Summary
Sir Oliver, along with Rowley, goes to visit Joseph, who is not pleased with the timing of the visit. Sir Oliver is disguised as Mr. Stanley, Joseph's poor relative. Joseph refuses to help Stanley financially, claiming that he has no money, even though Sir Oliver sent him a large sum of money from India. Sir Oliver is angered by this and declares, "Charles! You are my heir" (p.193) as he exits.
After "Mr. Stanley" leaves, Rowley returns and tells Joseph that his uncle has arrived in town. Joseph asks Rowley to stop Mr. Stanley, but Rowley says he thinks it won't be possible. Joseph is still upset that all this business is happening at such an inopportune time, but he is excited to see his uncle.
Scene II takes place at Sir Peter’s house. Lady Sneerwell, Mrs. Candour, Sir Benjamin, and eventually Crabtree talk about the rumors surrounding Lady Teazle. The rumors are blown out of proportion as they report to one another that Charles and Sir Peter supposedly dueled with either swords or guns. Lady Sneerwell hides her involvement in the issue somewhat, and leaves the group discussing the rumor.
Soon after Lady Sneerwell leaves, Sir Oliver arrives at the house. They believe him to be the doctor, present to tend to Sir Peter's wound from the supposed duel. Sir Oliver tells them he is not a doctor, calling attention to the differences in the stories he is being told—the parties still not agreeing on whether the wound came from a sword or a bullet.
Sir Peter then arrives and everyone makes a fuss about him not being wounded after all. The group makes fun of him and he throws them out of his house, telling them he wants neither their jokes nor their pity. Finally, only Sir Oliver remains, and Rowley returns. Sir Oliver tells Sir Peter about his visits with both nephews. Sir Oliver also says that he too has heard the story of Sir Peter, Lady Teazle, Joseph, and Charles, and laughs at his friend. They all laugh together, and Sir Peter laments without much feeling how the gossip will continue to circulate through the papers.
Sir Oliver leaves so that Sir Peter can reconcile with his wife. Rowley and Sir Peter discuss how badly Lady Teazle is feeling about what happened and Sir Peter suggests that he might leave her to feel bad for a while instead of going to speak to her. Rowley chides him, and Sir Peter agrees to go make up with her.
Lady Sneerwell and Joseph meet to discuss whether Sir Peter will now reconcile with Charles and let him marry Maria. Lady Sneerwell scolds him for ruining the plot. Joseph suggests that if Snake is still faithful to them, it may not be too late. They hear a knocking at the door; Joseph thinks this will be his uncle coming to call, so Lady Sneerwell leaves.
Indeed, it is Sir Oliver at the door, but due to Sir Oliver's disguise, Joseph thinks it is Mr. Stanley. Sir Oliver keeps pretending to be Mr. Stanley, saying he wants to meet with Sir Oliver as well in order to get some financial help. Joseph does not want this, and tries to push Mr. Stanley out the door. Charles arrives and thinks Sir Oliver is Mr. Premium. Both Charles and Joseph try to get the man to leave; in the confusion, Sir Peter, Lady Teazle, Maria, and Rowley all come in.
Sir Oliver reveals to his nephews who he is, and that he decided to leave his money to Charles. Maria arrives, but she refuses to marry Charles because she heard rumors about a relationship between him and Lady Sneerwell. Snake reveals the truth, and then Maria agrees to marry Charles.
The play ends with an epilogue, spoken by Lady Teazle to the audience.
Analysis
Another example of dramatic irony can be found in Act V when Sir Oliver visits Joseph in disguise. Once again, Sir Oliver plays the role while giving many asides to the audience about Joseph's greed, and the audience is both entertained by Joseph's inability to recognize his own uncle (especially when talking about Sir Oliver himself) and also shocked along with Sir Oliver at Joseph's immoral behavior. It is clear that, unlike Charles, Joseph does not feel a sense of loyalty to his family, and that he does not value public honesty.
Sheridan also uses Act V to continue satirizing the act of rumor-spreading itself. He does this primarily through the vivid and detailed imagery of the scene in which a group of characters discuss a supposed fight between Sir Peter and Joseph. Though the audience knows that there has been no duel, Crabtree delights the group of gossips as well as the audience with a drawn-out description of what he supposedly has heard to have 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.
In Act V, Sheridan shows his beliefs about truth by giving the various plot lines of the story happy endings once truth is revealed. In Sir Peter and Lady Teazle's plot line, once Sir Peter finds out that Lady Teazle has had an affair (but with a different man than he suspected), he decides to forgive her and even seems more hopeful about their marriage. When the truth comes out about the real characters of the Surface brothers, both Charles and Sir Oliver are happy, though Joseph, the greedy hypocrite, is not. Finally, once the truth about Lady Sneerwell's plot is outed by Snake, Maria and Charles are able to love one another in peace.
Snake is a character who should not be overlooked in The School for Scandal. Though he appears only in the first and last scenes, it is he who transmits information about the rumors, trusting no one fully and loyal to nobody, and it is he who fully resolves the conflict of the play at the end of Act V. Ironically, Snake both begs forgiveness for his involvement in rumor-spreading, but also asks people not to tell others about his help in resolving the conflict, saying ironically that he lives and keeps his friends "by the badness of [his] character"( p.238).
The play ends with an epilogue; like prologues, these were quite common devices to call final attention to themes in the play and speak directly to the audience, urging them directly to take these themes and morals to heart. Lady Teazle delivers the epilogue of The School for Scandal, underscoring the importance of her role, especially as an outsider herself who could be seen as tainted by the pressures of London's upper-class societal norms. Though this epilogue, Sheridan urges the audience a final time to see this play not as simple entertainment, but rather as a harsh criticism of any who engage in gossip—both its creation and its transmission.
