Character Sketches Barthwick: Barthwick, the father of Jack in The Silver Box is a hypocrite.

. He belongs to the Liberal Party and is a member of Parliament. He uses slogans expressing his sympathy for the poor and the downtrodden but backs out when he has to act. He is very keen on safeguarding the honour of his family. He is shocked to find that his son Jack has an illicit relationship with a disreputable woman, and also stolen her purse containing a little more than seven pounds. When the woman threatens to take action if the money is not restored to her, Barthwick gives her eight pounds which is much more than what his son owes her. This gesture is due not to any feeling of generousity but to his wish to silence the woman and prevent her from spoiling the name of his family. After she leaves, he condemns his son for his irresponsible behaviour. He calls him a nuisance to the community. But Jack faces his father coolly. He says that there is no love lost between them and that he has given money to the woman only for maintaining the honour of his family. Because of his wifes pressure, the theft of the silver box is reported to the police who promptly arrest Jones. Jones threatens to expose Jacks clandestine relationship with the disreputable woman. This once again upsets Barthwick. He requests the solicitor to help him out of this crisis. He pretends to be sympathetic to the Joneses and is prepared to withdraw the case against them. But the case has reached an advanced stage and the proceedings cannot be stopped. So he instructs the solicitor to hush up the affair of Jacks stealing his mistresss purse. Barthwick is relieved only when Roper agrees to help him. In the course, Barthwick eye-witnesses the suffering of the Livens children. He proposes to tale up the cudgets in faovour of orphaned children in the House. But he walks out of the court unconcerned when Mrs.Jones appeals to him to help her protect her children. Thus his profession of love for the poor is shown to be insincere. b) Mrs.Barthwick: Mrs.Barthwick is similar to her husband in certain respects and dissimilar in certain other respects. Like her husband, she is harsh towards servants. She complaints that servants are no longer loyal but conspire against their masters. She speaks with

concern of how her friend, Lady Holyroods maidservant, defied her in spite of her open flirtation with a man and demanded a months wages in lieu of notice. Mrs.Barthwick is very conservative in the matter of man-woman relationship. She is alarmed to learn that her maid Mrs.Jones had an illicit affair with her husband even before marrying him. She pressurizes Roper to expose the Joneses sexual aberration in the court. Roper coolly rejects her suggestion saying that it is irrelevant to the case and that even the magistrate might have had such an affair. Though severely condemning the lapses of others. Mrs.Barthwick is kind to her son Jack despite his misconduct. She pets him and lovingly enquires about his headache, even after coming to know about his liaison with a low woman. Mrs.Barthwick has a touch of humanity of which her husband is devoid. She hears the sound of Joness little son crying for his mother and is moved to tears. She asks her husband to withdraw the case against the Jones but he declines, saying that it is out of his hands. There is no love lost between the Barthwicks. After Roper leaves, they swear at each other. Barthwick says that his wife has not the imagination even of a fly. Mrs.Barthwick retorts against him by saying that he is a coward and that his expression of sympathy for the poor is a mere pose. c) Jack: Jack, son of the Barthwicks, is irresponsible rogue. He does not do any work to support himself. He has been educated at Oxford but does not seem to have acquired any skill. He is utterly dependent on his father. Even his tailoring expenses are met by his father. He gives a cheque to the tailor without enough money in his account. He contracts an illicit relationship with a disreputable woman. He knows the woman is too poor to pay rent for her house and yet steals her money. To justify his action, he says that he took her money merely to score her off. When she comes to his house to recover the money, he first tries to shake her off by saying that he does not know her. Barthwick is worried about the need to safeguard the reputation of his family. Though he is the only child of the family, Jack does not realize it is his responsibility to protect his family. In the court, he does what he has been briefed to do by the solicitor Roper. He says that he has never seen Jones. He denies having admitted Jones into his room and

encouraged him to drink whisky. He suppresses the truth about his affair with an unknown lady. Instead of admitting the truth that he spent the night with his mistress he says that he spent the time in the theatre and having drunk champagne excessively. Leaving the latchkey in the door, he fell asleep on the sofa. Jones or his wife might have taken the things. He does not specify what the things are, for fear that it would lead him to admit his having stolen his mistresss purse. While giving evidence, he hesitates sometimes, which indicates that his conscience is still alive. But though he feels uneasy to reel off lies, he never confesses the truth. When the trial is over and Jones is led to prison, Jack feels immensely relieved and walks out of the court with a triumphant air. There are similarities and dissimilarities between Jack and Jones. Both get drunk though for different reasons. Jacks drinking is probably due to his sexual frustration; but Jones is due to his not getting a job and inability to support his wife and children. Jones is fiercely attached to his family. When the police insist on arresting Mrs. Jones and taking her away, he assaults the police in a heroic effort to free her. For her sake, he courts arrest. He wants to go to Canada to earn enough money to protect his children. Jack has no such attachment to his family. He laughs at his fathers efforts to prop up the honour of the family. Certainly, Jones is nobler than Jack. d) Jones Jones represents the lower strata of society. Galsworthy deliberately avoids presenting him as model to be followed. In fact, he loads with most revolting vices. He is presented as an incorrigible drunkard, beating his wife and even suspecting her fidelity. He drives her out of home late in the night and then follows her to find out if she has any lovers running after her. Joness drinking, which is the most cause of all his vices, is due to his not getting a job in spite of his ceaseless search. He is disgusted not only with rich employers who look at him most scornfully but also with trade unionists who arrange rallies and demonstrations of hordes of unemployed men and women only to get money out of them. He says that he would rather starve than search any more for a job. Does Jones love his wife and children? Mrs. Jones accuses him of being unconcerned about the welfare of the family. She particularly charges that he has a mistress and spends all he earns on her. When the police arrest her and prepare to take her

away, he admits that it was he who stole the silver box. What is more, he assaults the police to prevent them from taking his wife away. Had he been loveless, he would have remained silent, leaving his wife to suffer. In the court, he asserts violently that he would beat the police again if they laid hands on his wife again. He says that any manly man would do only this. It is this violent behaviour that leads the magistrate to conclude that he is mentally disordered and sentences him to imprisonment. The arguments put forward by Jones in self-defence in the court are not acceptable to the magistrate. It requires a high degree of imagination and sensitivity to see eye to eye with Jones. The magistrate deadened by over exposure to cases of criminals self-defence cannot be expected to understand Joness subtle arguments. Joness first argument is that he took the silver box when he was in a drunken state and that one is not responsible for what is done in a drunken state. The magistrates counter-argument is that if this trend continues unchecked one would deliberately get drunk and commit a crime afterwards and escape punishment. Joness second argument is that he did not steal the box but merely took it. This explanation irritates the magistrate most. He says sarcastically that taking away the thing that does not belong to one is called stealing. Joness last argument is that Jack is also a drunkard and a womanizer; he also has stolen a poor womans purse but has escaped scot-free thanks to his fathers affluence, whereas his (Joness) crimes are magnified and nobody understands that the society which did not give him a job is primarily responsible for his crimes. The magistrate, influenced by the solicitor Roper, turns a deaf ear to Joness plea. Jones is sentenced to a months rigorous imprisonment. What will happen to him after release from prison? This theme is taken up by Galsworthy in his play Justice which shows a man released from prison not getting a job and finally committing suicide. e) Mrs .Jones Mrs. Jones is described by Jones as a very meek woman who does not have the spirit even of a louse. She is ill-treated by her husband who goes to the extent of suspecting her fidelity. Yet, she does not break with him. She is advised by a maidservant to divorce her husband but she never thinks along these lines. She is the only person in the play who traces effects to causes. She says that her husband drinks because he is employed and commits crimes because he is in a drunken state.

Mrs. Jones is deeply attached to her children. It is most painful to see her working as a charwoman in different houses to support her three children. She talks to the magistrate about her children, he says that this is an irrelevant matter and she meekly agrees with him. At the end of the play also she does not do anything violent to protest against her husbands imprisonment. The magistrate acquits her alone. She knows how difficult it is to get a job. She makes a worthless appeal to Barthwick to help her but he makes a gesture of refusal and walks out of the court. What will be the fate of Mrs.Jones and her children? The trail of the Livens at the beginning of the third Act presents a clue to the future. Like Mrs.Livens, Mrs.Jones may also throw morality to the winds and become a street-walker and her children may be taken to a public house. Lady Holyroods aggressive maid-servant serves as a foil to the meek and submissive Mrs. Jones. When Hollywood brands her maid as immoral and tries to dismiss her, she defies Holyrood and tries to establish that she has not done anything wrong. What is more, she demands a months wages in lieu of notice. Through juxtaposition of the two maidservants, Galsworthy probably suggests that only women like Holyroods maid can survive and soft-natured women like Mrs. Jones will be trampled underfoot. *******