Hobson soon becomes aware, with the aid of his drinking buddies that should he have his daughters married he would be required to pay the husbands settlements with which they are to take on the ‘bother’ of looking after their wife. Hobson is outraged and rather forward thinking on this issue as he realises that his daughters are in fact rather useful to him in terms of looking after his shop when he is out socialising and getting intoxicated with his esteemed friends. At one point Hobson says, “there’s luxuries a man can buy too dear. Settlements indeed!” By this Hobson means that although he would like the peace of not having their rebellion around, he is not willing to pay to have them removed as they can be useful to him, to an extent he doesn’t realise until they’re gone. This fact alone puts Hobson off of the marriage trail but by this time the idea had been taken on by the girls, in particular Maggie who has no trouble in wrestling her man from a weak challenge by Ada Figgins. Within as soon had been informed of one of his underlings supposed affection for his most useful of daughters he took the belt to him. At the time the play was set in it was not unusual for a boss to hit a worker whether they had done wrong or not especially as Willie was more like a slave than an employee. So it was surprising to see the reaction taken by Mossop, who was not a confident person and was not used to the idea of marrying Maggie, when he defied the man who paid his (poor) wage and kissed Maggie, before walking out with his head held high.
This confidence was a sign of things to come from the most unlikely of people to take initiative and rebel against the norm. This new found belief was furthered when, with the aid of Maggie, Will set up shop in direct competition to Hobson’s, and within weeks married Maggie who set about educating him. Needless to say without his best two workers Hobson’s business fell drastically and aided by Hobson falling into Beenstock’s corn cellar and causing damage, Alice and Vickey both married and left Hobson to live alone with 1 solitary worker.
Hobson’s problems are caused mainly by himself, and his lack of effort with his shop and his children. In the beginning of the play and for a time before hand Hobson appeared to have his business working like a charm, he had 3 children running the store for no wages and two boot hands making the boots for a pittance, the shop was thriving making large income and small amounts going out in wages. But his lack of input and care into the business, principally as it appeared not to be necessary, caused him to loose track of his daughters’ activities. This combined with his over-indulgence in alcohol meant that really most of the time he knew nothing of what was going on. I am not even sure he knew that his daughters were the ones who took care of him. Although during the period it was generally acknowledged that if a father lost his wife his eldest daughter’s duty was to look after him. Having lost his daughters from his life, both in business and domestic sense, Hobson became a mess just like his business, which was mostly lost to Mossop’s of Oldfield Road.
His alcoholism finally took a toll in the final act where he became very ill and required one of his daughters to return and look after him. It is obvious to see that Hobson is ill as he does not have the fight in him to set straight a mouthy doctor and accepts the fact that he needs one of his daughters, who he considers have betrayed him, to return and aid in his recovery. Having decided that Maggie will return, her husband, the now super-confident Will Mossop becomes the dominant partner in Hobson’s business and gets his name up on the signboard. A year beforehand he was a lowly boot hand working for 18 shillings a week and now he is a partner in the established business of Hobson’s. This progression shows that even in a time where moving up class barriers was very difficult, persistence could pay off.
The strength of characters in the play and the progression throughout the play, which covers about a year, is interesting to see. Henry Horatio Hobson begins as the successful widowed father of 3 daughters who appears to have everything going for him in the beginning of the story being the obvious dominant male of house/shop. He starts off as the alpha male in the story, which, in the time would be the father in each household. His decline in stature happens as Willie’s ascendancy becomes more obvious. These two things are not coincidental as, from the moment Willie defies Hobson and sets up a boot makers nearby they are in direct competition for the same market. Where Hobson starts as the card-holding male, Willie ends in that position when he dictates the terms in which he and Maggie return to Hobson’s. Although it may seem that Maggie also has a great rise in stature, to begin with she is the one running the shop and taking care of Hobson, so she knows all along that she will determine the fate of her and the others around her. She does take a slight rise in stature as everyone else becomes aware in the end of just how much she is running the show.
These three characters (Hobson, Maggie & Willie) form the basis of the story and the plot is mostly to do with them, showing how a lack of care for family and business can come back to haunt you, like it did to Hobson. The other characters in the story are really just bit parts that are there to complete the story, with none of them having a real relevance to the outcome. Alice and Vickey play a small part in the story but are not really defined characters, as they don’t have to be.
Brighouse only really includes them to emphasise the fact that Hobson relies so dearly on his daughters not just for his business but also for his sanity. The other characters are included for necessity with the only one who could have had effect on the story being Ada Figgins, but as she is so easily defeated by Maggie this does not have an effect on Maggie’s master plan.
I think the characters in the play were very effective as I can imagine people who would have seen the play in 1915-1916 would have been able to relate to at least one of the characters, as although it was set some 30 or so years earlier times were not a lot different to how they were in the late Victorian times. There is a strong message behind each of the main characters that would be clear to any audience. In the case of Hobson the playwright is telling audiences to learn from his mistakes and not take their businesses and families for granted. For Maggie and similarly for Willie he is trying to convey that in many cases persistence will pay off and you will be rewarded, although it is likely that only the richer people would have been able to go and see a production of the play in the late 1910’s so it is unlikely that the majority of the audience would be in a poor position like Willie at the beginning of the play. I think that by trying to put across a message in each of the characters in the play Brighouse wished to inform his audience as well as entertain them, which makes for a good story and this made me enjoy the play more.
Brighouse uses a number of different themes incorporated into his play in order to add to the realism and dramatic impact portrayed. Some of these themes today are things that have been eradicated by the progression of society and seem to a younger generation that they only occurred a very long time ago but some do not realise just how recently these issues were usual in society. By addressing them in his play, Brighouse takes a chance to highlight them and add his opinion on the subject.
One of these issues is the treatment of women by men. Hobson’s daughters were expected, by him and by society, to stay in and look after the home and shop. They had to obey their father, as he was the one who kept them and clothed them, even though he spent much of his time in a drunken state. This theme of dictatorship was not uncommon for the time. Hobson thought he could decide upon whom his daughters would or would not marry, but this came back to haunt him. In the times of the play the dominance of men over women, not just in a domestic society but also in the world as a whole was accepted to be right. It was very rare for a woman to be able to get a job outside of a family business and women did not have the right to vote so for a woman to gain independence was practically impossible. If a daughter did not like the way she was treated by her parents the only she could do would be to get married, but it was law in those days that a husband had control over his wife and could even beat her with a stick as long as it was no wider than his thumb. There was no escape from the control of men for a woman, which must have been an impossible situation to live in. I think Brighouse decided to have Hobson be a widow as this type of behaviour was not really a subject talked about in public and he did not want to cause the type of controversy that would get him in trouble. In addition, I feel that Brighouse was not really a supporter of a strong male dominance of women and by incorporating this into the play; he would have sent the wrong message out.
Another strong theme of the story is class boundaries. There are 3 clear classes on display in the play and the treatment from one to another is interesting to behold. The small role of Mrs. Hepworth is included in the play to highlight the differences in class. Her visit to Hobson’s shop gives us an insight into how the rich lived. Hobson says, “Mrs Hepworth’s getting out of her carriage.” The fact that Mrs Hepworth could afford to own a carriage shows us that she must have been very wealthy. Hobson’s attitude towards her showed us what the poorer thought of the richer. Hobson is so happy and shocked to have someone of her importance in his store that he falls over himself to try to make her happy, agreeing with everything that she says. He makes such a fool of himself trying to please her that she says, “Get up Hobson. You look ridiculous on the floor.” This proclamation angers Hobson but he wishes to please her so much that he says nothing. Hobson is completely in awe of Mrs. Hepworth but at the same time, he treats Willie like a piece of meat just to reinforce his own self-importance. At one point Hobson even threatens to beat Willie every day until the love is gone from his body, but Willie actually has no love for Maggie at the time.
Will Mossop’s inability to read was also typical of many people of the time. Schooling was not compulsory and many people had little or no education. Alice and Vickey’s difficulties with the simple addition sum also illustrate this point. They are trying to balance the books for the business, and part of this balancing involves adding seventeen and twenty-five. Alice says, “What’s 17 and 25?” Vickey replies, “Fifty-two, of course”. The answer is, in fact, forty-two. Maggie appears to have had an education, as she was the one who used to balance the books before she left, and the business were running fine then. In addition, she educates Willie once they are married in order to prove wrong her sisters and father who thought him to be useless.
The character of Maggie also shows the beginning of the Suffragette movement. She is shown to be strong and intelligent, and is not afraid to go against the wishes of her father. Vickey and Alice also show this. This is demonstrated clearly when Maggie decides to marry Will Mossop, and when Hobson reprimands his daughters for dressing fashionably. Vickey tells her father, “We shall continue to dress as we like, father, and you can save your breath.” She is telling him that no matter what he says they shall continue to dress, as they want.
Hobson’s choice was an important play in the early 20th century as it highlighted to a large number of people many of the problems with the society they lived in. Harold Brighouse took some risks in highlighting these issues in such an obvious way but he felt that he needed to convey his feelings as to how things were going wrong and this was his medium for doing so. I think Brighouse aided society by trying to show people that some things that were commonly accepted were wrong, and thankfully, now some of these problems have been vastly rectified.
