Subtle Social Critique in Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer

Abstract

Oliver Goldsmith’s, She Stoops to Conquer has been one of the most popular comedies in England’s 18th Century. This is due to the dramatist’s witty usage of satire and humour as a means to ridicule and burlesque society’s vices, shortcomings and false manners of the age. Yet, as the research explains, the play’s comical effects extend far beyond mere social laughter and entertainment. The play in fact delivers subtle radical criticism with regard to important issues such as intergenerational conflicts, gender discrimination, and marriage. The main objective of Goldsmith’s subtle criticism is to revoke and debunks prejudices, misconceptions and false opinions about marriage and woman’s strife for selfhood in Eighteenth-Century England. The research is significant for it brings into focus the dramatist’s artistic techniques in delivering subtle criticism in the comedy of manners.