Physical Descriptions
Physical appearance, which can demonstrate youth, fashion sense, and wealth, was quite important to 18th-century social status, especially for women. In writing a comedy of manners focused on upper class people in 18th-century England, Sheridan often focuses dialogue on descriptions of others' physical appearance, including figurative language that makes the descriptions even more vivid. For example, a group of men gathered at Charles Surface's house sing, "Here's to the maid with a bosom of snow: / Now to her that's brown as a berry" (p.110), using simile and metaphor to create the imagery of the various kinds of young women. In another scene, Benjamin Backbite jests about a woman who has trouble with makeup, saying, "‘tis not that she paints so ill—but, when she has finished her face, she joins it on so badly to her neck, that she looks like a mended statue, in which the connoisseur may see at once that the head’s modern, though the trunk’s antique!" (p.59.)
Women
Gender is a major theme in The School for Scandal, and gender roles in 18th-century British society were such that women were often treated as objects to be had and viewed. As such, discussions of women, their physical attributes, and other characteristics are frequent and vivid in the play. A great example of this comes in the scene between a group of male friends at Charles Surface's house. The men sing a song about different types of women such as "Here's to the flaunting extravagant queen, / and here's to the housewife that's thrifty" (p.110) and "Here's to the maid with a bosom of snow / now to her that's brown as a berry" (p.110). These descriptions distill women to certain essential qualities to be compared and lauded by men.
Writing
As an author born into a literary family, it might be predicted that Sheridan would have a particular interest with writing itself. Furthermore, writing and literacy take on a larger meaning in 18th-century England because, at the time, only wealthy males were able to become highly educated. In The School for Scandal, the character Benjamin Backbite is praised for his education and wit, and through this character there are moments of engaging imagery on the topic of writing itself. For example, Benjamin promises Maria, his love interest, "I think you will like [my poems], when you shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin. ‘Fore Gad, they will be the most elegant things of their kind!"(p.32.) This imagery of text running down a paper is intended to evoke calm, romantic feelings in Maria, though she still refuses Benjamin in this scene.
Outlandish rumors
One of the most entertaining uses of imagery in The School for Scandal is the detailed way in which people describe false rumors. For example, the audience knows that there has been no duel between Charles and Sir Peter. However, Crabtree delights the group of gossips, as well as the audience, with a drawn-out description of what he supposedly has heard happened between the men: "A pair of pistols lay on the bureau (for Mr. Surface, it seems, had
come home the night before late from Salthill, where he had been to see the Montem with a friend, who has a son at Eton), so, unluckily, the pistols were left charged... Sir Peter forced Charles to take one, and they fired, it seems, pretty nearly together. Charles’s shot took effect, as I tell you, and Sir Peter’s missed; but, what is very extraordinary, the ball struck against a little bronze Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace, grazed out of the window at a right angle, and wounded the postman, who was just coming to the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire" (p.204). Sheridan purposefully writes this rumor and those like it throughout the play with precise, even exaggerated, detail to show how rumors can get out of hand due to the imagination and egotism of the spreaders.
