“Hobson's Choice” would be better named “Hobson’s Downfall”. Finally his faults catch up with him, his daughters rebel, his business declines, and his alcoholism makes it’s presence felt. The audience can perceive Hobson’s downfall in a number of ways. Firstly there is the comedy and satisfaction of seeing a pompous petty tyrant deflated, and the traditional triumph of young bravery over old cynicism. Secondly an audience with any compassion must feel sorry for Hobson. He may have his faults, but when he is laid low and needs the support of his family, who can fail to feel for him? Lastly, there is an ironic message in Hobson’s downfall. The character who professes to despise women actually illustrates to the audience the value and importance of women, both his late wife, and his daughter Maggie.
Hobson’s dramatic context is at first that of an overbearing father, although the stage directions describe him as a “parent of the period”. Then his daughters catch him out – knowing that he goes to the “Moonraker’s”, despite his efforts to conceal it, and quietly refusing to budge on the issue of dinner. Then Hobson tries to regain his control, which he never really had. Maggie tries to calm the storm, by gently and persuasively trying to get him out of the house. So Hobson is placed in context as a stereotypical widower struggling to rein his daughters in. Then we hear some more nuggets of information about Hobson’s view of the world e.g. “I hate bumptiousness like I hate a lawyer”, and “you can lie like a gas meter”. This gives him a wider dimension, which is essential for the rounded characters that Brighouse wants. Brighouse reveals other dimensions as the play continues –Hobson at his most vulnerable, Hobson as a friend, Hobson as an enemy of women, and Hobson as an alcoholic failure.
So how much is Hobson to blame for his failure? He is very much a victim of circumstances, some of which are his own fault. He tries his best as a parent, and genuinely wants his daughters to do well –but not at his own expense. His biggest fault as a parent is his unwillingness to put his daughters before his own interests. He wants to retain Maggie, not because she is past the marrying age, but because she is more use to him in the shop. So is Hobson’s selfishness the root of the play? Yes, since it provokes Maggie into the actions which eventually cause his downfall, and the ending of Act 1 is a blatant act of self-destruction, when Willie says “I’ll walk straight out of shop with thee and us two ‘ull set up for ourselves”. Hobson’s stubbornness makes it hard to forgive him his sins, though he does repent at the end of the play.
Maggie could quite possibly have saved Hobson, had he listened to her advice. It is a testimony to the depth and realism of Harold Brighouse’s writing that Maggie is entirely plausible as the offspring of bluff Hobson, and the presumably tactful and clever Mrs Hobson. She is the protagonist of the play “Hobson's Choice” and, superficially at least, it’s most responsive and shrewd character.
She is the eldest daughter of Hobson, and while she has the respect of much of Salford, she suffers none of the nonsense of the class system. She has a love of all things practical, useful and tangible, but a hidden sentimentality not obvious in the beginning of the play. She illustrates and highlights the role of women in the nineteenth century in a number of ways.
Superficially, she is the anti-stereotype of a Victorian housewife. She is thirty, has not married, has a good head for business and finance, and is almost entirely in control of the boot shop, whatever Hobson might think. She is the mark of sanity against which the absurdities of Hobson, Alice, Vickey, and indeed Willie can be compared. However, over the course of the play, she becomes noticeably more sentimental and more human. She transforms herself from the bitch that marries Willie by force, to one half of a complimentary and mutually fulfilling partnership –the loving and supportive wife to Willie that Hobson had once had in Maggie’s mother.
She also has more in common with the other women of the era – in particular Alice and Vickey- than she would like. She shares in common the wish to marry a man with status and substance, though she chooses someone with potential rather than someone who has already made it. She also submits to her husband – once Willie has matured and is able to take decisions for himself, she allows him to take them, as any woman of the period would do. This is almost certainly against her nature, as she is far more used to getting her own way. She even says as much, in Act 2, when Vickey protests that “You’re ordering folk about a bit” and Maggie retorts that “I’m used to it”.
Despite her evident cunning and natural cleverness, it seems that Maggie does not have much formal education – she lacks the vocabulary to understand the “Legal English” which Albert Prosser presents her with, and acknowledges that “I thought it weren’t the sort we talk in Lancashire”. Of course, a lack of schooling would be normal for most women in the nineteenth century, with only the upper classes able to afford the governesses to educate young women at home, since it would be unthinkable for girls to go to school.
Maggie is presented to the audience firstly as the efficient, businesslike manager of Hobson’s Boot Shop, who clears up after Hobson and his drinking, does the accounts, makes the sales, and indeed everything but making the boots. Her first exchange with Alice is a prime example of Maggie’s nature, as Alice tries to coax her into comment by saying, “He is late this morning”, which bothers Alice for more reasons than one. Maggie briskly shuts her up by replying, “He got up late”. She is then revealed as even more of a stickler for efficiency as she first forces Albert to buy the boots, then forces herself on Willie, while bullying Ada Figgins out of the picture. We then see flashes of her softer side, as she presses the flower and comes to help her father at the very end of the play. This rounds out her character in the eyes of the audience, and allows them to empathise with her, and understand her struggles as a woman trying to make it in a world designed for men, and even to understand her flashes of selfishness.
As a daughter, Maggie manages to remain dutiful to her father, particularly when he falls ill, while ensuring Hobson’s stubborn wilful ways do not obstruct her own success. She is certainly a much better daughter than either Alice or Vickey –she demands no marriage settlement, has given years of useful service, and eventually returns to nurse Hobson.
As a sister she is equally dutiful. She has the good sense that her sisters lack, and so often ends up at odds with them (As Vickey says, “Nobody’s fretting to get Willie Mossop as a brother-in-law”) but once again, she is actually serving their best interests as much as her own.
In her role as wife, and indeed as a woman of the nineteenth century, she is less conventional. At first, it is clear that Maggie wears the trousers in their marriage, but later it transpires that Willie has taken over the accepted role of a nineteenth century husband. However Willie can see that he owes a great deal to his wife’s good sense, and so the marriage remains more or less equal, within the constraints of the society. Maggie does manage to rebel against some of the idiosyncrasies of Victorian convention, but always allows common sense to guide her. However she cannot truly be considered a rebel or reformer, because she always plays within the rules of the establishment. She is a strong woman, but she knows that if she is to succeed in the 1880s she needs to be married to a successful man, but one that she has influence over.
In summary, Hobson and Maggie show us how the roles of men and women could be interpreted in the nineteenth century. Hobson relies on women to run around after him, and allow him to live in the lifestyle which he prefers –going to the pub constantly, doing absolutely no work, and expecting a meal on the table when he returns from his drinking. This is one possible interpretation of the roles of men and women in the 1880s, but at best it is an abuse of the system that should provide marriages, which last financially, are beneficial to both families, and allow the couple to raise a family of their own. Hobson is almost certainly dimly aware of this, but has convinced himself in his alcoholic stupor that he is in the right.
Maggie on the other hand shows us what a woman can be, even while sticking broadly to the rules and expectations of the Victorian middle class. She can run a business, though not in public, can choose her partner, and will in all probability end up as a Mrs Hepworth – strong, dominant, rich and independent. Despite Maggie’s evident success in the nineteenth century, consider what a woman of her character and skills could be in the twenty-first century, and then the injustice of her position is immediately obvious. Ultimately however, “Hobson's Choice” is a play with a feminist message, and that is all the more impressive considering its setting.
