48 pages • 1 hour read
Richard Brinsley SheridanThe School for Scandal
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1777A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Newspapers
Newspapers were incredibly popular in Sheridan’s time, and The School for Scandal plays into the contemporary social engagement with news and gossip (See: Background), turning newspapers into a symbol of The Destructive Nature of Gossip and Scandal.
The characters often reference bits of gossip they read in the newspapers, while also providing additional information they claim to have gotten from inside sources. Other characters, like Lady Teazle and Peter, lament how their scandals, both true and false, might end up in the newspapers. For example, in Act V, Scene 2, Peter dreads the following day’s newspapers, which will surely include his argument with Joseph, Charles, and Lady Teazle.
Newspapers serve as a constant reminder of the “audience” within the context of the play while serving as a metatextual wink toward the physical audience that would have been watching. Each of the characters knows that someone like Mrs. Candour or Crabtree might spread a bit of news, embellishing it along the way, and landing an unsuspecting individual in a gossip column the next day. The characters’ fixation on newspapers also exposes the overconfidence of gossip and rumors, such as Crabtree and Benjamin’s discussion of whether Peter was stabbed or shot. Such false rumors could easily end up in a newspaper and ruin the reputation of those involved.
Card Games
There are two examples of card games in the text, as both men and women play cards in different contexts within the 18th-century upper classes. Men, like Charles, play cards to gamble, and this form of playing cards represents libertinism and extravagance. Meanwhile, women, like Ladies Teazle and Sneerwell, play cards as a pretense to gossip in the play, ruining other’s lives rather than their own. However, as the Epilogue shows, Lady Teazle realizes eventually that playing cards with the wrong people can backfire. Unlike newspapers, playing cards were generally considered innocuous in the 18th century, and women often play cards to pass the time in 18th-century literature. However, given the context of Charles and Lady Teazle’s conflicts in the play, playing cards takes on an ominous, symbolic meaning.
After selling his family heirlooms to Oliver, disguised as Premium, Charles sends 100 of the 800 pounds he received to Stanley, but he then returns to his friends to continue gambling. Charles, at this point, is in severe debt and borrowing more money than he can repay, and yet he chooses to waste the large sum he received. In this instance, card playing becomes a symbol of libertinism, which is rooted in “degenerate” behavior and dissipation. Cards are essentially another way for Charles to waste his money. On the other hand, Lady Teazle plays cards with Lady Sneerwell, reflecting another kind of moral degeneration, in which Lady Teazle is becoming corrupted by the bad influences of the gossips in town. For her, cards represent both the malicious destruction of other people’s reputations and, later on, the destruction of her own.
Formality
Though many of the characters engage in formalities and formal language in the play, Joseph Surface partakes in an extended motif of formality intended to undermine his seemingly sentimental demeanor, reflecting The Discrepancy Between Public Virtue and Private Vice.
The longest of these engagements occurs as Joseph is pushing Oliver to leave, thinking he is Stanley. As a way of saying goodbye, Oliver and Joseph repeatedly say “Your very obedient” or “your most obedient humble servant,” with Joseph finally ending the exchange by replying, “Sir, yours as sincerely” (439-40). Such exchanges were considered normal formalities, but Joseph’s take on an additional element of repetition, in which he often continues the exchange beyond the norm. Normally, one party might say “your servant,” and the other would reply in kind, ending the conversation. These exchanges mimic the kind of conclusions present in epistolary novels and letters from the period, in which the writer would end the letter by saying, “I remain your most obedient servant,” before signing their name.
Sheridan has Joseph extend these exchanges to highlight how his insincerity manifests in performative sentimentality. Joseph intends for people to hear his excessive formalism as a sign that he is earnest and trustworthy, but, playing on Sheridan’s portrayal of formality as a disguise for malice, Joseph often employs it with those he thinks are his enemies. In the exchange with Stanley, Joseph sees Stanley as a parasite, just as he engages in the same kind of exchange with Snake when Joseph predicts Snake’s betrayal.
