She Stoops to Conquer

As the tricks and deceptions of the characters continue to grow in scope and complexity, dress and appearance take on central importance as means for concealing true intentions, bolstering The Deceptive Nature of Appearances. While clothing and outward appearance is usually the way that people determine identity and social station, Goldsmith shows how it can also serve to disguise true intentions and cover up inward feelings.

At the beginning of the Act, Mr. Hardcastle accuses Kate of putting too much value on appearances. When Kate wants to give Marlow another chance to create a favorable impression, Mr. Hardcastle is skeptical. He is offended by Marlow's behavior and tells his daughter, “when a girl finds a fellow's outside to her taste, she then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue” (46). Mr. Hardcastle suggests that physical attractiveness can conceal a bad character and that Kate has been too influenced by Marlow's physical beauty. However, Kate objects to this and her later actions in the play prove that she is correct here—Marlow really does deserve a second chance because his mannerisms are not the rudeness that they initially appear to be, but rather the result of a trick. While Mr. Hardcastle worries that Kate puts too much value on appearances, he is actually the one who is being deceived by his first impression.

Kate's plan to discover Marlow's true character requires her to use her clothing as a disguise, playing upon The Instability of Social Class Identity. Once she realizes that he believes the house to be an inn, she decides to keep up the charade in order to test his personality more. The simple, old-fashioned clothes that she wears to please her father first serve as an accidental disguise. The maid informs her, “the young gentleman, as you passed by in your present dress, asked me if you were the bar-maid” (52). This gives Kate the idea to continue the ruse, acting as though she really were a bar-maid so that she can talk to Marlow more freely. Similarly, Kate's plan relies on the fact that her bonnet has already concealed her identity. She does not worry that Marlow will recognize her during their interactions because “his fears were such, that he never once looked up during the interview. Indeed, if he had, [her] bonnet would have kept him from seeing [her]” (52). Kate's outward appearance disguises her identity, both literally through the obscuring veil of the bonnet and more abstractly when her dress denotes a lower social class.

The theme of dress and disguise is also explored in the developing subplot between Constance, Hastings, and Tony. Constance continues to ask Mrs. Hardcastle to let her wear the family jewels so that she can wear them when she elopes to France with Hastings. However, she allows Mrs. Hardcastle's mistaken impression of her relationship with Tony to disguise her real intention. She asks Mrs. Hardcastle if, “somebody that shall be nameless would like me best with all my little finery about me?” (48). By refusing to give a name, Constance avoids directly lying, merely implying that Tony would be attracted to her when she wears the jewelry, when actually she means that Hastings would like her better if she could leave the family with her inherited wealth.

However, Mrs. Hastings denies her request, telling her that jewelry is only meant for older women who need to hide defects in their beauty. Jewelry is imagined as inherently deceptive because it conceals flaws in a woman's appearance. However, because Constance is already young and beautiful, Mrs. Hardcastle suggests that she would look better with “a parcel of old-fashioned rose—and table-cut things” (49). Mrs. Hastings is actually denying her the jewelry because she wants to keep the valuable items for herself. Both Constance and Mrs. Hastings disguise their real priorities—the struggle over inherited wealth—through a conversation about fashion conventions. In actuality, the rules of dress only disguise the real cause of their dispute, which has nothing to do with aesthetics, but rather economics.