In 'The School for Scandal', Richard Brinsley Sheridan introduces the audience to Lady Sneerwell, a woman who delights in destroying the reputations of those around her and who is the headmistress of the school for scandal of the title.  By the end of the play she has seen her schemes to win Charles Surface come to nought, but to assume she suffers anything more than a brief wave of embarrassment would be a mistake.  And how might a reader react to her machinations?
    The play opens in Lady Sneerwell's house where she and Snake are discovered plotting intrigue and scandal.  And if scandal were a realm, then Lady Sneerwell is the queen.  Snake observes that "everyone allows that Lady Sneerwell can do more with a word or a look than many can with the most laboured detail, even when they happen to have a little truth on their side to support it."  This may well be true, but one wonders if Snake is only trying to flatter the lady so he himself will not be a recipient of her talent as soon as his back is turned, or if he is simply as sly as his name implies.  Lady Sneerwell accepts his compliement gracefully nonetheless.  "Yes, my dear Snake; and I am no hypocrite to deny the satisfaction I reap from the success of my efforts.  Wounded myself in the early part of my life by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have since known no pleasure equal to the reducing of others to the level of my own injured repuation."  This is almost an unexpected bit of characterization.  Where Sheridan could have left his character one-sided as many in the play are, here she is not only shown to have motivation for her cruelty but seems to be well-situated in the knowledge of the grief she causes others.  The reader who has themself lashed out in pain and anger cannot help but identify with the lady.  This empathy might become stronger when Lady Sneerwell soon reveals the reason she is currently interested in her neighbor Sir Peter Teazle and his family.  She is in love with one of Sir Peter's wards.  "Cannot you surmise the weakness which I hitherto, through shame, have concealed even from you?  Must I confess, that Charles, that libertine, that extravagant, that bankrupt in fortune and reputation, that he it is for whom I'm thus anxious and malicious, and to gain whom I would sacrifice everything?"  Blinded by her emotion to the feelings of others, she is only the more capable of using her gift for encouraging scandal for her own ends as she attempts to come between Charles and his true love, Maria.
    Of course, the comedy in this play stems from the fact that nothing really goes the way the characters think it ought, and Lady Sneerwell is in no way spared.  She had allied herself with Charles' elder brother Joseph in the hopes that he could steal Maria's heart from Charles and had also counted on the fact that Sir Peter preferred Joseph to Charles.  Unfortunately for her, Sir Peter's affections were transferred far from Joseph when he discovered his wife Lady Teazle hiding behind a screen in Joseph's library in what was clearly a romantic assignation.
    Perhaps because his own plots are thwarted, Joseph himself turns against Lady Sneerwell in the final scene of the play, and the other characters follow his lead.  Snake appears to denounce her lies, and Lady Teazle is quick to show her disgust as well.  "Hold, Lady Sneerwell,--before you go, let me thank you for the trouble you and that gentleman have taken, in writing letters from me to Charles, and answering them yourself; and let me also request you to make my respects to the scandalous college, of which you are president, and inform them, that Lady Teazle, licentiate, begs leave to return the diploma they gave her, as she leaves off practice, and kills characters no longer."  Lady Sneerwell is effectively booed offstage by the self-righteous group assembled.
    However, what right do any of these people have to be self-righteous?  Joseph has certainly proved himself to be an utter rogue, interested in Maria only for her inheritance while he encourages Lady Teazle on the side.  Snake is a mercenary whose loyalties belong only to the one who pays him the most.  Lady Teazle is quick to point out her affair with Charles was completely fabricated, but is not so eager to draw attention to the fact that she was pursuing a small illicit romance with Joseph.  Even Sir Peter is characterized as an old buffoon incapable of keeping an eye on his young wife.  It seems this lot is hasty to find a scapegoat in Lady Sneerwell, a character whose motivations are no more dodgy than theirs.  Lady Sneerwell flees the room for now, but it is very easy to picture her finding new allies without too much trouble.
    In terms of the action of the play, Sheridan certainly sets up the happy couples Charles and Maria, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle as the winners.  However, in the long run, there will always be Lady Sneerwells and Snakes trying to cause trouble, and they will not let a little humiliation stop them.  As Snake explains to Sir Peter, "I live by the badness of my character; I have nothing but my infamy to depend on! And if it were once known that I had been betrayed into honest action, I should lose every friend I have in the world."  The characters left on stage at the close of the play may be smiling, but Sheridan has the last laugh.