates those present , and it turns out that each of them had his part in pushing Eva Smith deeper and deeper into social misery until she saw no way out and took her own life.

First the inspector questions the head of the family, the successful factory owner Birling. He finally admits to having fired some of his workers when they planned to strike through the demand for a wage increase, including Eva Smith. The inspector then speaks to the newly engaged Sheila Birling. In a picture she recognizes Eva Smith as a saleswoman in one of her favorite boutiques, about which Sheila had complained because of offended vanity, so that she lost that job too.

According to the inspector, Eva Smith then changed her name to "Daisy Renton". Gerald immediately takes notice and confesses to having had an affair with a Daisy Renton last summer. Sheila breaks the engagement on this admission, and Gerald leaves the house. Goole then says that Daisy Renton turned to a women's charity with a request for financial support: she was pregnant and could not work. Mrs. Birling, as chairman of this association, refused her any help and referred her to the father of her child; in their opinion, the "drunk young man" should take full responsibility for his actions. At that moment, the drunk Eric Birling comes back into the room and is immediately questioned by Goole, where it turns out that he is the child father in question and that Eva Smith also gave Eva Smith money that he had stolen from his father's office.

After everyone has been confronted in detail with their contribution to the fate of Eva Smith, Goole says goodbye and leaves society behind.

Gerald comes back into the house and explains to the family that he has just talked to a friend of the police officer and that there is no Inspector Goole. Arthur Birling then called the police station and asked about Goole; the name is not known there either. When it turns out that there has not been a suicide by a woman in the last month, it becomes clear that Goole has apparently wrongly pretended to be a police officer and actually condensed incoherent events to a fictional person.

Birling is relieved to find that nothing has happened and therefore no one is guilty in any way. However, this is disputed by Sheila and Eric: In the depicted acts of individual nothing, and only altered by the fact that it could have been so shown Goole happen can , reason is enough to think critically about their own behavior.

Finally the phone rings and Mr. Birling takes the call: a woman has committed suicide and an inspector is on his way to ask them a few questions. The piece ends with Birling's stunned expression upon receipt of this message.

characters

Arthur Birling
is the head of the Birling family. He is a wealthy factory owner. As an intelligent “self-made man”, he is of the opinion that everyone has to take care of themselves first. But Priestley's use of tragic irony shows that Birling is not as clever as he thinks he is. In the play, Mr. Birling indicates to Gerald that he expects to be knighted soon and is therefore very much looking for a good public image of his environment.

Sybil Birling
is the mother of Sheila and Eric, who still calls them "children" even though they are both over twenty. She is a staunch advocate of the separation of social classes. As a member of a “higher” class, she is the only one who refuses to the last to see that she, too, is partly to blame for Eva Smith's suicide. Her guilt is that she refused to support Eva Smith, who was looking for help, and advised her to turn to the father of her unborn child without realizing that this father was her own son. She is also socially superior to her husband.
Sheila Birling
is the daughter of the Birlings. As a pretty girl in her early twenties, she is in a very excited mood about her engagement. When the inspector confronts her with the death of Eva Smith, she is extremely upset.
Eric Birling
is the son of the Birlings and Sheila's younger brother. He is seen, especially by his mother, as the "child" in the family. Out of boredom, he gives in to alcohol and keeps hanging around the Palace Bar with friends . He and his sister are the only family members who think about their guilt.
Gerald Croft
is the fiancé of Sheila and son of an elegant family that competes in business with Birling's company. He had an affair with Eva Smith for a summer, although by that time he was already dating Sheila Birling. After being very concerned about the young woman's death, in the third act he joins Mr. and Mrs. Birling's view that the events of the evening did not actually happen.
Edna
is the maid of the Birlings and Gerald Crofts affair.
Inspector Goole
is the opaque police officer investigating Eva Smith's suicide. He seems to be omniscient and has ruled the actions of the Birlings from his appearance to his disappearance. Everything from the order of the individual interviews to the speed of the conversation is under his control. One after the other, he confronts the respective partial guilt and leaves society behind in dismay and confusion, until the question arises whether he is a real police inspector at all or maybe a fraud who wants to intimidate the family.
Eva Smith
is the young girl who allegedly committed suicide without ever appearing directly. The commonality of its name makes the figure stand for any person of the working class. The inspector describes her as a friendly person, although he is said to have never met her. During the play, she was given other names by which the various family members met her. This leads some of the protagonists to suspect that they are different women whom the inspector has put together into a fictional person and there has never been a suicide case. Contrary to the prejudices of the Birlings, she is honorable, for example she does not accept stolen money.

shape

“An inspector is coming” consists of three files, between which there are no leaps in time, but the stage design - according to the stage directions - is slightly changed. The structure of the piece follows the three Aristotelian units :

  • Unity of time: The piece takes place in a single evening, the dialogues are practically continuous, there is a time alignment.
  • Unity of space: The piece is set exclusively in the Birling family's dining room.
  • Unity of the plot: There are no subplots.

Subject

The moderately socialist Priestley deals with some of his typical themes in the play. Although the piece was written in the winter of 1945 after the Second World War , it is set in the period before the First World War . Priestley thus represents social changes of the past decades.

Problems of class society
The class differences in English society before the First World War are criticized several times in the play, particularly on the basis of Mrs. Birling. The Birling family, who are relatively high-ranking socially, can deal with members of the working class personified in Eva Smith as they please. After the Second World War, the differences between the classes were already smaller.
Position of workers and especially of working women
Eva Smith probably received little education and no rights or opportunities to defend herself against the arbitrary dismissals. On the one hand, leading a strike is a reason to quit. After she has been released several times, all she has left is prostitution to survive. Institutional help is denied because of bias on the part of the director, Mrs. Birling. During and after the world wars, female labor became more important and therefore more valuable, and the emancipation of women advanced.
By entrepreneurs like Mr. Birling, labor is only seen as a cost factor that must be kept as low as possible.
(Social responsibility
All injustices towards Eva Smith also arise from a lack of responsibility in various dimensions. Arthur Birling behaves irresponsibly as an entrepreneur, his wife in her position as chairman of the charity committee, Sheila as a customer, Eric as a sexual partner (since he impregnates Eva without taking responsibility for it) and Gerald even twice as a partner in a relationship, as he on the one hand cheating on his fiancée, on the other hand dropping his concubine Eva at will.
Generation difference
Unlike the generation of parents of Mr. and Mrs. Birling, who cannot see their guilt, Eric and Sheila regret their offenses and want to reform themselves.

Priestley condenses the “morals” of the play in the third act on a final call for more social responsibility by Inspector Goole before he leaves the scene.

Awards

Film adaptations

Priestley's play has been filmed three times. The first adaptation was a British feature film from 1954 with Alastair Sim as Inspector Goole , who was here renamed Poole . In 1982 a remake was filmed for British television as a three-part miniseries with Bernard Hepton as Inspector Goole and Nigel Davenport as Arthur Birling .

Radio play versions

This stage play was often the subject of settings on German-language radio, and in some broadcasters even twice, although the oldest productions have not survived. Nine radio plays have survived:

  • 1947 HR, directed by Fränze Roloff (not available)
  • 1947 NWDR, directed by Wilhelm Semmelrogge (not available)
  • 1947 SWF, directed by Gerd Beermann (not available)
  • 1948 BR, directed by Helmut Brennicke (not available)
  • 1956 DRS, directed by Werner Hausmann
  • 1965 WDR, directed by Heinz Wilhelm Schwarz
  • 1970 BR, directed by Walter Ohm
  • 1976 GDR radio, director: Werner Grunow
  • 197x DRS, directed by James Mayer

Web links

literature

  • JB Priestley, Berthold Sturm (Ed.): To Inspector Calls . Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag, Stuttgart 1987, (ongoing reprints) foreign language texts No. 9218, ISBN 978-3-15-009218-7 . (With German-language explanations of vocabulary, notes, references and an afterword.)