She stoops to Conquer is a play written by Oliver Goldsmith. This story starts when Dorothy Hardcastle insists her husband to go on a trip to London as she has never visited that city. The Hoggs sisters and Mrs. Grigsby who are their neighbours, spend a month every year there. But Mr. Hardcastle says that people visit there and stupid fashions and vanities back from there. Mrs. Hardcastle says that there is nobody here other than Mrs. Oddfish who is the wife of local minister and Mr. Cripplegate, the lame dancing teacher who visit their house. She says that she is very eager to see fresh faces and start new conversations with different people. But Hardcastle says that he likes old times, books, stories and of course his wife.
With Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle lived their pretty daughter Kate who who of marriageable age and Tony who was the son of Mrs. Hardcastle and her first husband. Tony was very mischievous and tormented his step father a lot. He used to torment him by the variety of his mischievous activities such as burning a servant’s shoes, scaring the maids, vexing the kittens etc.
After Tony turns into a young man, he spends most of his time in the alehouse. Soon he will be eligible for his inheritance which is 1500 pounds a year. Mrs. Hardcastle wants Tony to get married to her niece Constance Neville who has an inheritance from her uncle which is a casket of jewels. Mrs. Hardcastle holds her jewels as her guardian. While Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle discuss their London trip which is never to happen, Tony passes betweenthem and goes to the alehouse. While he was going Mrs. Hardcastle asks him to do something good in his life.
Kate enters the room and then she is told by her father that he has arranged a meeting of her with a young man Mr. Charles Marlow who is employed by the government for the service of his country who could be a perfect match for her. Marlow is about to come that evening with a friend of his Mr. George Hastings. Marlow is the son of Sir Charles Marlow who is a good friend of Mr. Hardcastle and Kate has been told that Marlow is extremely shy around young women. Constance comes in for a visit, and Kate tells her about Mr. Marlow. Constance tells her that Mr. Hastings is her admirer and she quite likes that attention. But Mrs. Hardcastle wants to pair her with her son Tony, so that she can keep the jewels in family itself. But both Tony and Constance despise each other.
Meanwhile Tony enjoys at the alehouse drinking, and Marlow and Hastings come in asking for the direction to Hardcastle’s home. They arrived from a London trip and both were told by Tony that Hardcastle was an ugly fellow and his daughter was tall, trolloping girl, but their son is well mannered and well bred. Marlow and Hastings say that they have something different and opposite that is their daughter is well bred, beautiful and their son is spoiled and ill mannered. Tony decides to play a prank and tells them that Hardcastle’s home is too far to reach before the nightfall and tells them that there is a very nice inn just up the road. The inn is obviously Hardcastle’s home. After reaching there, they both note that the inn was very old. Hastings asks Marlow that he had stayed in many inns till till date but what is the reason of his shyness around young women. Marlow reminds him that he is only shy around ladies who belong from good family backgrounds and are well bred. But around women who are of lower class, he is completely a non-stop talker. After this Mr. Hardcastle enters the room, and welcomes both the guests. Both Marlow and Hastings think that they are in an inn and treat Mr. Hardcatle as the innkeeper and ask him to prepare supper for them and look after accommodations. Mr. Hardcastle not knowing anything about tony’s prank, thonks that both the visitors are very rude but he keeps his feelings to himself.
After this Hardcastle goes up to Marlow his room and Hastings goes to Constance. There he gets to know that they are at Hardcastle’s home and not at an inn. Hastings keeps this information to himself as he knows that after knowing this Marlow would feel embarrassed and would leave immediately from there. Thus, Marlow still believes that Kate and Constance are also guests at the inn. Whenever Marlow and Kate met, Mzrlow was very shy but Kate appreciated that he had very interesting topics to speak about. All the time they spoke, Marlowe couldn’t even look up to her face. In the other room, Tony and Constance were fighting and insulting each other as they usually do. Hastings observes this and asks Tony to help him so that he can take Constance Neville to France with him. Tony agrees to help him.
In the meantime, Mr. Hardcastle is annoyed by the behaviour of Marlow and is very eager to know what Kate thinks about him. When Kate come downstairs and speaks to her father about Marlow, the opinions of both of them differ from each other. Kate tells her father that he is extremely shy and her father tells her something else. While this conversation was going on, Tony knew where his mother kept the casket of jewels of Constance. He gets them and gives it to Hastings so that both of them can run off from there. Later, Mrs. Hardcastle finds them missing.
One of the maid tells Kate that Marlow thinks that he is in an inn and mistook Kate to be the barmaid there after she changed into her casual clothes. Kate does not tell him the truth and changes her voice in Marlow’s presence. Marlow grows bolder while speaking to Kate. Hardcastle sees Marlow seize Kate’s hand like a milkmaid and decides to throw him out of the house. Kate asks his father for an hour so that she can prove to him that Marlow is not so bold and rude as he thinks he is. Hardcastle agrees to this proposal of Kate. Marlow’s father, Sir Charles Marlow was to arrive after few hours of the arrival of his son to Hardcastle’s house. Constance tells this to Hastings as he was aware that Hastings and Kate like each other and this could ruin their plan of running away. Constance asks Hastings whether the jewels are kept safely or not. He assures her that they are kept very safely as he had sent it to Marlow through a servant. Unfortunately, Marlow sends the jewels to be kept with the landlady and so they are back with Mrs. Hardcastle. By this time, Marlow was captivated by the barmaid, and says that “She should be mine”.
Hardcastle could not tolerate Marlow’s behaviour any more and asks him to leave. Marlow now knows that there is something weird going on and then Kate comes in and tells the tryth that this is Hardcastle’s house and not an inn. But she does not disclose her identity so that he can talk to her freely. Marlow is deeply sad and embarrassed after this. Marlow then tells her that he would leave the place and noticed that she was the only positive thing that happened to him during the whole confusion. She realises that he is a very wise man.
After this Sir Charles there, but Hardcastle still doubts Marlow whether he is a wise manor not. To prove him a wise man Kate acts as the poor relative in front of Sir Charles and Hardcastle listens to the conversation from behind. In the end Kate reveals her real identity to Marlow. After this Tony refuses to marry Constance, and at the end Kate and Marlow and Constance and Hastings get married.
