Key Quote
“"We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other"”
Inspector Goole · Act 3
Focus: “responsible”
The Inspector's final speech — Priestley's central moral thesis — directly addresses both the Birling family and the audience, asserting collective social responsibility as the foundation of a just society.
Technique 1 — DECLARATIVE STATEMENTS / ANAPHORA
The anaphoric (beginning successive clauses with the same word) repetition of 'We are' creates a collectivist (emphasising group responsibility) message: the repeated pronoun refuses to allow any individual to exclude themselves. These are not opinions but declarative (stated as fact) truths delivered with the authority of a moral imperative (a command that must be obeyed).
The phrase 'one body' uses organic metaphor — comparing society to a single living organism — to argue that harming one member damages the whole. This deliberately echoes the Christian concept of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), giving the Inspector's socialist message religious authority and universality.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
The Inspector himself does not develop — he arrives with complete moral clarity and departs unchanged. His stagnation is intentional: he represents an immutable (unchanging) moral standard against which the other characters are measured. He functions as a moral touchstone (a standard by which something is judged) — fixed, certain, and unyielding.
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Technique 2 — PRIESTLEY AS VENTRILOQUIST / MOUTHPIECE
The Inspector is Priestley's mouthpiece (a character used to express the author's views directly). His final speech breaks the conventions of naturalistic drama: it is not a character speaking but a political manifesto delivered from the stage. Priestley instrumentalises (uses as a tool) the dramatic form to deliver a socialist message to a post-war audience deciding the future shape of British society.
The speech's conclusion — 'if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish' — shifts from moral argument to prophecy. Written in 1945 but set in 1912, Priestley lets the audience know that the 'fire and blood' has already happened — two World Wars. This dramatic irony makes the warning retrospective and urgent: we know the cost of ignoring this lesson.
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Context (AO3)
1945 — THE WELFARE STATE
Priestley wrote the play in 1945, the year Labour won a landslide election promising the welfare state — the NHS, social security, state education. The play is a dramatic argument FOR this collective vision and AGAINST the individualist capitalism represented by Mr Birling. Priestley wanted audiences to vote for social responsibility.
1912 SETTING — DRAMATIC IRONY
By setting the play in 1912 — before two World Wars, the sinking of the Titanic, and the collapse of the class system — Priestley creates dramatic irony on a massive scale. The audience knows that the Birlings' complacent world is about to be destroyed, making their selfishness seem not just immoral but catastrophically naive (showing a lack of experience or understanding).
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WOW — BRECHTIAN EPIC THEATRE
Bertolt Brecht's Epic Theatre argued that drama should not merely entertain but provoke critical thinking about social structures. The Inspector's final speech functions as a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect): it breaks the naturalistic illusion, directly addresses the audience's political conscience, and demands action beyond the theatre. Priestley, like Brecht, believes that art must be didactic (teaching) — its purpose is not to create catharsis (emotional release) but to create engagement (active involvement in social change). The play does not resolve comfortably: the final phone call reopens the moral question, refusing the audience the comfort of closure and insisting they carry the Inspector's message into their own lives.
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