Sir Oliver’s disguised interaction with his nephew Charles Surface in Act 4, Scene 1 is an instance of dramatic irony:
Sir Oliver. Well, well, anything to accommodate you;—they are mine. But there is one portrait which you have always passed over.
Careless. What, that ill-looking little fellow over the settee?
Sir Oliver. Yes, sir, I mean that, though I don’t think him so ill-looking a little fellow, by any means.
[...]
Charles. No, hang it; I’ll not part with poor Noll. The old fellow has been very good to me, and, egad, I’ll keep his picture while I’ve a room to put it in.
Sir Oliver. The rogue’s my nephew after all! [Aside.]—But, sir, I have somehow taken a fancy to that picture.
In the passage above, Sir Oliver has falsely approached Charles while pretending to be a moneylender named Mr. Premium who wants to purchase family heirlooms. Sir Oliver conducts this undercover operation for the express purpose of gauging the character of his roguish nephew, whose deplorable reputation has given him cause for great concern. Charles’s refusal to sell Sir Oliver’s portrait, and especially his emphatic declaration that his uncle “has been very good” to him, is a welcome surprise, demonstrating that there is more to the man than meets the (rumor-addled) eye. By defying the expectations of Sir Oliver and the audience, Charles endears everyone to his cause, beginning the process of reforming their impression of his rakish persona.
Act 4, Scene 3 of The School for Scandal, otherwise known as the “screen scene,” is the most sensational and well-known scene in the entire play. Uproarious and chaotic in equal measure, it is also a quintessential example of dramatic irony. In the passage below, Sheridan utilizes staging and timing to hilarious effect, playing each character’s differing amounts of knowledge against both each other and the audience’s fuller awareness of the entire picture:
Sir Peter: Come, you shall not refuse me: here, behind this screen will be—Hey! what the devil! there seems to be one listener there already—I’ll swear I saw a petticoat!
Joseph: Ha! ha! ha! Well, this is ridiculous enough. [...] Hark’ee, ’tis a little French milliner—a silly rogue that plagues me,—and having some character to lose, on your coming, sir, she ran behind the screen.
Sir Peter: Ah! you rogue! But, egad, she has overheard all I have been saying of my wife.
Joseph: Oh, ’twill never go any farther, you may depend upon it.
Sir Peter: No! then, faith, let her hear it out.—Here’s a closet will do as well.
The audience knows that the "petticoat" Sir Peter sees behind the screen belongs not to “a little French milliner,” as Joseph Surface claims, but rather to his very own wife, Lady Teazle. Although Sir Peter is none the wiser, Lady Teazle is present in the room during his discussion of her suspected infidelity. Adding to the humor of the scene, when Sir Peter learns that Charles Surface (the man he believes is her adulterous paramour) is about to enter the same room, he attempts to hide—in the very same spot Lady Teazle has claimed! In this perfect demonstration of dramatic irony, characters hide, secrets and feelings are disclosed unwittingly, and conflicts come to a much-anticipated head. Joseph’s panicked scramble to evade discovery results in a mad dash that eventually comes crashing down around him, as Sir Peter and Lady Teazle finally confront each other.
Sir Oliver disguises himself as Mr. Premium the moneylender to test the character of his nephew Charles Surface in Act 4, Scene 1. Similarly, he dons another disguise in Act 5, Scene 1 in order to ascertain the heart of his other nephew, Joseph. This time, he poses as a poor relative named Mr. Stanley and suggests that he's in need of charity. As in Sir Oliver’s first attempt at reconnaissance, the audience is fully aware that “Mr. Stanley” is nothing more than a disguise. Thus, the interaction between uncle and nephew below is an instance of dramatic irony:
Joseph: My dear sir, you were strangely misinformed. Sir Oliver is a worthy man, a very worthy man; but avarice, Mr. Stanley, is the vice of age. I will tell you, my good sir, in confidence, what he has done for me has been a mere nothing; though people, I know, have thought otherwise, and, for my part, I never chose to contradict the report.
Joseph’s refusal to aid “Mr. Stanley” despite his ability to do so reveals the true selfish, duplicitous nature of his character. Because he does not know that he is speaking to his uncle, Joseph feels safe lying, claiming he does not have the funds to offer charity even if he wanted to.
This scene is especially ironic because it is Joseph’s last chance to earn Sir Oliver’s respect— the audience knows that Sir Oliver has already formed a good opinion of Charles (because he refused to sell Sir Oliver’s portrait), and so Joseph lacks the edge he was counting on in his competition for the inheritance. By refusing to live up to the image he has cultivated for himself, Joseph sabotages himself. In this way, Sir Oliver and the audience watch together as Joseph seals his own fate, ripping away his mask of goodness.
The first half of Act 5, Scene 2 is an example of dramatic irony. Mrs. Candour, the maid, Benjamin Backbite, Lady Sneerwell, and Mr. Crabtree all gather to postulate on what they think may have happened between the Teazles and the Surface brothers in Act 4. Each of their suggested versions of events grow more and more outlandish with every false re-telling, culminating in Sir Benjamin’s ludicrous invention of a duel:
Sir Benjamin: Well, I’ll not dispute with you, Mrs. Candour; but, be it which it may, I hope that Sir Peter’s wound will not—
Mrs. Candour: Sir Peter’s wound! Oh, mercy! I didn’t hear a word of their fighting.
Lady Sneerwell:. Nor I, a syllable.
Sir Benjamin: No! what, no mention of the duel?
Sir Benjamin’s invention of a duel and wound (on the part of Sir Peter) is ironic on two levels. First, there is the fact that the audience is already aware of what happened by the time the gossipmongers gather for their little competition of one-upmanship. In this way, the gossips themselves become the butt of the joke, as their shallow natures are exposed to each other and the audience. Second, audience members (and readers) with prior knowledge of Sheridan’s life story may be aware of the duels Sheridan fought while courting his soon-to-be wife Elizabeth, which garnered so much attention they were covered in the newspaper. This knowledge contributes to the irony of the scene, as these rumors become a meta-commentary that mirrors the playwright's own life.
