Natalie Quirk

HOBSON'S CHOICE ASSIGNMENT

Assignment Details: Where and when are accepted conventions broken in the action of the play? Who are the consequences of this? What does Brighouse intend the audience to learn?

Hobson's Choice is a play written in 1916 by a man called Harold Brighouse. For most of the play, the main scene is in a shoe shop set in Salford, Lancashire, in and around the period of 1880-1. The shop is owned by a widower called Henry Horatio Hobson, and Hobson and his three daughters, all live there together.

There are many different conventions in the play that are all, in some way or another, broken by the characters. These conventions include the domination of women by men, class, love, marriage, money and the law.

In the twentieth century, it was commonly known for the men to have the procedure over the women. The women were just there for domestic duties, and were very subordinate. The domination of women by men is certainly visible in Hobson’s Choice. Many of the women put this convention to one side. These characters include Maggie, Alice and Vickey, Hobson’s daughters, and Ada Figgins, Willie Mossop’s fiancée. Out of the four characters mentioned, Maggie seems to be the one that stands up to men the most.

Maggie is hardworking, determined, dominate, manipulative, persuasive

and knows that she can get the upper hand over men. She also seems to be in charge at the shop, completing the books, and taking care of everything. She always sticks up for herself, and speaks her mind, and is very enthusiastic towards women's rights. She can't understand why men believe that women should be cooped up in the house, all day long. A prime example of this, is when Alice, Vickey and their boyfriends, Freddie and Albert, go along to Maggie and Willie's house for cake, after the wedding. Maggie orders Freddie and Albert to make a start on washing the pots. At first they object, informing her that they are the guests, but they still obey her orders.

"You and Fred can lend Willie a hand with the washing up, Albert".

Maggie is very strong in arguments, and doesn’t let people get away with it.

"When I make arrangements, my lad, they're not made for upsetting".

Alice and Vickey also tend to answer back to men, but not as much as Maggie does.

Ada Figgins, who plays Willie Mossop’s fiancée, is just another women that doesn’t agree in being put on the earth for domestic duties. She shows this when she has an argument with Maggie, over marrying Willie.

"Will Mossop, I'm telling you, you'll come home tonight to a thick ear".

Of course, there is Hobson on the other hand that disagrees with the ‘uppishness’ and ‘bumptiousness’, as he would say, that he has noticed towards him.

Hobson is sexist, an alcoholic, a hypocrite, and rather stubborn. Even though he owns the shop, he doesn’t actually work there. Because of his wife's death, he was left to bring up his three girls, and supposedly, when they were old enough, they were the ones who actually ran the shop, cooked, cleaned, and obeyed Hobson's orders. Hobson didn’t even pay them. All he paid for, regarding his daughters, was ten pounds each, a year, for them to wear reasonable clothes. Really at this point, he was considering the impression this gives his business, after all, he wasn’t going to receive much business if his workers didn’t look presentable.

"I pay Mr Tudsbury, the draper, ten pounds a year a head to dress you proper. It pleases the eye and it's good for trade".

Class was quite important at that day in age. In those days, it was right for you to marry somebody from ones own class. Men from the upper class would marry women that were also from the upper class, and so on. This affects Hobson’s decision on Maggie wanting to marry Willie. As a lower class person, Willie Mossop, a boot maker in the shop, is devoted to his job, and would do anything to get money. Therefore it wasn't right for Maggie to marry Willie, because he was in a lower class, and Maggie was in the middle class. Nevertheless, it didn't change Maggie's mind. Hobson states:

"Why, lass, his father was a workhouse brat, a come by chance".

Love, in the play, relates to the conventions of marriage, money, and the law. One can tell that Maggie wasn’t in love with Willie, and just liked him for his ability and enthusiasm towards his work. This makes one think that she is only interested in the money it might bring to either Hobson, or maybe even her own business. The first time she approached Willie to, supposedly, tell him how she felt, happened just after Mrs Hepworth, a high class customer, had praised him for the boots he had made. Maggie had obviously realised that Willie and herself were the only two keeping the business on two legs, and she demands that he marry her.

"My brains and your hands 'ull make a working partnership".

"You're going to wed me, Will".

Willie was a bit concerned and shocked to say the least, but what Maggie didn't know was that Willie was already tokened, engaged, to Ada Figgins. When she did find out, she wasn’t really bothered, and she instructed him to get loose of her, because she was going to marry him.

"You'll get loose, and quick".

Traditionally, marriage rituals include courting; the man asking the women to marry him, and giving her an engagement ring. They then get married by exchanging rings, in a church, they have a reception, and go on a honeymoon. These rituals are never even considered when Maggie proposed to Willie, or I should say demanded for him to marry her.

On Maggie and Willie’s wedding day, Maggie went to visit the shop, just after she had walked out to set up a business with Willie. She told her sisters that they should be at the wedding that afternoon. Whilst she was there, she bought herself a brass ring, for her wedding.

The law takes a role in the play, when Maggie finds out that her father had fallen down a trap door, drunk, and hadn’t woken up. She sets up a plot to trick Hobson, when he eventually awoke. The plan was to send him a letter suing him for trespassing, and damages, when really the money was to go to Alice and Vickey’s wedding portions. They all knew that their father had already made up his mind on not letting any of his daughters get married. He had, at one time, said that he himself, would find temperance young men for just Alice and Vickey. Maggie was considered to be too old for marrying. But Hobson changed his mind, informing them that it would cost too much money.

The plan had worked, and Hobson came running to Maggie for advice.

"Maggie, I’m in disgrace. A sore and sad misfortunes fallen on me".

He works out that he will be put in all the local papers, and he will lose all of his customers. After a lengthy chat with Maggie, and advice from her new husband, he agrees to pay the five hundred pounds for what he has done.

Hobson only realises he had been tricked, when Alice, Vickey, and their boyfriends, Albert and Freddie, entered from the back room, where they had been hiding. They had ran in there after spending time eating the wedding cake. Hobson is quite angry.

"I've been diddled, it's a plant".

Maggie explains the whole thing, reminding him that he has just agreed to pay five hundred pounds, which will really be split in two, for Alice and Vickey's weddings.

I noticed in Hobson’s Choice, that people, like Willie, who start from the bottom of the hierarchy, can very easily rise to the top. Just as people from the top, like Hobson, can fall to the bottom. Willie started off working for Hobson as a boot maker in the shop. Gradually he, with the help of Maggie and Mrs Hepworth, began to develop his confidence, not only in his career, but in his education, and in speaking aloud. Since marrying Maggie, he had achieved in setting up a very successful business of his own, which then enabled him to pay back some money Mrs Hepworth had lent him to start it up. He also began to receive education off Maggie, and he stood up to Hobson, not like before when he just kept himself to himself, and obeyed orders.

On the other hand, Hobson had started off at the top, having his own business, and not having to worry about anything. It all began to fall apart when Maggie and Willie left, then his business began to fail, all his daughters then left and got married, and he was now suffering from alcoholism.

In the last act, Maggie and Willie move back to Hobson’s to look after him, and they agreed that Willie and Hobson should work as a partnership. The new name of the shop would be ‘Mossop and Hobson’. They would refurbish the shop, and get all the high class customers back again, letting the shop run like it used to.

I think Harold Brighouse wanted us to learn the value of money, that it doesn't matter about which class in society different people are in(‘little acorns can grow into big Oaks’).

Sometimes when one knows they have plenty of money, it can go to their head, and they think that they don't have to work again, because they can easily get somebody to do it for them. What people don't consider, is that if one doesn't treat another with respect, people end up losing all the money they had. No matter what class people are, others should treat them all the same, because someday, they might be working for them.

I think he believes in equality for men and women, because he makes the audience assume that Maggie is some sort of hero. This is known as ‘The Prime Mover’!!

At the time Brighouse was writing the book, class was very important, as I said before. One could only marry someone from the same class. If one looks at today’s marriages, they could see how much things can change over time. Now, there are different classes that mix together; different religions that marry; and mixed racial marriages.