NON-AFRICAN DRAMA Oliver Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer Compare the relationship between Tony and Constance with that between Young Marlow and Kate ?

Answer Details

Oliver Goldsmith presents two courtships that run side by side in She Stoops to Conquer, and the humour of the play partly depends on how differently the two couples pursue love.

Tony Lumpkin and Constance Neville

• Theirs is a false, unwilling match. Mrs Hardcastle schemes to marry Constance to her son Tony so that the family jewels stay in the household, but neither party desires the other.
• Tony openly detests the arrangement. He calls Constance a bitter draught and would rather spend his time at the Three Pigeons alehouse than court her.
• Constance loves Hastings, not Tony, and only pretends affection to deceive Mrs Hardcastle and secure her inheritance.
• Tony and Constance therefore become co-conspirators rather than lovers. Tony helps Constance by stealing the jewels and by driving his mother round in circles in the dark, all to free himself and unite Constance with Hastings.

Young Marlow and Kate Hardcastle

• Theirs is a genuine match built on real, though comically delayed, attraction. Marlow is the intended suitor Kate's father approves.
• Marlow suffers a strange affliction: he is bold and free with barmaids and low women but tongue-tied and bashful before refined ladies. Kate must therefore stoop, disguising herself as a barmaid, to draw out his true feelings.
• Their relationship deepens through this device until Marlow falls sincerely in love with the supposed servant, only to discover she is the lady he was too shy to address.

Comparison

• Both relationships are shaped by pretence, but the purposes differ. Tony and Constance pretend to escape a marriage; Marlow and Kate use pretence to build one.
• The Tony-Constance bond is one of alliance and mutual convenience, warm in friendship but empty of romance. The Marlow-Kate bond grows into true love.
• Both couples end happily: Tony, on learning he is of age, refuses Constance and frees her for Hastings, while Marlow and Kate are united with the blessing of Mr Hardcastle.

Thus Goldsmith balances a comic anti-romance against a genuine romance, using both to satirise the artificial manners and mercenary matchmaking of his age.