The story is adapted from the ballad, George Barnwell, but the plot has been modified to strengthen its connection to the urban lower classes. The focus of the story is an apprentice, or member of the "makers class." These young men were not taught the skills of the master, and many turned to a life of crime to support themselves. However, the master in this play, Thorowgood, is not only fair and kind to his apprentices, he treats them with dignity and respect as well, and the apprentice is led to a life of crime through the actions of a talented seductress, Sarah Millwood. The London Merchant provided a tempered breakdown of a complicated social issue and simplified it into a parable about personal loyalty and sexual appetite, making it easy for the masses to identify with the characters.[14]
Due to Lillo's use of extended prose and long speeches in praise of the merchant class, as well as the "melodramatic" plot elements, there is a great deal of prose and not a lot of substance given to the bulk of the characters, with the exception of Millwood and possibly Lucy.[15] However, the play was an oddity when it was published as well, being quite unlike anything published before or after it. The London Merchant marked the introduction of the bourgeois tragedy. Where tragedies had previously been reserved for the nobility, Lillo brought the concept to the everyman character and further complicated his idea by including the situation of acquisition through exchange, rather than through conquest.[15] The idea of exchange ties heavily to the pro-merchant/ master theme of the play, as Thorowgood is a merchant and a good master. The play also provides a portrait of the model apprentice in the character of Trueman, who is juxtaposed with George Barnwell in an effort to demonstrate proper apprentice behavior as well as warn the many apprentices who were expected to be in attendance of the dangers of disobeying their masters.
The theater commonly gave plays produced especially for the apprentice audience on selected days throughout the year. These plays generally contained an apprentice character that represented the audience and was constructed as someone with whom they could identify.[16] In the case of The London Merchant, there were two such characters, George Barnwell and Trueman. Lillo presented these two as the dichotomy of the apprentice class. The one, Trueman, was a model apprentice, as evidenced by his name, and George Barnwell was presented as the apprentice led astray by the wiles of women, serving as a warning to apprentices everywhere that even a small act of disobedience, breaking the master's curfew, could lead to the unthinkable, murder. The fact that apprentices were encouraged to attend these plays was frowned upon by larger society as they felt that apprentices would abandon their businesses in pursuit of entertainment and would learn unacceptable behavior from the characters in the plays.[16] However, in truth, plays like The London Merchant were for the edification of the masters and the merchant class and sought to demonstrate "model behavior" to the apprentices, although the idea that apprentices were truly sneaking away from their posts en masse and enjoying other interests to the detriment of business is questionable.[16]
The London Merchant originally closed with a gallows scene that Lillo was encouraged by his associates to cut from the production of the play. The scene was a reflection of the high number of public executions taking place at the time. During the eighteenth century, six times a year, the government would execute a large number of people at Tyburn for the crime of theft. This practice was especially prevalent during the 1720s. These hangings disproportionately featured people belonging to the poor, lower class, many of whom were former apprentices. There were a number of scuffles during these executions between government representatives and the public as they tried to prevent both the hangings as well as the removal of the bodies.[17] There are a number of theories regarding the removal of this scene. Among them are the fact that the bourgeoisie did not wish to expose the brutality that was primarily the result of a class pushed to thievery because of the treatment they received from the upper class. It was also a very literal interpretation of the harsh discipline of the day which many of these apprentices had witnessed firsthand. Another theory is simply that the scene would have been too "entertaining" for the ideas that it attempted to portray to come across properly.[16] Although published with some versions of the play, this scene was not staged in a production of The London Merchant until the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds's 2010 production in-the-round.[18]
Polly Fields' work examines The London Merchant through the lens of the economic theories of the time and those that Lillo was known to subscribe to. The play focuses on the effects that capitalism has had on people who are its victims through no fault of their own, but through accidents of birth and gender. One of, if not the only character that Lillo truly expands is Millwood, a woman who uses her body and her wits to convince George Barnwell to steal and even kill to supply her with money. Barnwell is shown to be Millwood's victim, but in the larger picture of the society he presents, Lillo shows Millwood to be the victim of capitalism. She is the embodiment of agency in the play as her actions cause the plot to move forward and also expand Lillo's economic critiques in the play. Lillo's background as a jeweler gave him a unique perspective on the economy as he was a solid member of the bourgeois class and an avid participant in capitalism.
Millwood rebels against the hierarchy of women in society as well as women in business. Her rebellion continues to death, as the last scene in which she appears in the regular text is a scathing criticism of the hierarchy and hypocritical nature of men and the economy. In the gallows scene that was removed for most productions, a repentant George Barnwell urges Millwood to change her ways, to which she replies that she "was doomed before the world began to endless pains and (Barnwell) to joys eternal".[15] In Lillo's world of trade, Millwood's commodity is her body; however, she refuses to be "victimized as a woman and a whore."[17] Therefore, Millwood is a more compelling candidate to wear the title of The London Merchant, than even Thorowgood, the ostensibly eponymous merchant. This is reinforced with the opening scene in the play where Millwood entices George Barnwell, and Lucy, is standing nearby as an apprentice, quietly watching her master and learning the trade. Lucy also serves in much the manner of Trueman, to give the audience the character of the life that this successful merchant leads, filled with "fine linens and furniture", further solidifying her role as the merchant and the subversion of the economic order of the day that Lillo illustrates with her character. (Fields, 1999)
Lillo's work reinforces bourgeois values while changing the face of eighteenth-century theater with a tragedy of the middle class. The London Merchant outlines the primary case of the day: the plight of the apprentice. However, through the character of Millwood, he is able to expand his agenda to include the effects of capitalism on women in society as well. These ideas were the primary impetus behind the success of the play both during its time and as an important play to be examined by modern dramatists and economics alike.
