She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy with serious social message. Discuss.

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..................................................

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