Preview

Hobsona's Choice by Harold Brighouse: Play Analysis

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4159 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Hobsona's Choice by Harold Brighouse: Play Analysis
HOBSON’S CHOICE by Harold Brighouse

Harold Brighouse
He was born in Eccles, Lancashire in 1882 and died in 1958. His father worked in the Manchester cotton industry and his mother was a headmistress, so Harold came from a comfortable middle-class background. His mother hoped he would have an academic career, but after attending Manchester Grammar School, he left at 17 and went into the export side of the cotton business.

He worked hard at his career but his real passion was the Manchester theatres and music halls. When he moved to London at the age of 20 he became an avid theatre-goer and frequented the Court Theatre (renamed now as the Royal Court). The Court Theatre broke from the tradition of focussing a play around a well-known performer and the actual play rather than the personalities became the focus of attention. The Court Theatre became the centre of a revival in British Theatre and began the Repertory Movement.

Harold Brighouse married and returned to live in Manchester, however he frequently visited London and the theatre. After watching one bad performance he felt he could write better plays himself and embarked upon his writing career. He wrote many plays, eight novels and also wrote for the Manchester Guardian as a theatre critic.

Harold Brighouse wrote Hobson’s Choice in 1916 and this is the work that he is most remembered for and has remained a popular play.

Historical Context and Setting

The phrase ‘Hobson’s Choice’ originates from a seventeenth-century horse trader who lived in Cambridgeshire. Hobson advertised that his customers could have a ‘free choice’ of horse, but his customers had no choice at all and really ended up with the horse that was available at the time! Therefore ‘Hobson’s choice’ means that there is no choice at all.

Brighouse wrote Hobson’s Choice in 1916 but set the play in 1870. Society at the turn of the century was very different from our own, especially for women. At the time of writing the play women

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    One study at UC Berkley showed that in a game of Monopoly, in which a random player receives a larger sum of money to begin the game in comparison to their opponents, that over time, this player will begin to feel entitled to the money he or she started with. This same idea of entitlement is prevalent in the play, Glengarry Glen Ross. The play demonstrates how a competitive, unfair work environment skews the perspective of the workers by making the people who lose feel mad at the system and the winners feel entitled to their earnings.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    He was influenced to write and make plays due to his interest in them starting in childhood. He also influenced by his father who was also a newspaper editor. His wife was also an influence for him to create plays because she was a play director.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eisenhower vs. Truman

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Dwight David Ike Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890 in Denison, Texas. His parents were David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. He grew up in a poor family of 8 members including him. Since he was young he had had worked to get money for his studies and for his family. He still went to local public schools and high schools. When was going to enter to college, he decided to join the military to be able to get a free college education. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and then he…

    • 1687 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dwight David Eisenhower was born October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas in a house near the railroad tracks. Dwight David Eisenhower spent his youth in the small farm town of Abilene, Kansas. His father, David, worked as a mechanic in a local creamery. Ida, his Mennonite mother, opposed war and was a religious pacifist. As a boy he enjoyed hunting, fishing, football, and eagerly reading military history. Eisenhower was a mediocre student, he graduated 61st out 164. His fondness for cards, smoking, and pranks, along with his average grades earned him little respect from his teachers. After graduating West Point Eisenhower spent the following couple of years at one disappointing station after another. He started out as a second lieutenant at Fort…

    • 203 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Maurice White Essay

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages

    On December 9, 1941, Maurice was born in Memphis, Tennessee, a major city with a history, deep in the music industry. He lived in the South Memphis projects with his father Verdine, who was a doctor, his older brother, Verdine, and a friend of the family, Booker T. Jones. When he was a teenage boy, the family moved to the South Shore section on the South Side of Chicago. After Maurice graduated from high school, he attended Crane Junior College, and as his love of music grew, he went to the Chicago Conservatory of Music.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dwight D. Eisenhower was born In Denison, Texas as the 3rd of 7 children, all who were boys. He and his family later moves to Abilene, Kansas after his birth. His favorite subject in school was history and his heroes were military people like George Washington and Hannibal. Throughout his high school and college live he excelled in sports, particularly…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14th. His birth place was in Denison, Texas. His family didn’t stay there for long. Eventually, they moved to…

    • 2213 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Richard Nixon was born on January 19, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. He lived a normal life as a kid. His father owned a service station and a grocery. He also owned a lemon farm. His life later became very hard…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Peewee

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages

    William Bradford was born in 1590 in the small farming community of Austerfield, Yorkshire. His father William died when young Bradford was just one year old. He lived with his grandfather William, until his grandfather died when he was six.…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    <I>Folly- Any foolish and useless but expensive undertaking</I><br><br>The play Talley's Folly, in my opinion, is just that a folly. However the play would be better named "Wilson's Folly" for the writer, Lanford Wilson. I had several objections to this play being considered a classic. It was composed of nothing but petty details in dialogue. It also had no plot or any creative twists to it that would make a reader want to continue to read the play, and consisted of two surpassingly ordinary and one overly used setting.<br><br>The characters in Talley's Folly spend the entire play delving into their pasts and telling each other the most mundane details of their lives. Matt, the Jewish accountant, spends much time explaining the fact the he…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    David Lloyd George

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Born in January 17th 1863, Manchester, Lloyd George was raised by only his mother, as his father died of pneumonia when he was younger. Moving back to Wales, Caernarvonshire, and by the age of fourteen,…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tragedy is a genre which is used to represent the misfortune of characters. Shakespeare identifies several aspects of a tragedy and teaches humanity lessons about the consequences related to the hunger of lust and power. One tragic film is Match Point directed by Woody Allen in which the protagonist, Chris, experiences many aspects of tragedy. Match Point is a Shakespearean tragedy in which the desire of lust and power invokes Chris to make irrational decisions and commit immoral deeds which not only affects him morally but also influences the life of people around him.…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Play Analysis: Hamlet

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages

    1. In Hamlet the King has recently passed away and his brother Claudius has taken the throne and married the widowed Queen Gertrude. One night in Elsinore Castle in Denmark the King's ghost appears before the watchmen and then Horatio. Horatio and the watchmen bring Hamlet, the prince, son of the deceased king and Gertrude, the ghost reveals it is the spirit of the dead king. He tells his son that he was murdered by Claudius and bids him to take revenge upon his uncle. Hamlet plans to avenge his father and becomes depressed and irritated, appearing mad. Gertrude and Claudius look to discover the reason behind Hamlet's apparent madness and hire Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shakespear

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages

    One thing is for certain, when Shakespeare was found he was doing very well within the literary and theatrical community. It isn't known exactly when Shakespeare started writing, but records show that many of plays were being performed on London stages by 1592. He was doing well enough to receive hostility from Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wits. Greene's attack on Shakespeare is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare's career as a playwright in the theatre. By 1594 after the plague Shakespeare joined a new company called the "Lord Chamberlain's Men". Shakespeare himself worked as an actor and also served as a playwright for them, writing two plays a year. They performed at the Theatre in north London, which happened to be owned by James Burbage, the father of Richard Burbage the star actor in the…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    im the king

    • 1040 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737 is alleged to be a direct response to his activities.[2][4] The particular play that triggered the Licensing Act was The Golden Rump, but Fielding's satires had set the tone. Once the Licensing Act passed, political satire on the stage was virtually impossible, and playwrights whose works were staged were viewed as suspect. Fielding, therefore, retired from the theatre and resumed his career in law and, in order to support his wife Charlotte Cradock and two children, he became a barrister.[2][4]…

    • 1040 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics