She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy with serious social message.
Discuss.
Horace Walpole in his appraisal
of the play calls Goldsmith’s, She Stoops
to Conquer, “the lowest of farces” and adds the observation that “the
drift tends to no moral, no edification of any kind.” He also reads the
characters of the play as very low who aim at low humour and mark no character
at all. However, the situations are well- imagined and make one laugh in spite
of the grossness of the dialogue and the total improbability of the whole plan
and conduct.
There are, infact, several
misreading in Walpole’s observations:
First, he fails to understand
that in She Stoops to Conquer we have a first- rate specimen of the
comedy of incidents and intrigue which mainly depends upon a succession of
lively and humorous incidents, and not on moral edification.
Secondly, every comedy has an element of farce in it, but what distinguishes
a comedy from a farce is the first sense of humour of the dramatist which
prevents laughter from degenerating into hilarity. No doubt, in She
Stoops to Conquer, Mrs.
Hardcastle alone, among all the characters often verges on the farcical in many
a scene in the play but this cannot be said of the other characters of the
play. Goldsmith’s rich humour has really produced in the play some finished
characters which would do credit to any dramatist. Tony Lumpkin has been
praised by critics as almost Shakespearean and holds his place by the side of
Falstaff, the prince of wits in Shakespeare.
