The Shoemaker’s Holiday is a comedy filled with sexual humor but there are much deeper meanings behind the bawdy jokes. Dekker’s play is a citizen’s comedy and it clearly and explicitly represents the voice of the upward rising class of the craftsmen.
Simon Eyre and also Roger Oatley are successful working class men who, by acquiring positions in city government got additional respect and also political power above their financial strength. What they also represent is a strong criticism toward the aristocrats. They are conscious representatives of their own class who have disdain toward courtiers. In Scene 1 Oatley doesn’t want Lacy for his son in law. To have one’s daughter marry with an aristocrat should be desirable, but for him to have a husband for his daughter from his own class is much more important. Eyre further reinforces this opinion in his advice to Rose in Scene 11 about who should she marry to. His advice to the fellow craftsman’s daughter furthermore has a universal, ever valid connotation: don’t judge a person by his external appearance. People can be well dressed but have nothing in the inside.
Juxtaposing Lacy’s and Ralph’s situation in Scene 1 is also a great example for this aforementioned additional meaning behind the explicit sexual humor. Both young men have to go to the war in France. Lacy as a courtier appointed by the king to be the chief colonel of the London’s company sent to the war. Ralph as a shoemaker was drafted as a soldier. Lacy deserts the army because he is in love with Rose and doesn’t want to leave her. In a romantic play this would represent the greatness of love, that can go beyond any boundaries. But Dekker’s play is not like that. There is Ralph’s figure in the other corner. He is a young husband deeply in love with his wife and not just a guy who having a secret affair with someone. Eyre and his men are trying to persuade the captains (who are – so brilliantly written – Lacy and his cousin) not to take him to France, but poor Ralph never says a word. He arrived with gun and gunpowder, ready for the battle. Deserting the army was never in the mind of the young craftsman.
There is so much more in this sort scene. Yes, it is filled with bawdy jokes that are the trademarks of Firk’s character and are there to make the comedy more enjoyable (or more offensive for others). But among these it is showing how virtuous is the working class and how prone to vice are the aristocrats. There is the master who is willing to suffer financial loss just to save his worker, there is the young craftsman who is ready to go to war, and on the other side there is Lacy, the aristocrat showing his true character. I believe that Lacy had the power to discharge Ralph, yet he does nothing. Even if he really couldn’t do anything, he is a true hypocrite. A man presented to him in a really similar situation as himself; nevertheless he cares nothing about him. He is already made his decision to desert the army for her love but he is telling Jane that his husband must go because his country needs him.
This is a very strong comment, Zsolt. Does everyone else feel that Lacy is so disreputable? Here is an area where the stage portrayal of the character would be able to sway audience opinions.