The metaphors in this play serve as a commentary on theater. Goldsmith wrote She Stoops to Conquer as an argument against the state of contemporary theater, and the metaphors he puts into the play are often metaphors for theater and drama. For example, Goldsmith uses a conceit filled with medical imagery in the prologue to represent his diagnosis and healing of contemporary theater and “sentimental comedy.”
The “magic charm” is a metaphor for laughter. Laughter is a relatively unusual phenomenon in 18th-century theater, which is plagued by “sentimental comedy.” As the doctor, Goldsmith is administering the medicine, or the “magic charm.” The charm—laughter—is an effect from the potion. Since the potion is Goldsmith’s play, the ensuing laughter is the effect from the play’s genre, the newly founded “laughing comedy.”
"hearing the maid was ill..."See in text(Prologue)
This is the start of an extended metaphor that uses medical imagery and language to describe Goldsmith’s goal. The maid represents theater and comedy, ill with the epidemic of sentimentalism. The Doctor is Goldsmith himself, who has come to cure the maid of her disease. The poisonous drugs are “sentimental humor,” which will further affect the maid in a negative way. However, the potion, presented in “five draughts,” is She Stoops to Conquer, which has five acts and was written to cure sentimentalism with the new genre of “laughing humor.”
"An old-fashioned House...."See in text(Act The Second)
The Hardcastle Mansion is a metaphor for England’s changing economy and the confused identity that was common for the 18th-century Englishman. The mansion, a symbol for England’s landed and titled families, is architecturally similar to a country inn, a place of business that represents the economy’s shift to mercantile production and commerce. The mansion, with its blend of the traditional and the modern, reflects the necessary combination of tradition and innovation in English culture.
One of the recurring metaphors in the play is Miss Neville’s inheritance, specifically the jewels therein. These jewels represent the objectification of women and the 18th-century marriage market. The marriage market is a result of England’s changing economy at a time when old-money, landed families looked for marriage connections with new-money, bourgeois families. The inheritance, which Miss Neville received from her uncle in the East India Company, represent this commodification of marriage that Goldsmith critiques in She Stoops to Conquer.
