In Act 2, the set and costuming reflects a change from the characters’ public performance to private, and thus seemingly more natural, behavior. The setting shifts from the outdoor hotel terrace exposed to the view of outsiders to the domestic interior of an elegant Parisian apartment, where there are no potential prying eyes. Elyot and Amanda are dressed down in loungewear, rather than their restaurant-ready clothes from Act 1: Amanda’s “charmingly simple evening gown, her cloak is flung over her right shoulder” (20) and Elyot’s traveling clothes. The props and mention of a maid reveal that the couple still enjoy luxurious living; however, they have dropped some of the pretense of their public image and are more openly themselves. This more intimate window into Amada and Elyot’s personalities allow the comedy of manners to highlight the hypocrisy of upper-class good breeding and The Façade of Civility. True to form, by the end of the act, the love-nest is in disarray, with broken and overturned furnishings and the couple wrestling on the floor—the antithesis of sophistication and composure.

Act 2 is a duologue, or two-character dialogue, that exposes Elyot and Amanda’s on-again off-again dynamic, emphasizing their inability to change and culminating in the play’s climatic brawl. If Act 1 only hinted at their past volatile relationship, Act 2 unabashedly allows the couple’s perpetual cycle of love and hate to reach a point of absurdity. Amanda vows to “get the best out of it this time, instead of the worst” (47-48) but can’t resist complaining about Elyot’s annoying habit of breathing too hard when he nuzzles her: “Don’t blow, dear heart, it gives me the shivers” (53). Elyot professes, “I think I love you more than ever before” (51), but soon claims Amanda is “more irritating than anyone in the world” (55). Their ease with casually tossing off insults as a power move is part of the play’s exploration of Flippancy as Social Critique: No words are sacred to these characters, who lob declarations of love and hatred with equal carelessness. The play’s dramatic irony sets up many of its comedic elements, as the couple delusionally believe that their time apart has “mellowed and perfected [them] like beautiful ripe fruit” (45), whereas the audience knows that the “fruit” has long soured. 

One of the play’s running gags is the codeword “Solomon Issacs,” a presumably made-up name that Elyot and Amanda use to halt an impending fight in its tracks. The couple gloat that they’ve “hardly used” (44) the term all week; in reality, they deploy it so often that it becomes a measure of how much they aggravate each other. Indeed, so quick are they to argue that they find the phrase too long to say and shorten it to “Sollocks”—a pun on the British slang word “bollocks,” a word that figuratively means “nonsense” and literally, “testicles.” Although “Sollocks” is intended to be a byword for peace and reconciliation, it’s repeated use in the most angry and resentful of moments turns it into a curse word. In Amanda’s lines, the codeword initially signals an urgent desire to stop fighting: “Oh for God’s sake, Sollocks!” (55). It then morphs into an ineffectual pause button for the conversation: “Sollocks, Sollocks, Oh dear—triple Sollocks!” (56). Then, finally, it signals only hostility: “(furiously) Sollocks yourself!” (64). The word’s transformation from an offer of truce to a declaration of war highlights the couple’s combative impulses.

At the same time, Elyot and Amanda’s shared skill in witty repartee is one of the strong foundations of their compatibility. Their rapid-fire banter shows that they speak a shared, intimate language with insider jokes and references. The audience is positioned as outsiders to their many in-jokes, with obscure references to Hungarian steppe or “Poostza” (43); commentary on people who do not appear in the play like “Lady Agatha” (45), “Grand Duchess Olga” (48), and “Lady Bundle” (48); and mocking memories of odd social behavior they observed: “Did you notice her at supper blowing all those shrimps through her ear trumpet?” (48-49). In these scenes, Elyot and Amanda occupy a world of their own. They enjoy each other’s humor, particularly in mocking the high society and employing Elyot’s credo of Flippancy as Social Critique.

Despite both characters participating in The Defiance of Rigid Gender Roles, it is where gender intersects with sexuality that spurs antagonism between Elyot and Amanda. Neither is interested in upholding traditional definitions of femininity or masculinity, as represented by Sibyl and Victor. Yet Elyot is also hypocritical: He celebrates Amanda’s free spirit until he feels threatened by her liberal attitude toward sexuality. Elyot condemns Amanda’s dalliances both during and after marriage, yet upholds the social double standard when he excuses his own infidelities as “a little different. I’m a man” (49). Amanda is likewise hypocritical. She takes offense to Elyot’s flings with other women, yet asserts that the only thing wrong about her affairs was Elyot’s snooping: “If you hadn’t been so suspicious and nosey you’d never have known a thing about it” (61). The couple’s arguments over infidelity highlight the two polarities that define their flawed dynamic: They vacillate between love and hate, and cannot navigate between lust and monogamy.