Act 3: Eric, the Inspector's Speech & the Twist
Eric’s Confession
Act 3 opens with Eric returning to face the Inspector. He quickly reveals the extent of his involvement with Eva Smith. He met her at the Palace Bar — the same place Gerald had found her — and forced his way into her lodgings while drunk. Eric admits: “I was in that state when a chap easily turns nasty.” His language attempts to minimise what happened, but Priestley leaves the audience in no doubt about the seriousness of his actions. Eric got Eva pregnant and, in a desperate attempt to support her, stole money from his father’s office.
Eric’s behaviour is shocking, but Priestley does not present him as purely villainous. Like Sheila, Eric is capable of genuine remorse. When his father demands to know why he did not come to him about the stolen money, Eric replies: “You’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble.” This line is devastating because it indicts the entire Birling family structure. Eric could not ask his parents for help because they created a home built on appearances rather than genuine love or support. Priestley suggests that the family’s obsession with respectability is itself a form of neglect.
Eric’s accusation — “You’re not the kind of father a chap could go to when he’s in trouble” — reveals that the Birlings’ failure is not just towards Eva Smith but towards their own children. The family’s obsession with appearances and respectability has created a home where Eric cannot ask for help. Priestley shows that the Edwardian value system damages everyone, including the privileged.
The Inspector’s Final Speech
Before leaving, Inspector Goole delivers one of the most famous speeches in twentieth-century drama. He tells the Birlings: “We don’t live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish.”
This is Priestley speaking directly to his 1945 audience. The phrase “fire and blood and anguish” refers to the two World Wars that the 1945 audience had just experienced — wars caused, Priestley implies, by the same selfishness, greed, and refusal to take collective responsibility that the Birlings represent. The tricolon of “fire and blood and anguish” builds with escalating intensity. “Fire” evokes the Blitz, “blood” the trenches, and “anguish” the emotional devastation of millions. It is both a warning and a prophecy.
The Inspector’s speech operates on multiple levels. “We are members of one body” echoes Christian language — St Paul’s teaching that all Christians are members of one body in Christ (1 Corinthians 12). Priestley, although a socialist rather than conventionally religious, uses this allusion to give the Inspector’s message moral authority that transcends politics. The repetition of “we” is inclusive — it addresses not just the Birlings but the audience themselves. The shift to “if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it” moves from gentle persuasion to direct threat, suggesting that collective responsibility is not optional but inevitable.
For the 1945 audience, this speech was not abstract. They had lived through the “fire and blood and anguish.” Priestley is telling them: you have paid the price for the selfishness of people like the Birlings. Now choose a different path. Build the Welfare State. Create a society where everyone is responsible for each other.
The Phone Call Twist
After the Inspector leaves, Birling and Gerald set about trying to prove that he was not a real inspector. Gerald meets a police sergeant in the street who has never heard of Inspector Goole, and Birling telephones the chief constable to confirm it. Gerald then rings the Infirmary and learns that no girl has died there that night. Birling is triumphant: “The whole thing’s different now.” He and Mrs Birling believe they are off the hook. Gerald even suggests that the Inspector may have been showing them photographs of different girls — the whole investigation may have been a trick.
But Sheila and Eric refuse to be comforted. Sheila insists: “It doesn’t make any difference … You began to learn something. And now you’ve stopped.” Eric agrees: whether or not the Inspector was real, their actions were real. They fired a woman, exploited her, rejected her, and she (or someone like her) suffered because of their selfishness. The divide between the generations is now absolute. The older Birlings want to forget; the younger ones cannot.
The revelation that “Inspector Goole” is not a real police officer is not a relief — it is a test. Priestley uses it to separate those who have genuinely learned (Sheila and Eric) from those who revert to selfishness the moment the pressure is removed (Birling, Mrs Birling, and Gerald). The audience is meant to side with the younger generation.
The Cyclical Ending
In the play’s final moments, the telephone rings. Birling answers and his expression changes. He tells the family: “That was the police. A girl has just died — on her way to the Infirmary — after swallowing some disinfectant. And a police inspector is on his way here — to ask some — questions.” The play ends. The curtain falls on the Birlings’ horror.
This cyclical ending is Priestley’s masterstroke. It suggests that the events are about to repeat — that the Birlings will face this reckoning again. The ending can be interpreted in several ways. Perhaps the Inspector was a supernatural warning and the real events are only now happening. Perhaps time is circular and the Birlings are trapped in a loop until they learn. Whatever the interpretation, the message is clear: you cannot escape responsibility. If you refuse to learn, you will be taught the lesson again — in “fire and blood and anguish.”
Priestley was deeply interested in theories of time, particularly the ideas of J.W. Dunne, who argued in An Experiment with Time (1927) that time is not linear but can loop or overlap. Priestley explored this in several plays, including Time and the Conways (1937) and I Have Been Here Before (1937). The cyclical ending of An Inspector Calls draws on this fascination. If time can repeat, then every failure to learn from the past means the suffering will happen again. This gives the play a philosophical dimension beyond its political message: it suggests that moral failure is not just socially destructive but cosmically significant.