Appearance vs. reality; openness and truth vs. deception; fine speeches vs. hypocritical actions

We laugh at Marlow being duped yet it is through this mocking that Goldsmith more easily drives home his criticisms of society and its views on, for example, fathers and mothers, masculinity, femininity, love and marriage.

In Act IV, Hastings’ letter to Tony acts as a metaphor for the play’s theme of deception and disguise, with the refined handwriting perhaps making it indecipherable, much as the surface refinements of “genteel life” hide the “true” person underneath.

Example exam question: Early in Goldsmith’s play “She Stoops to Conquer”, Tony Lumpkin tricks Marlow into thinking that Hardcastle’s house is an inn. Consider this trickery along with any of the other “mistakes of the night” to show how Goldsmith makes his audience laugh.