[لزيزا]

Comedy Of Manners

Satire on the upper class social life.
A complicated plot, brilliant wit.

Satirical treatment of gossip – mongering hypocrisy, pretentious moralizing love intrigues, prodigality, extravagance leading to debt, craze for fashions, and ridiculousness of the money lenders of that time and their greed. Also ridiculous the servants of the aristocrats, Lady Sneer-well and her circle represent the scandal-managers-how ladies and gentlemen in those days used to gather and indulge in slanderous gossip about their acquaintances and friends.

Joseph – in face he is a religious man and goes to church but he is an embodiment of hypocrisy and pretentious moralizing. Lady Sneer-well and Joseph hinder the marriage of Maria and Charles, satirizes people who squander money and take loans of very high interests, craze for fashion – satirical treatment of fashion.

This comedy is for manners to point the weakness of society and try to fix them.

Character analyze

Charles Surface : one of the good characters, a prodigal young man, profligate, libber line, drinking with his boon companions, behaving in an irresponsible manner, borrows money, sells his family portraits, genuine affection for his uncle, benevolent nature, in love with Maria, striking contrast to his brother Joseph, straight forward, wins over the sympathy of other characters, a witty person, free from malice, belongs to the category of people who win at the end, fertile single source of comedy, is an optimist his optimism and high spirits are catchy.

Maria : most favorable impression of Maria, most sensible, intelligent girl, strongly disapproves of the manner in which Lady Sneer-well and other members of her circle talk, doesn't relish any scandalous gossip of people like Sir Benjamin and Lady Sneer-well, a version of people who's jests are full of spite and malice, dislikes slanderous talk her comment on Mrs. Candour " …she does more mischief than the direct malice of old Carbtree ", loves Charles and hates Joseph, as a lenient view of Charles's extravagance and reckless, can not tolerate ill-natural remarks against Charles, a serious minded girl but she has a sense of humor, indispensable to the play, upright and virtuous heroine of the play.

Joseph Surface : elder brother, villain, devoid of all moral scruples, artful, selfish and malicious, a sentimental knave – a partner with Lady Sneer-well in an intrigue against Charles and Maria, hinders their marriage, defames Charles, has necessary wit and malice to qualify him as a member of the school.
Sir Peter praises him as " a man of sentiment ", Joseph wishes to please both Lady Sneer-well and Maria, declines having received any money from his uncle.
His uncle's remark : Joseph is " destitute to truth, charity and gratitude ".
A fortune hunter, dowry hunter, wants to marry Maria for money, Lady Teazle misunderstands his intentions. Lady Teazle says, " a truly " despicable " character " Sir Peter says " selfish, treacherous and hypocritical ".

Lady Sneer-well : was the target of slander in her youth. She now directs her efforts at ruining the reputations of other women. She prides herself on her delicacy of scandal, which she manages with only a hint of a sneer (she “sneers well”). Slander is her primary source of pleasure. Lady Sneer-well is secretly infatuated with Charles, and that is the real reason she wants to break up his relationship with Maria. Lady Sneer-well plots with Joseph to secure Charles for herself and Maria for Joseph, but the plot blows up when Joseph is exposed to Sir Peter and when Maria refuses to consider Joseph as a suitor. She forges letters in a final attempt to further her plot but is revealed when her partner, Snake, sells his loyalty to a higher bidder.

Sir Peter Teazle : a neighbor of Lady Sneer-well, Sir Peter is also the guardian of Joseph and Charles Surface. Sir Peter was an older bachelor when he married his much younger wife six months before the start of the play. She is making his life miserable with her extravagances and her friends. But he loves his wife, although his friends sneer at him for letting her take advantage of him. Although Sir Peter has always favored Joseph (he even suspects Charles of trying to seduce Lady Teazle), Joseph’s hypocritical nature is revealed when Lady Teazle confesses to her husband that Joseph was attempting to seduce her. Eventually, Sir Peter approves of the marriage of his ward, Maria, to Charles.


Main theme not from Dr.sayed explanation ( understand) ;

Honor

Initially honor seems to be in short supply in School for Scandal: The gossips are completely without honor; Lady Teazle is considering abandoning the lessons about honor that she learned growing up in the country; Joseph is ready to betray his brother to secure a wealthy wife; and Charles is hopelessly in debt to moneylenders. Even Sir Oliver, whose honor should be above question, is ready to assume a disguise to test his nephews’ honor.

By the conclusion of the play, however, it is clear that only the gossips have no true honor. Lady Teazle realizes that she values her husband and that she has more honor than her friends had supposed. Charles, though foolish and intemperate with gambling and money, is honorable. He pays his debts, if slowly, and he is willing to help a poor relation without being asked. Sir Oliver’s deception unmasks Joseph’s hypocrisy. And the moneylender, Moses, is a man of so much honor that he assists Charles in managing his debts.

Morality

Sheridan asks his audience to question the morality of society in this play. Slandering one’s neighbors, acquaintances, and friends is an entertainment. There is no real interest in the truth — and even less consideration is given to the damage that such gossip causes.

In the early acts of School for Scandal, the subjects of such gossip are not known to the audience, who cannot determine the truth of Lady Sneer-well and Mrs. Candour’s observations. But by the last act, it becomes clear that these gossips need absolutely no element of truth to fuel their stories. The felling of the screen in Joseph’s library — and the confrontation that took place immediately after — are fresh in the audience’s mind. This earlier scene serves as a nice contrast to the speculation and innuendo that engages the gossips. Although it is all comedy, it is comedy that teaches a lesson to the audience.

Sentiment

School for Scandal is generally regarded as a refutation of the sentimental drama that was prevalent on the London stage prior to and during Sheridan’s era. Sentiment was much admired as a replacement for the debauchery of Restoration comedy, but it often proved bland and boring. Often the protagonists were pure to the point of generic blandness. In Sheridan’s play, Joseph Surface is much admired for his sentiment. Conversely, his brother Charles is chastised because he is not the man of sentiment that his brother is: “He is a man of sentiment . . . there is nothing in the world so noble as a man of sentiment.” That Joseph is really not at all noble or admirable makes Sir Peter’s compliment more damning and more a mockery of this eighteenth-century convention.

Truth and Falsehood

Trying to determine the truth occupies much of Sheridan’s play. Lady Sneer-well and Snake are engaged in deception and falsehood, and Joseph is willing to bend the truth to get what he wants. When Sir Oliver, disguised as old Stanley, approaches Joseph to ask for money, Joseph easily lies that he has no money. He even blames his brother, Charles, stating that Charles’s free-spending has left Joseph without funds. Of course the gossips have no interest in the truth; their goal is to entertain one another with wild speculation. When compared to such exciting exaggerations as theirs, reality — and the truth — is boring.

Wealth

This is certainly a play about wealth. The poor in London were much too busy trying to find ter and food to engage in such idle distractions as gossip or gaming. Wealth really sets the characters in this play apart from the rest of society. For instance, Sir Peter complains that his wife spends too much on silk dresses and fresh out-of-season flowers. Charles spends his money gaming and drinking with his friends, and the moneylenders are on their way to being wealthy, thanks to idle young men such as Charles. Maria is the object of Joseph’s plotting only because she is wealthy, and Sir Oliver is primarily interested in the morals of his nephews because he plans to leave them him wealth.

The Style not from Dr.Sayed ( understand ):

Plot

This term refers to the pattern of events. Generally plots should have a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion, but they may also be a series of episodes connected together. Basically, the plot provides the author with the means to explore primary themes. Students are often confused by the two terms; but themes explore ideas and plots simply relate what happens in a very obvious manner.

Thus the plot of School for Scandal is the story of how Joseph and Lady Sneer-well each try to lie their way to getting what they want, while its parallel plot is how Sir Oliver attempts to discover the truth about his nephews. But the themes are those of falsehood (in the form of malicious gossip), honesty, true love, and a rejection of sentiment as a virtue.

Setting

The time, place, and culture in which the action of the play takes place is called the setting. The elements of setting may include geographic location, physical or mental environments, prevailing cultural attitudes, or the historical time in which the action takes place. The location for Sheridan’s play is London during the eighteenth century — more specifically, it is set in London’s richer quarters. No exact time markers are provided, but the action takes place during a short period of time.

Genre

School for Scandal is most frequently classified as a comedy of manners, although it has also been accurately described as social satire and anti-sentimental drama.

Comedy of Manners

“Comedy of manners” is a term applied to a type of play that provides a depiction of the very artificial manners and conventions of society. Characters are usually types and not individuals. Their names reflect their “type.” The dialogue in these plays is witty and is of more interest to the audience than the plot, which serves more as an excuse to deliver humorous lines. The comedy of manners is associated most closely with the Restoration of the late-seventeenth century. But the illicit love affairs and lack of morality that defined the genre eventually resulted in their disappearing from the stage. Sheridan revived this genre in the late eighteenth century.