# She Stoops to Conquer — Character guide

> Key figures in She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith.

- [Mr. Marlow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/mr_marlow.md): Marlow arrives at Hardcastle's house convinced it is an inn, and his confidence curdles into comic insolence toward his unwitting host. With modest women he can barely speak; with bold ones he is all ease, a split that w
- [Miss Hardcastle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/miss_hardcastle.md): Daughter of the old-fashioned Mr. Hardcastle, she is expected to marry the modest gentleman her father has chosen for her. Finding him tongue-tied in her true character, she adopts a barmaid's boldness to draw him out an
- [Mr. Hardcastle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/mr_hardcastle.md): Hardcastle welcomes Marlow as the son of an old friend, only to be treated as an innkeeper and lectured about his own servants. His patience frays into open fury while he tries to keep his temper for the sake of the fath
- [Mrs. Hardcastle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/mrs_hardcastle.md): She dotes on Tony, frets over his safety, and maneuvers to marry her niece Neville to him for the money involved. When Hardcastle suspects two voices in the room, she crouches behind the furniture and bursts out only to 
- [Tony Lumpkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/tony_lumpkin.md): Tony is his mother's darling and his stepfather's trial, a young man who would rather drink and sing than be married to his cousin Neville. Meeting Marlow and Hastings at an alehouse, he directs them to Hardcastle's hous
- [Hastings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/hastings.md): Where Marlow freezes before modest women, Hastings moves through the world with cheerful confidence and a scheme already in hand. He loves Miss Neville and needs her jewels, held by Mrs. Hardcastle, to fund their elopeme
- [Miss Neville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/miss_neville.md): As Mrs. Hardcastle's ward, Constance Neville is a fortune in jewels trapped inside a family that means to keep her there by marrying her to Tony. She feigns affection for that 'pretty monster' while her real affections a
- [Sir Charles Marlow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/sir_charles_marlow.md): Sir Charles Marlow comes to Hardcastle's house as an old friend expecting to conclude a marriage between their children, only to find the two fathers trading irreconcilable accounts of the same young man. He stakes his l
- [Diggory](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/diggory.md): A servant in the Hardcastle household, often confused by the goings-on.
- [Landlord](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters/landlord.md): The actual innkeeper at the Three Pigeons, where Tony hangs out.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/she_stoops_to_conquer_se/characters