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Description edit
Picture a charming home in the South. Into this peaceful scene put the prosperous, despotic Hubbard family—Ben, possessive and scheming; Oscar, cruel and arrogant; Ben's dupe, Leo, weak and unprincipled; Regina wickedly clever—each trying to outwit the other. In contrast, meet lonely... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
from Answers.com...
Act One
The Little Foxes takes place in the living room of the Giddens house, in a small town in the deep South in 1900. At curtain rise, the black maid Addie is tidying up and Cal, the black porter, is setting out a bottle of the best port. Birdie Hubbard, a... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters edit
- Addie: Addie is the Hubbards’s black maid and Alexandra Hubbard’s nanny; she has a keen sense of justice and she tries to protect Alexandra from the rapacity of the Hubbard family. She considers Ben, Oscar, Regina, and Leo a scourge on humanity, “eaters of the earth,” and she scorns those who are too feeble or too uncommitted to stand up to them. She herself lacks the social status to fight them effectively. Her comments serve as a moral compass for the audience. Appearance-wise, she is a tall, nice-looking women of about 55.
- Cal: Cal is a slightly bumbling and mild-mannered, middle-aged black servant who very indirectly protests Oscar’s monopolization of the area’s hunting rights by offhandedly mentioning how his friends would “give anything for a little piece of that meat.”
- Birdie Hubbard: Birdie Hubbard is a timid, well-bred, nervous and flighty woman of about 40 abused and completely dominated by her bullying husband Oscar. She once innocently enjoyed coming-out parties at her parents’ plantation, Lionnet, but now she has not had a day of happiness in twenty-two years. A weak woman, she has not prevented her son Leo from becoming even worse than his father, and she drowns her misery in a “secret” drinking habit that the family cloaks under the euphemism of “her headaches.” Her only salvation is music and her relationship with her niece, who, she hopes, will avoid her fate.
- Oscar Hubbard: (late 40's) Oscar Hubbard is the sharp-tempered, mean-spirited brother of Regina and Ben who kowtows to his older and more powerful brother, bullies his wife Birdie, and goes hunting daily, only to throw out the precious game he kills, despite the fact that the Negroes do not get enough food and could really use the meat. He is clever enough to develop a scheme to steal Horace’s money but he slavishly hands it over to Ben without realizing that Ben will not let himself be implicated. Although he presumably wants to make millions for his son’s sake, he and Ben let Leo take the blame when the theft is discovered. He treats his cultivated wife, Birdie, with disdain, having married her solely to help Ben take over her family’s cotton plantation. He advises his son: “It’s every man’s duty to think of himself.”
- Leo Hubbard: Leo is the 20-yaer-old son of Birdie and Oscar Hubbard. He works at the bank but often skips work out of laziness. He has a sort of the greed and deceitfulness of his father and none of his mother’s cultural refinement, but having “a weak kind of good looks.” His own mother detests him. His father wants him to marry Alexandra (even though they are first cousins), although Leo expresses no particular interest. He foolishly reveals to his father that he has taken an illicit look into his uncle Horace’s safe deposit box and tries to blame it on others, but his intimate knowledge of the box’s contents and the whereabouts of the keys give away his culpability. Ben can barely conceal his contempt for Leo and makes him take the full blame for the theft when it is discovered. Leo is apparently too stupid to save himself.
- Regina Giddens: Regina Giddens (40) , born Regina Hubbard, handsome sister to Ben and Oscar, wife to Horace, and mother of Alexandra, is the central character in The Little Foxes.Regina’s flirtation with Mr. Marshall is done as much to seal a business deal as it is to secure a stepping stone into the high society of Chicago she wants to join. She is sexually cold, having scornfully banned her husband from her bed for the last ten years. Money and power are her loves, and she goes to extreme methods to get it.
- William Marshall: William Marshall, a 45-year-old, self-possessed Chicago businessman, wants to invest in the industrialization of the New South by building a cotton mill but needs local partners to manage the mill and keep the workers in hand. Although married, he flirts openly with Regina during the one scene in which he appears.
- Benjamin "Ben" Hubbard: Ben Hubbard, 55-year-old brother to Regina and Oscar, is the soft-spoken but callous ringleader of the Hubbard family and one of the predatory capitalists of the New South. Unmarried, he shows no interest in human relations beyond the use he makes of them to achieve financial domination of the “small unnamed town in the south” where he was born. He has built his local empire by cheating and overcharging black customers in his drygoods store and he can guarantee Chicago investor Mr. Marshall low wages and no strikes in their new cotton mill because he knows how to play his workers against each other. Ben vies for power with the cool precision of a chess player who holds grudging respect and good-humor for his primary opponent, Regina.
- Alexandra "Zan" Giddens: Seventeen-year-old Alexandra Giddens, or Zan, adores her father Horace Giddens and her Aunt Birdie but mistrusts her mother Regina. Addie has protected Zan from her family, allowing youthful idealism to carry Zan along, but Horace wants her to “learn to hate and fear” — the Hubbard way of life — so that she will get away from them.
- Horace Guldens: Horace is a tall man of about 45. He has been good-looking but is now very sick and walks with difficulty or rides a wheelchair; husband of Regina; has stayed at a hospital in Baltimore for five months; disproves of Oscar and Ben's investment plans and stalls lending them the 75 thousand dollars they need.
Setting & Locations edit
- Act I: The living-room of the Giddens house, a small town in the deep South, the spring of 1900. Upstage is a staircase leading to the second story. U.R. are double doors to the dining-room. When these doors are open we see a section of the dining room and the furniture. U.L. is an entreance hall with a coat-rack and umbrella stand. There are large lace-curtained windows on the L. wall. The room is lit by a center gas chandelier and painted china oil lamps on the tables. Against the wall is a large piano. D.R. is a high couch, a large table, several chairs. Near the window there is a smaller couch and tables. The room is good-looking, the furniture expensice, but it reflects no particular taste. Everything is of the best, and that is all.
- Act II: Same as Act I. A week later, morning. AT RISE: The light comes from the open shutter of R. window, the other shutters are tightly closed. ADDIE is standing at window, looking out. Near dining-room doors are brooms, mops, rags, etc.
- Act III: Same as Act I. Two weeks later. It is late afternoon and it is raining. AT RISE: Horace is sitting near the window in a wheel chair. On the table next to him is a safe deposit box, and one small bottle of medicine and spoon. On the chair R. of table U. C. is a large sewing basket.
First Sentence edit
ADDIE: (Pointing to bottle.) You gone stark out of your head?
Table of Contents edit
Three acts
Glossary edit
Series & Lists edit
This is book 1 of 3 in The Little Foxes. (standard series)
Followed by Another Part of the Forest.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Lillian Hellman (Author)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3515.E343 L5 1939a
- Dewey: 812/.52
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
Links to Supplemental Material edit
- The Little Foxes Wikipedia Page
- Answers.com: The Little Foxes: An excellent page about the book. Includes character overviews, a plot summary, themes, symbolism, historical context, more about the author, and more!
Movie Connections edit
- The Little Foxes (IMDb): 1941 film based on the play; screenplay by Lillian Hellman
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