Would you call “She
Stoops to Conquer” a comedy of youth? Argue your answer with adequate textual
support.
Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer
is essentially a comedy of youth. It is a gay, lively comedy of manners that
deals with the carefree, pleasure- loving life of the fashionable youth of the
town and country. The spirit of youth breaths through the play. In the unique
dramatic creation, young men and women indulge themselves in loving, enjoying
and deceiving others in a playful manner and the comedy ends fittingly with the
marriage of young men and women.
The main interest of the main
plot arises out of the romantic gay spirit of Miss Hardcastle, a country girl
who goes through a series of tricks and adventures to conquer her Lover Marlow,
a town man. Miss Neville a town girl also shows her capacity for tricks and
deceptions for regaining her fortune and lover in the sub-plot. In this happy
comedy, young men and women meet and create intrigues and complications.
Youthfulness is the dominating impression of the comedy in both the main plot
and the sub-plot
Three men- Tony, Marlow and
Hastings are three different types. Tony is oppressed and delivering. Marlow
and Hasting are plucky and fashionable. Tony is the type of the vagabond
country youngman who has no education and sophistication. The ale house and the
stable are his only schools. He is the spoilt child of the mother.
