As the play goes on we discover that Rafe is fussy about keeping the house clean when Daisy says “Rafe always likes to come home to everything spick and span of a Friday”. This tells us that he expects the house to be spotless before he comes back home from work. We also learn that Rafe likes routine as Daisy says “Rafe’s got this obsession about keeping accounts straight”, and “Rafe always liked fish on Friday”. All this shows that Rafe is scrupulous about the house and money.
Betsy Jane, a slovenly nosey neighbour is a useful character of telling us what the neighbours think of Rafe. We see that she is in total contrast with the Crompton family because Rafe and his family are very cautious about money but Betsy Jane is careless with money. Betsy Jane does not think very highly of Rafe, she thinks that he has no right to get in the way of how Daisy controls the housekeeping money. We notice this when she says “what right has he to interfere with your housekeeping?” This shows that she thinks it is a woman’s job to manage the house and not Rafe’s. This illustrates another social change that has taken place in the last forty years, because women nowadays are more sophisticated and are worthy of the same rights as men. She calls Rafe “jumped up” which shows she thinks Rafe is arrogant. Betsy Jane informs us of what the other neighbours think of Rafe. She says “They’re always talking about you and him and his domineering ways”. This shows us that the neighbours feel he is bossy and high-handed.
We find out that Harold’s attitude towards Rafe is not very respectful; we start to notice that he is not very fond of his father when he describes him as “the old man” and when he says to Wilfred “I don’t care what he smells”, these show us that Rafe is disliked by his eldest son and he is sometimes very unpopular with the family. We also find out Rafe gets infuriated when he is insulted. We identify this when Wilfred says to Harold “don’t you set him off” warning Harold not to talk disrespectfully about Rafe otherwise he will be outraged. We also start to notice Harold feels resentful towards Rafe, we know this when he says “why do we always have to wait for him for our tea? Who does he think he is?” This all show us that there is tension between Harold and Rafe.
We perceive that Rafe is always defended by his daughter Florence; she is continuously protective towards him. We learn this when Harold wants to start tea without Rafe saying “lets all sit down and start tea right now” and Florence says “I’d like to see the day you dare”. This shows us Rafe is strict, and Florence was alerting Harold of the consequences he would have to face if he started tea without his father. We also comprehend that Florence stands up for her father, we understand this when Betsy Jane says “I suppose you others have got to like it” and Florence says “and why shouldn’t we?” This shows that she is defensive towards him.
In the stage directions right before Rafe enters we, we see that the family starts to panic when Wilfred says”He’s just turned the top of the crescent”, they quickly rush to get the smell of smoke out, we know this when Daisy says” help me, waft this smoke about, quick”. This shows us Rafe would be furious if he found out someone had been smoking in his house.
The play also exemplifies the social and historical changes that have taken place throughout the last forty years. There are several changes that have taken place; all of them can be seen in the play. We find out that the role of women has changed in the last forty years; we see this because the older generation house wives were more in charge of cooking, cleaning and looking after the family, where as the younger women are more modern and qualified working women. We see in the play that Daisy is a housewife and Florence is one of the first generation women to go to college. Nowadays women share the home, they have more equality, and they are treated with more respect as equal to men. However, some families still retain the old culture of the man as head of the house and the women as being controlled by them.
In 1965 the garments people wore were very old fashioned compared to today. We notice this when we see different clothes mentioned in the play like aprons for housewives, as we see Daisy putting on before she goes to the kitchen to cook. The men wear overalls and cloth-caps to work, which we notice Wilfred wearing when he gets back from work. We notice Harold wears a cardigan, bicycle clips and scarf when he returns from his work at the mill. These show us how fashions have changed over the past forty years.
We find out that people’s employment have changed because in the 1960s in Bolton where the play is set, most of the people were in employed as weavers. We see that the whole of Crompton family had a stable work force and everyone in the family except Florence and Daisy worked in the same cotton mill. We see at present time that people have many different choices as to where they want to work. There are more better educated people who have had a longer period of education.
We learn that people’s diet has also changed considerably in the past forty years. We notice a lot of working class post- war food mentioned in the play, for example, we see when Betsy Jane mentions “I’m more partial to sausages or black pudding” and when she says “I see you’re having herrings for tea”. All these food are not very common anymore. We notice most people these days are more attracted to fast and ready made food, and snacks.
The structure of the play itself is very interesting; it helps us build an image of Rafe and what he might be like. First of all we see in the stage directions that Rafe’s place is given extra attention at the head table which immediately gives us the impression of Rafe as being hard to please or selective. We see that the laying of the table a bit at a time adds up to the overall effect. We find out the characters enter one by one as the stage fills up with different characters. Each of the characters has their own impression of Rafe and we see that their comments help us build a picture of Rafe in our own mind. We also find out that money is an important theme all the way through the play. All this facilitate us to get our own notion of Rafe’s characteristics.
After reading the opening of the play we understand that the play is really about tensions in a family caused by a generation gap, we find out that Rafe is a very complicated person; we see he controls his family very well. We learn this by the manner in which he treats his wife over housekeeping money and would not go down well today. However his intentions are always laudable in that in that everything was done for the sake of his family. The playwright Bill Naughton has cleverly used different characters to describe him very well; the setting of the play was set in a way that the audience would have a good image of what Rafe is like before he enters the stage.
