In the prologue, Goldsmith makes an allusion to the Comic Muse—the ancient Greek goddess of the comedic arts—in a metaphor that highlights his rejection of the sentimental comedy for the comedy of manners genre. In the prologue, Mr Woodward, a celebrated actor, enters the stage dressed in black and crying. He explains the cause of his grief: ""I’m crying now—and have been all the week. / '’Tis not alone this mourning suit,' good masters: / 'I’ve that within'—for which there are no plasters! / Pray, would you know the reason why I’m crying? / The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying! / And if she goes, my tears will never stop; / For as a player, I can’t squeeze out one drop[.]"
The cause of Mr Woodward’s tears, as he reveals here in an extended metaphor, is that the Comic Muse is dying, and as a result he, an actor who is unable to play serious or tragic characters, will be out of work. The Comic Muse is a reference to ancient Greek mythology, in which the Muses were a group of nine goddesses considered to be the inspiration for literature and the arts. Here, Mr Woodward’s allusion specifically refers to Thalia, the muse of comedy.
The idea that the Comic Muse is dying functions as a metaphor for the comedic genre, with Goldsmith making clear his disparagement for the rising popularity of the sentimental comedy, a genre which replaced the frivolity and bawdiness of the traditional Restoration comedy with moralistic trials and high emotions. Goldsmith’s appeal to the audience to save the Comic Muse thus refers to his desire to restore the traditional comedic genre, which aims to make its audience laugh, not cry.
The prologue of “She Stoops to Conquer” takes the form of a soliloquy, with Mr Woodward, a celebrated actor, entering and directly addressing the audience as he delivers a speech alone on the stage. By starting the play in this way, Goldsmith immediately fosters an intimacy with the audience while also separating the prologue from the rest of the play, with this and the play's epilogues being the only instances of soliloquy. This is fitting, as these are also the only instances where the audience is directly invoked in a breaking of the fourth wall that gives the play a meta-textual (referring to itself) element.
By doing so, Goldsmith both starts and ends the play with an appeal to the audience to champion the laughing comedy, which he feared was going out of fashion. Likewise, the prologue and epilogues are the only sections of the play written in verse, a decision which reflects the elevated feel Goldsmith wanted these sections to hold, as he seeks to prove laughing comedies are just as legitimate as sentimental plays.
In the prologue, Goldsmith also uses the extended metaphor of the dying Comic Muse to invoke this appeal. Mr Woodward describes how a doctor is trying to rescue the Comic Muse, who is dying because nobody wants to watch traditional laughing comedies anymore. Addressing the audience, Mr Woodward outlines how the Muse may be saved:
"A Doctor comes this night to show his skill.
To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion,
He, in Five Draughts prepar’d, presents a potion:
A kind of magic charm—for be assur’d,
If you will swallow it, the maid is cur’d:
But desperate the Doctor, and her case is
If you reject the dose, and make wry faces!"
Continuing the extended metaphor, Mr Woodward explains how the Muse (and the comedic genre) may be saved by the audience’s laughter. The doctor in this instance is therefore the playwright, Goldsmith himself, who prepares a potion in “five draughts”—or perhaps five acts—and whose success depends on the audience swallowing it. Or, in other words, if Goldsmith can make the audience laugh, the genre may not be dead after all. In elaborate terms, Goldsmith thus invokes the age-old idiom: laughter is the best medicine.
Here, Goldsmith’s use of this extended metaphor forms a playful way to appeal to the audience to enjoy the play. He is simply asking the audience, albeit in rather grand terms, to please laugh and ensure the play is a success. Indeed, Mr Woodward’s earlier reference to his dependence on the genre—with him at risk of “losing his bread” if the Muse should die—forms a tongue-in-cheek reference to Goldsmith’s own position, with his career also in peril if the laughing comedy falls out of fashion. His previous play, after all, had proven a flop, so Goldsmith needed a revival of the genre for both artistic and pragmatic reasons.
The description of courtship as a battle is a metaphor that comes up multiple times in She Stoops to Conquer. Hastings and Marlow talk of their wooing of Kate and Constance in terms of a military conquest, while Kate herself also refers to being “threatened with a lover.” In this way, love is presented as something that is hard won. The metaphor also conforms to gender stereotypes of courtship, with the men taking the active role, while the women are the objects of their conquest that must be wooed into surrender. This dynamic, however, is presented in a very playful way, with Kate especially holding her own when under Marlow’s “siege” and ultimately proving the one in control of the courtship.
Moreover, Hastings and Marlow’s use of the military metaphor when they first arrive at the Hardcastles’ house also functions in a satirical way to highlight their modern foppishness in contrast to Mr Hardcastle’s traditionalism:
HASTINGS. I fancy, Charles, you’re right: the first blow is half the battle. I intend opening the campaign with the white and gold.
HARDCASTLE. Mr. Marlow—Mr. Hastings—gentlemen—pray be under no constraint in this house. This is Liberty-hall, gentlemen. You may do just as you please here.
MARLOW. Yet, George, if we open the campaign too fiercely at first, we may want ammunition before it is over. I think to reserve the embroidery to secure a retreat.
HARDCASTLE. Your talking of a retreat, Mr. Marlow, puts me in mind of the Duke of Marlborough, when we went to besiege Denain. He first summoned the garrison——
Here, Mr Hardcastle’s literal interpretation of their metaphor, with him thinking they are talking about real military conflict, speaks to his straightforward approach to the world. The miscommunication also gestures towards the divide between the city and the countryside, with the foppish young men of the city using military terms only to speak of domestic matters, while the rural and hardy Mr Hardcastle refers to actual warfare. In doing so, Goldsmith pokes fun at both sides, highlighting both Hastings and Marlow’s frivolity and Mr Hardcastle’s simplicity.
Furthermore, while these metaphors on one level function to create humor, they may also allude to the real strategic importance of relationships in contemporary society, where marriage indeed could often be one’s making or breaking. Though Hastings and Marlow’s use of military language to talk about what waistcoats they plan to wear is intentionally overdramatic, it also highlights a relevant point, that to the individual it can very well be these trivial and domestic matters that matter most. In this way, Goldsmith also gestures towards the essence of the comedy of manners genre, in which it is the trials of everyday life that form the heart of the drama.
When Marlow is trying to seduce Kate (though at this point he believes her to be a barmaid), he adheres to typical conventions of coquetry through the use of metaphor and euphemism. Instead of asking for a kiss, for example, he asks to taste the “nectar of [her] lips”:
MARLOW. Suppose I should call for a taste, just by way of trial, of the nectar of your lips; perhaps I might be disappointed in that, too!
MISS HARDCASTLE. Nectar! nectar! That’s a liquor there’s no call for in these parts. French, I suppose. We sell no French wines here, sir.
Here, Marlow adheres to traditional conventions of courtship by using heavy flattery and over-the-top imagery, while his use of euphemism also complies to contemporary British societal expectations that one should not speak directly of their feelings. His comparison of a kiss from Kate to tasting nectar is intentionally saccharine, while the association with flowers plays off traditional romantic tropes which compares women to nature.
Marlow's metaphor, besides being a witty way to try and woo Kate, also speaks to conventional romantic dynamics where the man must try to win over the initially reluctant object of his desire. Kate’s response to his request, however, proves equally witty, with her intentionally reading his metaphor literally by telling him the bar is not stocked with such nectar. In doing so, Kate adeptly plays with the nectar metaphor in a way that undercuts Marlow’s coquetry.
The skillful way in which both Marlow and Kate manipulate language in this scene also serves to highlight how much more comfortable Marlow is when he thinks he is among “females of another class” than when he is with “women of reputation." His use of elaborate imagery and metaphor in these exchanges thus serves to further emphasize the contrast with his inability to speak around Kate when he is unaware of her true identity.
The idea that life is a play is hinted at throughout the play, but is most strongly invoked in a metaphor in the first epilogue. After the main events of the play have concluded, Kate emerges on the stage alone to deliver an epilogue in which she recounts her character’s journey through the five acts and the different parts she plays.
WELL, having stooped to conquer with success,
And gained a husband without aid from dress,
Still as a Barmaid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquered him to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty Barmaids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, composed to please,
“We have our exits and our entrances.”
Here, Kate’s direct invocation of the audience sets up parallels between the play and real life as she references the multiple layers of her act, with her character seeking both to conquer an admirer within the play (Marlow) and also to conquer her many admirers outside of it—that is, the audience. In doing so, Kate blurs the boundaries between life and art, giving extra resonance to her comment that “life is all a play, composed to please.” In other words, performance is not restricted to the theater, as people assume roles in their everyday lives in their efforts to please others.
Furthermore, Kate strengthens the metaphor through an allusion to Shakespeare’s famous "seven ages of man" speech from his comedy As You Like It. When Kate quotes “we have our exits and our entrances," she directly references this speech: "All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts[.]"
Like Shakespeare, Kate argues that men and women in the real world are also “players,” or actors, performing and taking on multiple roles throughout their lives. This idea is particularly pertinent to Kate’s character in She Stoops to Conquer, as she constructs multiple personas for herself depending on who is around. Her wearing fashionable clothes in the morning, for example, represents perhaps her most genuine self, while her adherence to her father's favored styles at dinner represents her persona as the model daughter. More obviously, her masquerading as the barmaid when talking to Marlow is a purposeful character construction designed to trick Marlow into being at ease with her. Indeed, when setting up this ploy, Kate’s maid explicitly asks whether she is sure she can “act the part" (which she can). In the ease with which she flits between roles, Kate demonstrates the validity of her metaphor.
The idea of “stooping to conquer” forms an extended metaphor throughout the play with metatheatrical implications. Elements of metatheatre—which refers to plays that draw attention to their own nature as drama (i.e., plays which break the fourth wall)—appear multiple times in She Stoops to Conquer. Introduced as a concept at the start of the play through the prologue’s direct address of the audience, Kate picks this thread up again in her epilogue at the end of the play:
WELL, having stooped to conquer with success,
And gained a husband without aid from dress,
Still as a Barmaid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquered him to conquer you
Here, Kate engages with metatheatre in two ways: by directly addressing the audience and by invoking the title of the play (“She Stoops to Conquer”). Just as Kate “stooped” to conquer Marlow, i.e. pretended to be a barmaid, so too has she stooped to entertain the audience by acting in what some may have considered "low" culture, i.e., a laughing comedy. The idea of "stooping," however, is tongue in cheek in both senses, with Goldsmith arguing the laughing comedy should not be dismissed as lower just because it makes people laugh. In this way, the metaphor of stooping to conquer suggests that people can triumph by simply not taking themselves so seriously. The popularity of the play, which endures over 250 years later, makes it clear that Kate does fulfill her wish, with both Marlow and the audience "conquered" by her performance.
