Hobson's Choice - Why are the characters of Maggie and Will so popular to a modern audience?

Maggie's personality shows out in a lot of the things she says in the play.

Maggie also has an air of confidence about her which makes her popular with a modern audience for example when she is talking to Albert and Freddie about their businesses.

"Well, happen we'll be catching up with you before so long. We're only starting here."

The fact that she knows how she will soon be more successful than them just shows how much confidence she has, not only in herself, and her own talents but in Will's also which is very touching.

Most of the comedy in this play comes from Maggie and Will's outlook on marriage and courting. For Maggie courting is useless and a waste of time "all glitter and no use to nobody" However marriage to Maggie is practical and until the very end of the play she is not at all sentimental towards the idea of marriage at all. It's not until her wedding night when she presses one of the flowers from her bouquet in her bible. For very much of the play she is governed by her head and not her heart. With her business skills she is perceptive and resourceful, such as when she chooses Will. Will says to Maggie how he has no head for business at all and she replys

"But I have. My brain and your hands 'ull make a working partnership."

Maggie has the whole business planned out carefully and precisely.

Maggie not only had to take on the role of the mother to her sisters and her father because of her mother's death but also as an intelligent business woman, which was uncommon for a woman in the 1880s. This shows that she is not only a good hard worker but a good role model for her sisters. For example, when she questions her father about the amount of pay he gives her and her sisters

"How much a week do you give us?"

Her sisters are too afraid to answer back to their father but Maggie is not.

In Maggie and Will's relationship Maggie acts as the dominant partner in the beginning not because she wants power over everything but because she sees that Will is not ready to be the master of the house like he is supposed to be. When she has persuaded Will to go along with the marriage she tells him what to do

"...you will have three weeks to get used to it. Now you can kiss me, Will"

This situation makes both characters popular, as it is very humorous.

Will, in the beginning of the play, lacks any kind of confidence and doesn't quite know what to do with himself and in his relationship with Maggie he has even less confidence. However as the relationship gets deeper and Will learns more and starts to have more confidence you can see that Maggie has a genuine respect and pride for Will. Maggie is unlike her sisters, who are very much stereotypical upper class snobs. This was common in the 1880s. However this does not have an effect on the way Maggie and Will treat them.

"William Mossop, master shoemaker! That's the man you are privileged to call by his Christian name. And I'll do more for you than you call him by his name"

Will also has respect and admiration for Maggie too. He is grateful and amazed at what Maggie has done for him.

"thy pride is not in the same street lass. With the pride I have in you"

Its because of the respect they have for one another that they can have a successful business and a successful marriage.

Maggie and Will live a sort of fairytale "poor boy meets the rich girl and they fall in love, defeat the bad guy (Hobson) and live happily ever after" life. This kind of fairytale is very entertaining for the audience.

Not only is it the comedy that makes Maggie so popular but her honesty and her naturally kind nature. When Albert Prosser tries to charge Hobson one thousand pounds for legal charges Maggie protests and explains that 500 pounds is all her sisters will need for the weddings so that's all he will pay (she knows that her sisters are not independent so they cant do it by themselves)

"you can afford five hundred pounds and you're going to pay five hundred pounds."

This shows how she has mercy and kindness for people and is not wanting Hobson to go down the drain, just pay for her sisters weddings, which is still holding on to her mother role.

Although the audience like Maggie for the comic things she does they also like her and Will's actions and interactions. Such as on Maggie and Will's wedding night. Will's nerves are most humorous and gives a lot away about both of their characters

"he looks shyly at the bedroom door, sits and takes off his boots. He rises moves towards the door, hesitates, and turns back, lies down on the sofa with occasional glances at the bedroom door. At first he faces the fire. He is uncomfortable. He turns over and faces the door. In a minute Maggie opens the door. She is holding a candle and is in a plain calico night-dress she comes to Will, shines the light on him, takes him my the ear and returns to the bedroom."

Will is popular because of some of the things he says for example is over use of the phrase "by gum!" when he is surprised makes us still remember what he was like in the beginning.

Maggie and Will both appeal to a modern audience because of their kindness, optimism, humour and respect which brings the play together.