Monday, April 2, 2007

The School for Scandal



This play reminds me somewhat of Jane Austin’s novel "Emma". The struggle for money to be in a higher social class, trying to manipulate people so that one can be with the person they admire, and the telling of lies and malicious gossip among one another until the mum topics are over heard, (or figured out), are all evident in both texts.
That being said, the lack of
true honor is also evident since nearly everyone in this play is incredibly deceitful: 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 obtain a wealthy wife; and Charles is in great debt to moneylenders;even Sir Oliver, whose honor should be above question, is ready to assume a disguise to test his nephews' honor (Brown).
With all of this deceit happening in one play, I sometimes
found myself being a little confused. But in the end when everything worked out for the better, I some how put the pieces together, the more that I think about this play, the more that I like it.

2 comments:

Miriam Jones said...

Love the photo!

The comparison with Emma is a good one. Austen, however acerbic we think her, seems considerably softer in comparison, though, doesn't she?

Cass said...

the more that I think about this play, the more that I like it.

I found the same thing. I got a lot of laughs on the first read, but going through it again I picked up on more things that I'd missed. It's easy to see why it's been so popular for so long, there is a LOT going on in this play (I tried to explain the "screen scene" to my parents and I could NOT do it with any justice. It's the kind of situation that's so complicated that you really need to see to comprehend.)