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Tartuffe is a play filled with humor, comedy, and satire written by Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere. Tartuffe focuses around a religious hypocrite by the name of Tartuffe, who tries to manipulate a friend for his estate. Moliere demonstrates how misrepresentation of religion can have unwanted repercussion. Madame Pernelle, Orgon’s mother, defends Tartuffe and leaves Orgon’s house after being aggravated and frustrated with the behavior and allegations of everyone there. Tartuffe is viewed by members of Orgon’s house as an imposter, a bigot, and a manipulator. Orgon is a wealthy yet gullible man who defending Tartuffe and is put in an awkward situation between him and his family. Cleante, Orgon’s brother-in-law, tries to keep the structure and
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere wrote Tartuffe during the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the main characteristics of the Age of Enlightenment was a push towards using reason over emotions to make decisions. The leaders of the enlightenment truly believed that the world could be made a better place if people did this. In Tartuffe, when the characters use their emotions to make their decisions they find themselves in undesirable situations. While those who let their emotions rule them find their lives spinning out of control, there are other characters in the play who try to approach them with reason and logic. Out of these characters the lady’s maid Dorine stands out as the voice of reason.
Pierre performs whiteness in several different ways. First thing that is noticeable is the way Pierre talks. He has this accent that he adapted to separate himself from other african americans. At one point in the movie his father even calls him out on his ridiculous accent and how he needs to stop. Another thing Pierre changed about himself was his name. Pierre Delacroix is the name he had it change to for sound like he has less of a “black” background. His original name, Perrless Dothan, did not fit the “white image” he was trying to pass off. Pierre also furthers his image of a white man by dressing and acting as if he his white. He tries his hardest to pretend like he has no “black” in him, at the beginning of the movie at least.
Moliere’s Tartuffe assumed set of social conventions were shaped by all the characters within the play, however the authoritative figure was established depicted by the father, Oregon. Oregon’s character assumed the role of king or lord of his household. He believed that as the head of household, he had the right to rule over his kingdom as he saw fit. His kingdom had to run smoothly in order for it to be effective. No matter how harsh, unfair and painful it was for his, wife daughter or servants.
Voltaire, more formally known as Francois-Marie Arouet, was a writer, philosopher and historian in the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was the period of time from the late seventeenth century through early nineteenth century in which European thinkers and philosophers began to question and contradict typical styles of thinking. The belief behind this new Enlightenment thinking was that the human race could better themselves through simply creating reasonable change.
This was the age of reason. People at this time began to apply rational thoughts to figure out and understand nature and to guide their human existence. In Moliere’s Tartuffe, this ideal is expressed through the character of the king. In the end, Tartuffe has brought an officer of the king back to take Orgon away. However, in Tartuffe’s attempt to get Orgon arrested, the king saw through him and reasoned that Tartuffe was the one to be accused and put to trial.
In Moliere's comedy, Tartuffe, the main focus of the play is not of Tartuffe, but of Orgon's blind infatuation with Tartuffe. It just so happens that the title character is the villain rather than the hero. Orgon is Moliere's representation of how a man can be so blind in his devotion to a belief that he cannot make accurate judgment as to the sincerity of others who would use that belief to deceive him. Tartuffe easily achieves total power over Orgon's actions because of his gullibility. However, as the play progresses, Orgon's view of Tartuffe changes and results in Tartuffes removal.
Although Tartuffe is portrayed as the main character of the play, Orgon is the character who should really be paid attention to the most. As suggested in an essay on "Tartuffe" audiences who concentrate on the character who titles the work may miss the author's point: "...vitriol and spleen vented on one man suggests that Moliere's satire of Orgon, nevermind Tartuffe, was steeped in truth." (Smaje). Orgon is the character who represents the weakness in human nature. This weakness is shown throughout the play. Orgon is so willing to entrust everything he has into the care of Tartuffe. He places Tartuffe above the well being of his family. When he returns from his trip and asks Cleante how the household was while he was gone, Cleante tells him that his wife had been very sick. Orgon's odd response is, "Ah.
The Effective Satire of Voltaire's Candide In Candide, Voltaire sought to point out the fallacy of Gottfried Leibniz's theory of optimism and the hardships brought on by the resulting inaction toward the evils of the world. Voltaire's use of satire, and its techniques of exaggeration and contrast, highlight the evil and brutality of war and the world in general when men are meekly accepting of their fate. Leibniz, a German philosopher and mathematician of Voltaire's time, developed the idea that the world they were living in at that time was "the best of all possible worlds. " This systematic optimism shown by Leibniz is the philosophical system that believed everything was for the best, no matter how terrible it seemed. In this satire, Voltaire shows the world full of natural disasters and brutality.
Mad Magazine, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live. In our society, satire is among the most prevalent of comedic forms. This was not always true, for before the 18th century, satire was not a fully developed form. Satire, however, rose out of necessity; writers and artists needed a way to ambiguously criticize their governments, their churches, and their aristocrats. By the 18th century, satire was hugely popular. Satire as an art form has its roots in the classics, especially in the Roman Horace's Satires. Satire as it was originally proposed was a form of literature using sarcasm, irony, and wit, to bring about a change in society, but in the eighteenth century Voltaire, Jonathan Swift and William Hogarth expanded satire to include politics, as well as art. The political climate of the time was one of tension. Any criticism of government would bring harsh punishments, sometimes exile or death. In order to voice opinions without fear of punishment, malcontented writers turned to Satire. Voltaire's Candide and Swift's Modest Proposal are two examples of this new genre. By creating a fictional world modeled after the world he hated, Voltaire was able to attack scientists, and theologians with impunity. Jonathan Swift created many fictional worlds in his great work, Gulliver's Travels, where he constantly drew parallels to the English government.
In Candide, Voltaire explores the ideas of paternalistic optimism and uses satire as a method of social commentary. His story follows the misery of one man as he pursues his one and only love and the happiness that he eventually finds. By framing the novel around a biblical story and having Candide lose and regain paradise, Voltaire suggests that one must cultivate their own perfect world as opposed to optimistically enduring the present in the hopes of a better future.
Tartuffe is a comedy, but it still follows these characteristics. Firstly the appearance of a tragic hero. In this play, our tragic hero is not Tartuffe for whom the play is named, but is instead Orgon, the head of the household where the play takes place. Orgon is our tragic hero because he really isn’t a bad person. He isn’t seeking to ruin anyone with hidden plans or deception, he is just very unaware of what’s happening right under his nose. The tragic flaw that Orgon shows is just taking everything that tartuffe says as absolute truth and not questioning it at all. This is what ultimately leads to his error in judgement which is telling his daughter that she is to marry tartuffe and not Valere who she’s already proposed to. Of course, this doesn’t
Tartuffe is nothing more than a traveling confidence man who veils his true wickedness with a mask of piety. Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle are completely taken in by this charade. On the other hand, Cleante, Elmire, and Dorine see Tartuffe for the fake that he really is. Cleante is Orgon's wise brother who speaks elegantly about Tartuffe's hypocrisy. Through Cleante, Moliere most plainly reveals his theme.
Molière’s play “Tartuffe and Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest” both demonstrate a comical portrait of hypocrisy. In “Tartuffe”, the main character Tartuffe is seen as a religious hypocrite who takes advantage of Orgon’s wealth and agrees to marry his daughter, Mariane against her wishes. In “The Importance of Being Earnest”, Jack and Algernon both lie about their identity to get the woman of their dreams. The authors use the concept of double personalities in the play to reveal the deceit and lies to represent the theme of hypocrisy. In fact, hypocrisy is not only displayed in the characters but in the play as a whole. Additionally, the plays are both hypocrital in ways that they do not follow the structure of comedy.
Imagine the Paris home of Orgon, who meets Tartuffe at church and is completely taken in by him...so much so, that he foolishly not only invites this relative stranger, Tartuffe, to live in his home, but also promises his daughter (Mariane) in marriage to the man, though she has promised her heart to Valère.
Tartuffe is a satirical comedic play written by Molière in 1664. It is focused around the family of Orgon and the character of Tartuffe, who has become Orgon’s personal holy man. Before being brought into Orgon’s home, Tartuffe was nothing more than a common beggar who learned how to act pious. Throughout this play, we see Orgon give everything he owns to Tartuffe: his love, his money, his daughter, and even the deed to his house. While everyone else in the household sees Tartuffe for who he really is, Orgon remains blind to it throughout most of the play. Orgon is warned many times by different members of the household, including his own son, yet he only chooses to lash out against those speaking. From early on in the play we as readers are able to recognize that Tartuffe is no more than a hypocrite and Orgon is a blind fool. In the play Tartuffe by Molière there are several different important themes that impact this work,