39 pages • 1 hour read
J.B. PriestleyAn Inspector Calls
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Act IIIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act III Summary
Eric admits that he was “a bit squiffy” when he met Eva (203), though he avoids mentioning her name. Under pressure from Goole, Eric says that he followed the young woman home from a bar and insisted that she allow him in, even though she didn’t want to. They met several times, and she revealed that she was pregnant. She asked for money, so Eric stole £50 from his father’s company. Arthur interrupts angrily, and Eric realizes the scale of what he has done is now being revealed. When Eric finds out that his mother refused to help Eva, he accuses her of murder.
Inspector Goole addresses each of the anguished family in turn, explaining how they all helped to kill Eva. Arthur fired her; Sheila orchestrated her second firing; Gerald had an affair with her; Eric raped her and then tried to pay her off with stolen money; and Sybil refused to help the poor young woman in desperate circumstances. Goole prepares to leave, dismissing Arthur’s vague attempts to offer him a bribe. As a parting message, he repudiates Arthur’s earlier statement, telling the family that all people are connected and that they must help each other if society is to avoid a violent collapse. There are “there are millions and millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths” who need help (207). The family will now live with their guilt for the rest of their lives to make up for Eva’s losing her own life. Goole exits.
After Goole leaves, Arthur blames Eric for Eva’s death by suicide; he is afraid of a “public scandal.” Eric accuses his father of being more worried about his reputation than about Eva. Sheila likewise criticizes her parents’ fixation on their public image and predicts that they will pretend that nothing has happened. Eric bitterly mentions Arthur’s speech about looking out for themselves first and foremost. Sheila compares this with Goole’s “very queer” arrival, wondering whether he is even a real police inspector.
Regardless of Goole’s real identity, Eric and Sheila agree that his interrogation got to the root cause of Eva’s death by suicide. He inspected them in a literal sense. For Arthur, however, Goole’s legitimacy is crucial: If he is not an actual public official, then the scandal may not be made public, and his reputation will remain intact. He suggests that the rest of the family fell for Goole’s tricks. He accuses Goole of being “a Socialist or some sort of crank” (211).
Edna enters to announce that Gerald has returned. Gerald explains that he left to speak to a police sergeant, who claimed not to know of an Inspector Goole. Gerald believes that Goole wasn’t a real police inspector and Arthur concurs. He believes that the family have been tricked and that they should keep everything that has happened secret to preserve their reputations. Eric and Sheila disagree. Sheila wants everyone to reflect on the part they played in Eva’s death. Their crimes were real, she says, even if Goole was not a real inspector. Arthur makes a telephone call, receiving confirmation that Goole is not with the police. Gerald confesses that his affair was real. Eric decides to leave the country to spend time away from his family but Arthur insists that he stay to work off the money he stole from the business.
Gerald wonders whether the inspector showed them each a different photograph. If so, each of their “crimes” may involve a separate woman. Goole may have falsified the connection through an elaborate scheme, he suggests, without showing them “the slightest bit of truth” (216). Gerald makes a telephone call. This time, the hospital confirms that no young woman has been brought in dead of a suspected suicide. Arthur insists that Goole has tricked them all. With no dead woman, he asserts, their crimes are not nearly so serious.
Sheila accuses her father of trying to cover up their immorality. She believes that the uncharitable, immoral behavior of the family is just as real, even if they were talking about a different young woman each time. She says that Arthur is “pretending everything’s just as it was before” and disavowing any lessons he may have learned earlier in the evening (219). They are interrupted by a telephone call, and Arthur answers. He then passes the message along to the family: A young woman has died by suicide after ingesting disinfectant. A police inspector is headed to the Birling home now to question them.
Act III Analysis
Act II of An Inspector Calls ends with Eric returning to the Birling family home. By the time he is questioned, he is already aware of his role in the scandal, and his return suggests that he is willing to submit to the questioning and the judgment of Inspector Goole. Eric’s behavior in Act III develops the theme of Passing Judgment on Others. Like Sheila, he is willing to condemn his own family and their role in the girl’s death. Unlike Sheila, however, Eric refuses to terms with his own responsibility. To Eric, each member of the family is equally culpable, even though his crimes against Eva are much more pronounced. Sheila organized for Eva to be fired from a job, whereas Eric raped and impregnated Eva, then stole from his father’s company to pay her. Eric proclaims his regret, but there is a self-serving angle to his actions, which suggests that he wants to minimize his own role in Eva’s death by suicide. Eric performs empathy while acting selfishly to protect himself.
Arthur’s actions suggest that he has learned nothing from the evening. When he discovers that Eric has stolen from the company, he almost entirely forgets about the dead young woman. A crime against the family company, he believes, is far more of an offense than whatever happened to Eva Smith. Arthur believes in self-sufficiency and self-interest. In his long speech in Act I, he lectured Eric on the importance of protecting himself and his family above everything else. Driving a woman to death by suicide is unfortunate, Arthur seems to suggest, but stealing money from the family business to pay that woman is morally abhorrent. Furthermore, Arthur is disgusted that Eric’s actions threaten the family with public scandal. Because of Eric, Arthur may lose the knighthood that he has been promised. More broadly, the scandal could threaten the public image that Arthur has spent so long attempting to build for his family. By undermining Arthur’s hard work, Eric has threatened the family itself. Arthur can quickly forget the dead young woman. He cannot forget Eric’s reckless endangerment of the family’s reputation.
Before he leaves, Inspector Goole delivers a soliloquy that directly contradicts Arthur’s beliefs about Class Conflict and Collective Responsibility. The soliloquy is an example of juxtaposition, in which Arthur’s praise of self-sufficiency in Act I is mirrored by the inspector’s condemnation of such selfishness in Act III. Goole tells the family that they are part of a society. A more equitable, egalitarian society must be sought, he says, otherwise the world will descend into bloody murder and chaos. Set before World War I but written in the aftermath of World War II, Goole’s words seem like a doom-laden prophecy.
After Goole leaves, Sheila expresses regret at what happened to Eva Smith. Eric shares her regret, though he is still interested in Passing Judgment on Others. The three other characters—Arthur, Gerald, and Sybil—strive to convince themselves that Goole’s visit was a joke. They have learned nothing from the experience, as they seek out new methods of denial. They are more interested in their fortune and their reputation, than they are in self-reflection and equality.
In the final stages of the play, the Birling family have a moment of emotional reprieve. Arthur, Sybil, and Gerald convince themselves that they are in the clear. After several phone calls, they are desperate to restore The Separation of Private and Public Life. Just as the arrival of the inspector shattered the happiness of the evening in Act I, a telephone call shatters this brief reprieve in Act III. The announcement that a woman has died by suicide and that an inspector will soon arrive has a supernatural implication, suggesting that Inspector Goole may be some kind of agent of divine justice, sent by unknown forces to compel the Birling family to reckon with their behavior. Since they failed to learn these lessons, the actual police will be sent as punishment. They are now caught in a purgatorial loop of confession and punishment until their sins are exposed. Sheila may be the closest family member to redemption but the other Birlings drag her down with them.
