Power In J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

Explore 2 or 3 moments when Priestley makes the Inspector’s presence on stage powerful.
In Priestley’s playwright ‘An Inspector Calls’, he shows a number of moments where the Inspector seems to have a powerful presence on stage. For example when the Inspector says “Stop!” while the family are squabbling over whose fault it was over the death of Eva Smith. All of the attention is focused on the Inspector at this point which gives him the powerful presence on stage.
On page 55, the whole Birling family are squabbling over whether it was Mrs Birling’s or Eric’s fault that Eva Smith died. The argument escalates more and more and then until when Mr Birling says,
“(furious, intervening) Why, you hysterical young fool – get back – or I’ll—“ The Inspector…show more content…
They do stop and stare at him. This gives him a powerful presence because, from what the audience sees, is that characters such as Mr and Mrs Birling have an arrogant, intimidating and powerful presence from the start of the play and so on through to the end, but only at places such as this point, the Inspector takes the power and control of the play and makes character like Mr Birling seem quite powerless and not so intimidating anymore. And also the Inspector only uses one word for them to stop arguing, which show how he doesn’t need to give a whole sentence for them to be quite and only one word. All of the power in just one word gives him authority over the other characters that are present.
Another moment where the Inspector has a powerful presence on stage is when he gives his final speech about Eva Smith and leaves and the stage directions tell us,
“He walks straight out, leaving them staring, subdued and…show more content…
It shows that the Inspector leaves something for the Birling family to think about and to never forget what has just happened and what they’ve done to cause this catastrophe. He’s left the Birling’s to feel guilty about their actions and that they could nothing to reverse what has happened. It says ‘leaving them staring’, this shows how they could be thinking quite hard about the events that have just happened. And then it says ‘subdued’, which tells us that the Inspector has brought the escalating argument to his control and that since he has left the house, the Birlings have calmed down and are not as over reactive as they were when Mrs Birling and Eric were arguing it out of who was the cause of Eva Smith’s death.

Overall, the Inspector seems to be the most powerful character in the play, but at times he doesn’t show his over-powering presence and lets the Birlings show how venerable and culpability. But, when he does show his dominance, the other characters realise how much power he really does have. I think he has the most powerful presence in the play because just by showing his actions and only using one word can make him appear superior to characters such Mr Birling, who are arrogant and think having a status in community and knowing important people can make look like he has a high