The Little Foxes is about a southerner family having conflicts upon wealth. The main character is Regina Hubbard Giddens, who is very ambitious and strives for wealth. Her brothers Benjamin and Oscar want her to persuade her sick husband Horace Giddens, so that he invests to their project constructing a cotton mill. When he declined it, they make a plan of marrying Horace’s daughter, Alexandra and Oscar’s son, Leo. Refused, Leo steals Horace’s money from his bank account. He comes to know this, so he tries to change his will in favor of Alexandra. To make it worse, Benjamin and Oscar betray Regina. But while Horace changes that, he gets heart attack and Regina leaves him dying. She becomes rich by the heritage and 75% ownership in the cotton mill that is exchanged for shutting up her eyes at Leo’s theft. But her daughter, Alexandra drives away her and refuse to go to Chicago with her. She becomes wealthy as she wanted but completely lonely.
First time, I taught this play was a fable because the name included foxes. Actually it was kind of a metaphor indicates Regina Giddens and her two brother, Oscar and Ben. That is from the bible phrase “…catch the little foxes that ruin our vineyards. (Song of Songs 2:15)”. For the Song of Songs is written for Shulamite, the bride of King Solomon, our vineyards mean homes. The Giddens breaks into pieces at the end of this play because of greedy Regina and her brothers, so this metaphor sound plausible. Or the greed itself is traditionally translated into foxes as well.
The theme was quite stale. A family conflict upon property problem and the collapse is common upon lots of plays. But the character was interesting. Though the women were the main character, the common theme “greed” felt some differently. If the main character Regina was a man, her character wouldn’t be felt so that mean. And for the same reason, this play can be blamed. Through whole play, it was like a message is given that if women get wealthy, she cannot be happy or her family will be broken.
And I also reminded “Gone with The Wind” because the background was similar and the main characters are both female. And they have lots in common, like ambitious personality. The first edition publishing year of The Gone with Wind was 1936, three years earlier than this play, so it might be affected by this piece.
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