The Inspectors name, Goole, has noteworthy significance. Ghoul has the same sound and its meaning has a great bearing on the play. A Ghoul is "an evil spirit" To Birling, and his upper class peers; this is an exact analysis of the Inspector. The thought of the Inspector being something extraordinary seems to be briefly confronted by Sheila but it is dismissed just as quickly. Another theory might be that the Inspector represents truth and is not a real person at all but just a representative of justice. I think that this is a very plausible idea and probably Priestley's own thought. He could be a spirit representing the future, the Birlings chance of repent, although only Eric and Sheila recognize this. They are the only ones to realise that they have ruined this girl's life and it could be their doings that sent her to this horrible end. The Inspector could also be as real as all the other characters in body and can eat and drink and is solid. I think that the inspector may have gone back in time or there might have been a time slip of some sort to make sure that these people new what they had done. I think there is a possibility that the Inspector could be Eva Smith and just goes back to haunt them. This maybe quite far fetched by I would not rule it out completely, because if it were true then it would explain everything.
The main role of the inspector is his forcing role, which he uses to overpower the other characters to admit to their secrets. He appears to the characters to be very rude at times,