Oliver Goldsmith
Discussions in my 18th Century Couples Comedy class are proving to be a lot of fun because, almost seamlessly, we move between the 18th courtship scene, challenges faced by young people today, and contemporary movies and television shows. Comedy rushes in where wise men fear to tread, giving us a way to talk about sensitive and often painful relationship issues.
In Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (1775), young Charles Marlowe feels so hemmed in by convention that he is painfully shy around Kate Hardcastle, the woman designed for him to marry. I can vouch personally that male shyness is not limited to the 18th century. Unlike Marlowe, however, I was shy around all girls when a teenager, not just wealthy ones. I remember once being enjoined to dance with a girl at a sock hop my freshman year of high school and looking down at my feet the entire time.
So what does Kate do? She stoops to conquer, disguising herself as a maid so that Marlowe will feel more comfortable around her. As one of my students noted, she’s like Sandy in the movie Grease, who leaves the realm of the prim and proper so that she can win over John Travolta.
Many of the 18th century’s social conventions have passed away, of course, but social and sexual inhibitions are alive and well. Today as in the past, acknowledging one’s sexual longings, revealing one’s vulnerability, and risking rejection all serve to make courtship a frightening enterprise for many people. Kate’s disguise is not just an entertaining plot twist. It gets at the way that, sometimes, we need to pretend to be someone else to break through our defenses.
My students say that such role-playing occurs as the college’s Mardi Gras and Halloween parties. It also happens in on-line chat rooms and websites, where people will create alternate selves that, in other circumstances, would cause them embarrassment or shame.
After falling for Kate-as-maid, Marlowe becomes thoroughly embarrassed when the truth comes out. His father and potential father-in-law have a good laugh at his expense, as does Kate. But because his deepest fears have come true—he had been made a general fool—he is strangely liberated. Having nothing else to lose, he can open up and (with the promptings of friends) ask Kate for her hand.
I loved this play when I encountered it my junior year of high school and I now understand why. I saw Marlowe as a kindred spirit and no longer felt quite so alone in my awkwardness. By laughing at Marlowe, I was essentially laughing at my own painful situation. She Stoops to Conquer provided comic salve for my wounds.
Perhaps it also spoke to a wish fulfillment that, under other circumstances, I could be as brash and bold as Marlowe. Having been fooled into thinking that Kate’s house is an inn, Marlowe orders her father around and goes chasing after what he thinks in the inn’s barmaid (Kate).
But simply reading it did not make my shyness go away. It did not improve my relationships with girls. It did not lead to better living.
To unleash the transformative powers of literature, reflection must accompany reading. What if a sensitive teacher or play director had helped me see myself in Marlowe, using the play to articulate my fears? Could I have started to acknowledge that embarrassment is not the worst thing in the world? (Loneliness is worse.) Could I have learned to bolster my self-esteem.
Take note, those of you who love literature and have young people under your care. We haven’t begun to tap the potential of literature for helping them out.
