As a comedy of manners, The School for Scandal targets the behavior and social norms of the upper class, mocking the hypocrisy of the elites in 18th-century society. Sheridan highlights high society’s formality and superficial morals, such as half-hearted greetings, unfulfilled promises, and the air of superiority that is often undermined by hidden secrets and vices. In doing so, he explores the discrepancy between public virtue and private vice.

The characters in the play are caricatures of wealthy people who pretend to be charitable and honorable, but who are actually immoral and deceitful. This theme is best explored through the Surface brothers, Joseph and Charles, who each embody one element of Sheridan’s proposed hypocrisy. Joseph pretends to be moral while hiding his deceits; Charles, by contrast, displays his vices openly while hiding his morals instead.

Joseph’s goal in the play is to convince everyone that he is an upstanding young man who is well-suited to marry Maria. However, Joseph most clearly displays his personal sense of pretending to be moral in his seduction of Lady Teazle, in which he tells her: “What is it makes you negligent of forms, and careless of the world’s opinion? Why, the consciousness of your innocence” (428).