Jeremy Collier and Thomas Rymer attacked the comedy of manners of the Restoration period as immoral. As a response, sentimental comedy was promoted as a dramatic subgenre by dramatists like Richard Steele, Hugh Kelly, and others. Oliver Goldsmith wrote an essay criticizing the Sentimental comedy and said that in these plays, the distresses rather than the faults of mankind made our interest and thus, they fail to offer any moral message. He further lamented that in sentimental plays almost all the characters are good and exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on the stage; and though they want humor, have an abundance of sentiment and feeling. The Good Natur’d Man was a response through which Oliver Goldsmith showed the follies of a sentimental hero.
Characters of The Good Natur'd Man:
Young Honeywood is the protagonist of the play as he is a sympathetic, sentimental, good-natured man who tries to be good for everyone. He is so good and innocent that other people, including his friends, often take advantage of him. Young Honeywood has lost his parents and he is the only heir of Sir William Honeywood, the guardian uncle of Young Honeywood. Sir William tries to change Young Honeywood’s habit of helping others without checking their merit. Sir William Honeywood devices a plan to trap Young Honeywood in lousy debt so that he may learn that none of his friends is willing to help him in his time of need. Young Honeywood discovers the limits of goodness when his inclination to sympathize with everyone takes him to the verge of losing himself. Miss Richland is a beautiful young girl belonging to a rich family and holding an independent fortune. She is a friend of Honeywood and both love each other but shy away from admitting their love. Miss Richland has lost her parents and Mr. and Mrs. Croaker are her guardians. Mr. Croaker is a friend of Sir William Honeywood who is exactly opposite to him. Mr. Croaker is a cynic, selfish person who is inclined to observe the defects of others. Leontine is the son of Mr. Croaker who loves Olivia, an orphan girl from France. Loafty is another friend of Young Honeywood who pretends to be sympathetic and benevolent to others while he is a cunning and greedy person.
Summary of The Good Natur’d Man:
Sir William Honeywood is worried about his nephew Young Honeywood. William Honeywood admits that Young Honeywood is a good-natured man with no bad habits. He treats everyone well and is benevolent to everyone. However, his easy generosity and sentimental sympathetic nature have led him into extravagance and foolishness. Sir William Honeywood talks about it with Young Honeywood but fails to convince him that he needs to check his attitude toward other people. Thus, William Honeywood devices a plan to burden Young Honeywood with such fictitious distress that he would face a jail term for bad debt. Sir William hopes that in such distress, Young Honeywood would be able to learn a valuable lesson by seeing which of his friends come to his assistance and which of them have only been taking advantage of his generosity.
Loafty is a close friend of Young Honeywood. Mr. Croaker and his wife Mrs. Croaker are a bit cynic and selfish people who have suffered some bad times when they lost their only daughter. Leontine is their son who learns that his long-missing sister is alive and is living in France. Mr. Croaker takes some money from Young Honeywood and sends Leontine to Paris to bring his sister back. However, Leontine fails to find his sister. Instead, he falls in love with Olivia, an orphan girl whom he met in France. He brings Olivia back to England in place of his sister and intends to marry her. Meanwhile, Young Honeywood comes in contact with Miss Richland and falls in love with her. While Miss Richland too likes Honeywood, they both are shy enough to express their love for each other. Miss Richland observes how helpful and generous Young Honeywood is for others. However, Young Honeywood finds himself in too much debt and when he asks his friends Mr. Croaker and Loafty to give the money back that he lent them in the past, they show their inability to pay him at that moment. Young Honeywood tries to take the help of Sir William but fails to find him. As a result, Young Honeywood gets arrested for lousy debt that he failed to pay back. He seeks help from his friends but none of them arrive to help him. In addition, Loafty pretends benevolence and says that Honeywood should not worry much as he will make sure of his early release from jail by influencing the court in favor of his friend.
When Miss Richland comes to know about Young Honeywood’s arrest, she decides to help him out by paying his debt back. Sir Williams comes to know about it and thinks that Miss Richland can be a great life partner for his nephew. Young Honeywood too loves Miss Richland deeply but his generosity, benevolence, sentimental behavior, and too much modesty create problems for him in developing a romantic relationship with Miss Richland whom he respects too much and doesn’t wish to offend her by proclaiming his love for her. He is content to be only a friend of Miss Richland and vows to himself, “Never let me harbor a thought of making her unhappy by a connection with one so unworthy her merits as I am.”
Furthermore, Young Honeyood is afraid that he may never succeed in pleasing Miss Richland’s guardians Mr. and Mrs. Croaker, whom he knows is pretty cynical, greedy, and selfish. While not being able to express his love was enough to distress him, his troubles increase as Mr. Croaker decides to arrange the marriage of his son Leonite with Miss Richland to gain power over her inheritance. However, Leonite doesn’t love Miss Richland and he wishes to marry Olivia whom he brought from France in place of her long-lost sister. Mr. and Mrs. Croaker still believe that Olivia is their daughter and Leonite’s sister. Young Honeywood tries his best to ignore all these happenings while consoling his bleeding heart and convincing himself that he cannot attain her despite his love for Miss Richland. However, he fails to keep his distance from Miss Richland when his fake friend Loafty asks him to court Miss Richland for him and convince her to marry Loafty. Young Honeywood faces a sentimental dilemma and wonders what should he do. “What shall I do! Love, friendship, a hopeless passion, a deserving friend! . . . to see her in the possession of another! . . . Insupportable! But then to betray a generous, trusting friend!—Worse, worse.”
Sir William Honeywood observes the inability of Young Honeywood in dealing with these circumstances and fears that his naivety may lead to long-lasting heartache for him and Miss Richland and thus he decides to intervene. First, he lends enough money to Leonite and Olivia so that they may elope and marry each other. However, Young Honeywood manages to ruin this plan of William Honeywood by telling Mr. Croaker about the inn where Leonite and Olivia are supposed to stay. Mr. Croaker catches Leonite with his own ‘daughter’ and is aghast by their act. He praises Honeywood for his help and starts liking him while Leonite curses him and blames him for betrayal. Sir William Honeywood arrives at the inn and informs Mr. Croaker that Olivia is not his daughter but an orphan from France. He convinces Mr. Croaker that Olivia is the daughter of one of his old acquaintances. He says she is an orphan belonging to a good family with a huge fortune. Mr. Croaker agrees to the marriage of Leonite and Olivia.
Meanwhile, Young Honeywood decides to express Loafty’s love to Miss Richland and when he goes to meet her, she expresses her love for Young Honeywood. However, Honeywood mistakes it as an approval of Loafty’s love for her. He pretends to be happy at helping his friend but within, he is very sad and exclaims that “nothing remains henceforward for me but solitude and repentance.” Sir William Honeywood again comes to rescue Young Honeywood by showing the duplicity of Loafty and proving that he is no friend and wellwisher of Honeywood. Honeywood gets rid of the dilemma of choosing between a friend and his love. Miss Richland too clarifies that she never expressed her love for Loafty and she always wishes to marry Young Honeywood. Going through all these ordeals, Young Honeywood gets his life lesson and closes the play by declaring, “It shall be my study to reserve pity for real distress, my friendship for true merit, and my love for her, who first taught me what it is to be happy.”
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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