She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith

Q:  Do you think that ‘she stoops to conquer’ is a sentimental comedy?

A:  The comedy that actually focuses on the pleasure of the audience and emphasizes the moral aspects of its situation is known as the sentimental comedy.  After the five year of ‘comedy of manners’, sentimental comedy has come out.  It is the reform of ‘comedy of manner’.

Written by Oliver Goldsmith, the play named “She Stoops to Conquer” is considered as a sentimental comedy.  Through this play Goldsmith mocks at the society of Eighteenth century in a very mild way. The actual purpose of the dramatist is to make laugh for people.

Though the play is not judged as a pure sentimental comedy, here are some reflections of the features of sentimental comedy. As a result, this play is treated as a sentimental comedy and the features are as follows-

In a sentimental comedy ‘tension’ is always found. Here, in this drama we can find tension all the time. Firstly, we find tension in the dualism of Marlow that makes the audience confused. We find, Marlow in tension when he meets Kate at first. He even can’t continue his communication with her for shyness. On the other hand, we find also Marlow in tension when he confesses his love to the bar-made. Because their relationship will not acceptable in his upper class society. Secondly, tension can be seen between Hastings and Neville. They love each other but all their situations do not support them. So, they are getting prepare to elope. For this reason we find Hastings is remaining in tension.

There are conflicts between virtue and vice, which is another important feature of a sentimental comedy. Here we can see the moral conflicts between Mr. Hardcastle and Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Hardcastle is an old fashioned man, who loves everything old in his life. He is a very simple man with moral sense. On the other hand we find Mrs. Hardcastle as a complete snob. Her character is full with vanity. She always tries to act as upper class London Lady. So, there are always clashes of morality between them.

The sentimental comedies are called moral comedies because the playwright purpose is to give the moral sense to the audience. Here, Goldsmith criticizes his contemporary society and the conflicts between upper and lower class through his witty and ironical dialogue. By this he actually emphasizes the moral sense of human being.

Sentimental comedy actually deals with the middle class people. In this play we find Mr. Hardcastle as a middle class man.

In sentimental comedy there are the true absences of the spirit of comedy. As we can see the play of Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” as a pure comedy play. There are humorous   incidents happen all the time to make laugh to the audience. But, here we can discover the absence of that spirit of comedy.

Though the play is considered as a sentimental comedy, but it has some lacking of feature of a perfect sentimental comedy. Through this play, Goldsmith tries to break down the tie of upper class bond with his wit and ironical dialogues. The play mainly is considered as a half sentimental comedy by following some important aspect of pure sentimental comedy.