It’s curious how Jopson has absorbed all the virtues that, in the eyes of the upper classes, “good examples” from the lower classes are supposed to have: obedience, patience, workaholism. And of course, the officers reward him for these positive qualities, it’s practically a didactic moment. And Hickey, naturally, represents the negative example of a man from the lower classes. Although it seems to me that everything for which he is punished and put in his place by the system, all of that, among his own people, in his own environment, are actually positive qualities: practicality, initiative, ambition and audacity. Even his cunning, in a way, earns a certain respect. And for all of this, he too ends up being rewarded, in his own way.


















