Chapter 5
in stanley horton who died last year the drama lost a talented and brave artist brave because he had the courage to touch one of the most sensitive spots of puritanism woman's virtue whatever else one may criticize or attack the sacredness of virtue must remain untouched it is the last fetish which even so-called liberal-minded people refuse to destroy to be sure the attitude toward this holy of holies has of late years undergone a considerable change it is beginning to be felt in ever-growing circles that love is its own justification requiring no sanction of either religion or law the revolutionary idea however that woman may even as man follow the urge of her nature has never before been so sincerely and radically expressed the message of hindle wakes is therefore of inestimable value inasmuch as it dispels the fog of the silly sentimentalism and disgusting bombast that declares woman a thing apart from nature one who neither does nor must crave the joys of life permissible to man
hindle is a small weaving town symbolically representing the wakefulness of every small community to the shortcomings of its neighbors christopher hawthorne and nathaniel jeffcote had begun life together as lads in the cotton-mill but while christopher was always a timid and shrinking boy nathaniel was aggressive and ambitious when the play opens christopher though an old man is still a poor weaver nathaniel on the contrary has reached the top of financial and social success he is the owner of the biggest mill is wealthy influential and withal a man of power for nathaniel jeffcote always loved power and social approval speaking of the motor he bought for his only son allan he tells his wife why did i buy a motor car not because i wanted to go motoring i hate it i bought it so that people could see allan driving about in it and say there's jeffcote's lad in his new car it costs five hundred quid however nathaniel is a square man and when facing an emergency not sherry with justice and always quick to decide in its favor the jephcats centre all their hope on allan their only child who is to inherit their fortune and business
allan is engaged to beatrice the lovely sweet daughter of sir timothy ferrer and all is joyous at the jephcots down in the valley of hindle live the hawthorns humble and content as behoves god-fearing workers they too have ambitions in behalf of their daughter fanny strong wilful and self-reliant quality is moulded in the hard grind of jephcots mill where she had begun work as a tot during the bank holiday fanny with her chum mary goes to a neighboring town for an outing there they meet two young men allan jeffcote and his friend fanny departs with allan and they spend a glorious time together on the way home mary is drowned as a result of the accident the hawthorns learn that their daughter had not spent her vacation with mary when fanny returns they question her and though she at first refuses to give an account of herself they soon discover that the girl had passed the time with a man young allan
her parents are naturally horrified and decide to force the juffcots to have allan marry fanny in the old mother of fanny the author has succeeded in giving a most splendid characterization of the born drudge hardened by her long struggle with poverty and grown shrewd in the ways of the world she knows her daughter so little however that she believes fanny had schemed the affair with allen in the hope that she might force him to marry her in her imagination the old woman already sees fanny as the mistress of the jephcote estate she persuades her husband to go immediately to the jephcotes and though it is very late at night the old man is forced to start out on his disagreeable errand jephcote a man of integrity is much shocked at the news brought to him by old hawthorne nevertheless he will not countenance the wrong i'll see you're treated right gee i can't ask for more than that i'll see you're treated right young allan had never known responsibility why should he with so much wealth awaiting him when confronted by his father and told that he must marry fanny he fights hard against it
it may be said in justice to allan that he really loves his betrothed beatrice though such a circumstance has never deterred the allans from having a lark with another girl the young man resents his father's command to marry the mill girl but when even beatrice insists that he belongs to fanny allan unwillingly consents beatrice a devout christian believes in renunciation for i do need you alan so much that nothing on earth could make me break off our engagement if i felt that it was at all possible to let it go on but it isn't it's impossible and you want me to marry fanny yes oh alan can't you see what a splendid sacrifice you have it in your power to make not only to do the right thing but to give up so much in order to do it the jephcots and the hawthorns gather to arrange the marriage of their children it does not occur to them to consult fanny in the matter much to their consternation fanny refuses to abide by the decision of the family council
it's very good of you you'll hire the parson and get the license and make all the arrangements on your own without consulting me and i shall have nothing to do save turn up meek as a lamb at the church or registry office or whatever it is that's just where you make the mistake i don't want to marry alan i mean what i say and i'll trouble you to talk to me without swearing at me i'm not one of the family yet the dismayed parents and even alan plead with her and threaten but fanny is obdurate at last alan asks to be left alone with her confident that he can persuade the girl look here fanny what's all this nonsense about why won't you marry me you can't understand a girl not jumping at you when she gets the chance can you how is it you aren't going to marry beatrice farrer weren't you fond of her very i gave her up because my father made me major good lord a chap of your age my father's a man who will have his own way he can keep me short of brass earn some brass ay i can earn some brass but it'll mean hard work and it'll take time and after all i shan't earn anything like what i get now
then all you want to wed me for is what you'll get with me i'm to be given away with a pound o tea as it were i know why you won't marry me you're doing it for my sake don't you kid yourself my lad it isn't because i'm afraid of spoiling your life the time refusing you but because i'm afraid of spoiling mine that didn't occur to you look here fanny i promise you i'll treat you fair all the time you don't need to fear that folk'll look down on you we shall have too much money for that i can manage all right on twenty-five bob a week i'm going to fall between two stools it's all up with beatrice of course and if you won't have me i shall have parted from her to no purpose besides getting kicked out of the house by my father more than likely you said you were fond of me once but it hasn't taken you long to alter all women aren't built alike beatrice is religious she'll be sorry for you i was fond of you in a way but you didn't ever really love me love you good heavens of course not why on earth should i love you you were just someone to have a bit of fun with you were an amusement a lark how much more did you care for me but it's not the same i'm a man you're a man and i was your little fancy well i'm a woman and you were my little fancy you wouldn't prevent a woman enjoying herself as well as a man if she takes it into her head
but you mean to say that you didn't care any more for me than a fellow cares for any girl he happens to pick up yes are you shocked it's a bit thick it is really you're a beauty to talk it sounds so jolly immoral i never thought of a girl looking on a chap just like that i made sure you wanted to marry me if you got the chance no fear you're not good enough for me the chap fanny hawthorne weds has got to be made of different stuff from you my lad my husband if ever i have one will be a man not a fellow who'll throw over his girl at his father's bidding strikes me the sons of these rich manufactures are all much alike they seem a bit weak in the upper story it's their father's brass that's too much for them appen you've no call to be afraid i'm not going to disgrace you but so long as i've to live my own life i don't see why i shouldn't choose what it's to be Unheard of, is it not, that a Fanny should refuse to be made a good woman,
and that she should dare demand the right to live in her own way? It has always been considered the most wonderful event in the life of a girl if a young man of wealth, of position, of station, came into her life and said, I will take you as my wife until death do us part. But a new type of girlhood is in the making.
we are developing the fannies who learn in the school of life the hardest the cruelest and at the same time the most vital and instructive school why should fanny marry a young man in order to become good any more than he should marry her in order to become good is it not because we have gone on for centuries believing that a woman's value her integrity and position in society centre about her sex and consist only in her virtue and that all other usefulness weighs not in the balance against her purity if she dare express her sex as the fannies do we deny her individual and social worth and stamp her fallen the past of a man is never questioned no one inquires how many fannies have been in his life yet man has the impudence to expect the fannies to abstain till he is ready to bestow on them his name hindle wakes is a much needed and important social lesson not because it necessarily involves the idea that every girl must have sex experience before she meets the man she loves but rather that she has the right to satisfy if she so chooses her emotional and sex demands like any other need of her mind and body
become conscious of that right the relation of the sexes will lose the shallow romanticism and artificial exaggeration that mystery has surrounded it with and assume a wholesome natural and therefore healthy and normal expression end of the english drama stanley horton hindle wakes by emma goldman read by katherine etman
