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Essay about Maggie Hobson and Will in Tim Sheader's Hobson's Choice

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Maggie and Will in Hobson's Choice

Maggie and Will are two of the main characters in "Hobson's Choice".
Maggie works in her fathers shop for very little pay at all, as does
Will, who is a shoemaker for Hobson and is very good at his job.
Maggie married Will (being very dominant for a woman in those days) and they left Hobson's shop to start up a shoe business of their own because of the way Hobson exploits them. Will and Maggie eventually fall in love and Maggie manages to get her father to pay for her two sisters weddings and because of Hobson's drinking problem they decide to join business with Hobson so that Will can manage the shop and
Maggie can manage Hobson. The play is set in the Victorian times
(1880s).

Maggie
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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
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