She Stoops to Conquer

The first Act of She Stoops to Conquer sets up the conflict between the younger and older generations, the impact of gender roles upon character agency, and establishes the tension between the public inn versus the private home as a location for interactions between social classes.

Through the conversation at the Hardcastle’s home, Goldsmith depicts the ways in which Kate Hardcastle, Constance Neville, and Tony Lumpkin are all rebelling against the expectations of their older relatives, introducing the theme of Conflict Between the Old and the New. While Tony awaits the day when he comes of age, gains access to his inherited wealth, and therefore is no longer required to obey his stepfather's commands, Kate and Constance must more cautiously navigate their role as women. Clothing is one of the things that Kate must find a careful way to control (See: Symbols & Motifs). When her father complains about her fashion-sense, she reminds him, “you know our agreement, sir. You allow me the morning to receive and pay visits, and to dress in my own manner; and in the evening I put on my housewife's dress to please you” (8). This bargain indicates how Kate finds ways to make her own, modern preferences heard without directly defying her father and his preference for old-fashioned styles and ways.

Similarly, Mr. Hardcastle promises his daughter, “I'll never control your choice” (9), meaning that he will not require her to marry a man she dislikes, but he is still the one who arranges to have Marlow visit the house and he strongly encourages Kate to accept a proposal of marriage from him. Since Kate will never have total independence due to her gender, being either beholden to her father or her husband, she must make bargains to gain control of her life. She laments to her father that the transactional nature of courtship and marriage makes it impossible for her to exert her agency in matters of romance: “it's a thousand to one I shan't like him; our meeting with be so formal, and so like a thing of business, that I shall find no room for friendship or esteem” (9). Kate's desire to have more autonomy results in her eventually turning to trickery and The Deceptive Nature of Appearances to get what she wants indirectly.

When Kate first hears of Marlow's character, she sets up the criteria that she is looking for in a husband. She is pleased to hear that Marlow is intelligent, generous, young, and brave, and she is ready to commit to the marriage when she hears that he is handsome. However, when Mr. Hardcastle describes Marlow's manner as “bashful and reserved” (9), she exclaims “that word reserved has undone all the rest of his accomplishments. A reserved lover, it is said, always makes a suspicious husband” (9). Kate's concern is not just that Marlow will be shy in conversation, but that his timid character will result in him being controlling and jealous during their marriage. When she confides in her cousin, Constance, she uses language that conveys her dissatisfaction with the arrangement, telling her, “I have been threatened with a lover!” (11, emphasis added). While women are meant to desire husbands, Kate's dialogue indicates that women wish to exert more control in who they marry and what qualities their betrothed will possess.

Constance is in a similar position to Kate, having to feign being in love with Tony Lumpkin to avoid having to give up her fortune of inherited jewelry. She must deceive Mrs. Hardcastle, saying, “I let her suppose that I am in love with her son; and she never once dreams that my affections are fixed upon another“ (12), but her motivations are due to a desire to maintain her own financial assets when she eventually marries the man whom she really loves. Both Kate and Constance are put in a position where deception is their own opportunity to secure the love that they would choose for themselves, whereas Tony merely needs to wait until he comes of age.

The first Act of the play also establishes how the setting will define the characters’ interactions with one another, setting up The Instability of Social Class Identity. While the play primarily occurs in the private domestic space of the Hardcastle’s home, Mrs. Hardcastle points out that its old-fashioned decorations make it seem more like a public space: “Here we live in an old rumbling mansion, that looks for all the world like an inn” (5, emphasis added). Goldsmith depicts the inn as a place where social classes can meet and mingle, unlike the home where the servants and the family are separated into separate jobs. When Tony Lumpkin visits The Three Pigeons, Mr. Hardcastle grumbles that he consorts with “a low, paltry set of fellows” (7), such as a tax collector and a horse doctor. At The Three Pigeons, Tony sings and drinks with working-class men, and Goldsmith conveys their lower status through phonetically-spelled dialogue that denotes an accent. One of the men at the inn praises Tony's song, saying “I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low,” and another replies, “O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it” (13). Goldsmith makes a joke of verbal irony, showing the laborers pronouncing “because” as “bekeays” in their accents, while at the same time claiming that they do not enjoy “low” entertainment even as they speak in a coarse manner (“damn”). Tony's drinking song is not very refined or sophisticated, but the laborers at the inn appreciate it as though it is because a member of the gentry is singing it.

This scene at The Three Pigeons sets up the idea that inns are a place where different social classes can interact as equals and take on the behaviors of one another. When the Hardcastle home is mistaken for an inn, Goldsmith indicates that the barriers between social classes will therefore begin to dissolve.