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Mean

One of the first things we hear about S.B. - in a conversation between Gar and Madge - is that even on Gar’s last day his father “got ten minutes overtime out of my hide”.

Considering it’s the evening before Gar emigrates to America - a distance which at the time often meant family members might never see each other again - this seems very mean on S.B.’s part.

It is contrasted with Madge, who gives up the savings she was going to use to “get my feet done on the fair day”.

The flashback to the scene where Kate and Gar discuss marriage confirms that S.B. pays Gar a very small wage, Kate herself says, “We could never live on that.”

Uncommunicative

The lack of dialogue between Gar and S.B. is a significant indicator of their relationship. Private’s continuous commentary means there is rarely silence on stage, but this hides the fact that there are frequent silences between Gar and S.B. or between S.B and Madge.

The very short sentences used by S.B. in his dialogue with the Canon - his one visitor in the evenings - show that even in his socialising he is a man of few words. Some of his lines are simply repetitions.

Finally, near the end of the play, Gar plucks up the courage to talk intimately to his father about a childhood memory of when S.B. took him on a blue boat.

Gar recalls S.B. being “happy” and even bursting into song. S.B. ignores these suggestions of love and happiness. He just argues about the colour of the boat, “I mind a brown one”, and he remembers a different song to Gar.

Right up until the closing scene S.B. fails to tell his son that he loves him or that he will miss him. The ambiguous ending means we never find out if he ever does.

Anxious

Despite not sharing his sadness and worry with Gar, S.B. isn’t as careful to hide from Madge his worry and concern about Gar leaving.

The fact that he is up in the middle of the night when Madge arrives home suggests he is not sleeping well, and that he may be anxious about the impending departure of his son.

His initial concerns to Madge are practical worries about the shop, which he tells himself will be okay because, “I’ll get one of Charley Bonner’s boys to do the van on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I’ll manage rightly?”

Yet he shows he is secretly devastated by his son's departure when he shares a memory with Madge of young Gar in a sailor suit.

Madge tells S.B. bluntly that Gar never wore such a thing. But S.B. insists and he can’t let go of the memory.

This conversation and one of his other final lines before he leaves the stage, “I was too old for her, Madge, eh?” suggest to the audience that S.B. thinks more about his failures as a husband and father than he may let on to others.

Predictable

Much of the comedy in the play comes from Private’s sarcastic commentary on the routine nature of S.B.’s mundane life.

Private predicts S.B.’s every move - when he’ll sit down, when he’ll “remove the hat”.

When the stage directions show that S.B. does indeed do these things immediately, Private congratulates him on being, “Perfectly trained; the most obedient father I ever had.”

Private also uses this sarcastic commentary to mock S.B.’s phatic speech. This happens when the stage directions describe Private as “hysterically” saying, “Isn’t he a riot? Oh my God, that father of yours just kills me!”

The comedy, of course, moves to a more serious tone as S.B.’s predictable small talk and repetitive speech continue to stop him from opening up and expressing his emotions as his son’s departure looms.