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Tartuffe
In his most notorious play Tartuffe, Molière relates the story of an attempt, by a manipulative hypocrite, to destroy the domestic happiness of a citizen who, charmed by his seeming piety, has taken him into his home as a respectable guest. The play was disallowed after its first performance because it was deemed anti-religion. However this ruling was made unfairly since true religion is never confounded with hypocrisy, but is upheld with warmth, which shows his characteristic hatred of imposture in any shape.
Through out Tartuffe, Molière's play repeatedly states that there is a difference between piety for God and piety for personal gain and that he commends the former and only condemns the latter. From the very onset of the play, in the first act, Cleante, characterized as the voice of reason in the play tells Orgon, the duped main character:
A man who rules the rest by putting up such airs
Can be a hypocrite for all his fervent prayers.
When battle's joined, and men of honour come and fight,
The quiet men are brave, the boasters may take fright;
So truly pious men, whom people must admire,
Will not make such a song and dance about hell-fire.
Oh, Heavens! Can't you see there's a distinction
Between hypocrisy and true devotion?
Cleante warns Orgon of the show that hypocrites, such as Tartuffe, put on in order to be thought of as pious in order to gain admiration and favor. However Cleante goes on to say that the true religious men are worthy of praise, they display balance and inward devotion:
We all know men who burn with re...
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...tives of individuals who claim to be doing God's work, hypocrites who take advantage of those that believe them. The banning of the play was caused by an obvious reactionary outcy by individuals who no doubt saw the undesired qualities illustrated by Tartuffe, in themselves. The irrational opposition was soon made to look even more foolish when friendly interest in the drama among leaders in society induced the king to withdraw his prohibition. In the end, Molière himslef said it best, "And how can a holy dogma make out that it's fair, To steal a legacy and rob a rightful heir?" No hypocrite could use religion to hide the brilliance of Tartuffe.
Bibliography
Moliere. "Tartuffe." The Misanthrope, Tartuffe and Other Plays. Ed. Maya Slater. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 143
"Tartuffe" Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 23 April 2006. 1 June 2006.
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.
Out of the plays that we could have chosen to produce, I have decided to go with Molière’s, “Tartuffe.” This play is a comedy that comes from 17th century France and is heavily influenced by two large sources of experience for Molière. Those sources are the rules and structure for a play put in place by the French academy and the lessons of improvisation taught by the Commedia dell’Arte. This piece is written in fives acts that are in a unique alexandrine style of verse which have 12 syllables in a line and usually ends with rhyming words. The reason I chose this play is because, in my opinion, things like television, movies, plays, and other forms of media and entertainment are meant to transport you away from all the bad things happening in real life and focus you on something fun and/or interesting. I find this play to have a lot of fun moments that can be mined for even more comedy and I think it has the good chance to keep a large audience entertained for a long period of time. To accomplish my goal I will use elements of situational comedies, France in the 1660’s, and one of Molière’s plays, “A school for girls.”
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.
It is in the duality of Orgon, the believing subject, and Tartuffe, the manipulating hypocrite (or impostor), that Moliere takes his digs at the extremes of enthusiastic belief. Tartuffe plays the role of a man whose greedy actions are cloaked by a mask of overwhelming piety, modesty and religious fervor. Orgon is the head of a household who has taken Tartuffe in. We laugh at Orgon because everyone else (except his mother) knows that Tartuffe is a fake. All of Orgon's relatives warn him of Tartuffe's gluttony and of the false nature of his pious proclamations.
...have crucial impacts for the broader domain of understanding the transformation of the religious institution in Western civilizations. However, this contradicts those who used to think that Marlowe is arguing against religion. Instead, this opens the debate to how theater was used to reinforce the values of its patronizing state.
...is kind have power only when ordinary citizens willfully give up their ability to think for themselves” (Tartuffe) and instead of condemning religious people he was condemning hypocrisy. Moliere’s objective is clear in Cleante’s statement “So there is nothing that I find more base than specious piety’s dishonest face- than these bold mountebanks, these histrios whose impious mummeries and hollow shows exploit our love of Heaven” (Moliere), which was to point out the impostors within the church. Throughout the play Moliere shows that the true devout does not need the approval or appraisal from anyone in society as Orgon was looking for, and states at the end his personal opinion on religion through Cleante’s honest wishes for good towards Tartuffe, “don’t say anything to aggravate his present woes; but rather hope that he will soon embrace an honest piety” (Moliere).
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
Moliere rocked the 17th century French world with his comedy "Tartuffe" in 1664. Although, religious factions kept the play banned from theatres from 1664-1669, "Tartuffe" emerged from the controversy as one of the all-time great comedies. Tartuffe is a convincing religious hypocrite. He is a parasite who is sucking Orgon, the rich trusting father, for all he is worth. Orgon does not realize that Tartuffe is a phony, and caters to his every whim. For instance, he reneges on his promise to let his daughter Mariane, marry Valere. Instead he demands that she wed Tartuffe, whom she despises. He also banishes his own son, Damis, from his house for speaking out against Tartuffe and all of his son's inheritance is promised to Tartuffe.
When witnessing irrational behavior, there comes a sudden urge. The urge to feel the emotions and read the thoughts of the offender in an attempt to understand their purpose and to set the mind at ease. The play The Tragedy of King Christophe by Aimé Césaire offers the opportunity to peer into the mind of King Henri Christophe and to understand the motives that lead to his undoing. His voice is no longer silenced. His story speaks of a man with selfless aspirations who took an unfortunately fatal detour, a tragedy heard time and time again. Christophe ultimately becomes a victim to his twisted views on racial inequality, his faulty methods for leveling himself to his superiors and his overwhelming power.
...The crucial element drawing these plays together is the mutual use of a symbolically significant object. That is, the staff. The staff is disgraced in the manner in which role it had been given in the plays. Although it is ambiguous, the staff appears to be a metaphorical phallic symbol in the Two Gentlemen of Verona used to convey to crudity of Launce’s views on marriage. Conversely, in The Jew of Malta, it is used in a most blasphemous sense – for the purpose of mocking the Christian faith. The faith is ridiculed when the staff is used satirically to ‘support’ the dead Friar and when Jacomo uses it with the intention to murder. This is explicitly ironic. Thus this essay has shown how irony, hypocrisy, mockery and sexual innuendo all serve the same purpose in these plays – to challenge the society by the subverting and perverting moral, religious and political codes.
In the play Tartuffe, by Moliere, utilizes the personality of different characters to create an arena of unique characters. Through each character a new perspective is viewed through their actions and dialogue. In the play, the character developments are different with the individuals. Tartuffe and Orgon experienced a transformation in their devolvement’s as a strong character to a weak-willed and vice versa. Whereas, Elmire and Dorine remain constant strong independent female, against society’s view on women and class. Moliere’s formation of their development provides an insight of human flaws. In Moliere’s play, Tartuffe, creates an arena of diverse characters that experience internal and external issues set by themselves and society.
Although Shakespeare’s plays are generally categorized according to their adherence to the formulaic definitions of histories, romances, comedies, or tragedies, there are several plays that complicate the task of fitting neatly into these groupings. Many literary critics, in fact, have singled out a handful of plays and labeled them ‘Problem Plays’ because they do not fall easily into any of the four categories, though they do loosely adhere to the predicated ‘formula’ of the genre under which they appear in the Folios. Although The Winter’s Tale is not generally considered a problem play, it certainly contains elements that greatly complicate our understanding of the term ‘comedy’ and make it difficult to accept the play as such. In this work, Shakespeare’ s comic vision is so darkened by tragic events that it is questionable whether the play is ever able to recover sufficiently to make the comedic ending acceptable. Although The Winter's Tale is considered a comedy in the formal sense (complete with the marriage at the end), it must also be seen as a serious response to tragedy in that it not only engages various tragic elements, but it also uses those elements to highlight the contradictory and unbelievable nature of its comedic ending. Through the odd construction of the play, the great dramatic risks taken, and the paradoxical conclusion of The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare creates a complex work that seems to suggest that categories like ‘comedy’ are largely ambiguous terms when the predicated comedic ending is so darkened by tragic events that the play does not have the time nor the strength to recover.
Religion was a major factor in a number of Shakespeare’s plays. Religion motivated action and reasoning. In Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” religion was more than a belief in a higher being; it reflected moral standards and ways of living. In the “Merchant of Venice,” “a Christian ethic of generosity, love, and risk-taking friendship is set in pointed contrast with a non-Christian ethic that is seen, from a Christian point of view, as grudging, resentful, and self-calculating.” (Bevington, pg. 74) Although Shakespeare writes this drama from a Christian point of view he illustrates religion by conflicts of the Old Testament and the New Testament in Venetian society and its court of law. These Testaments are tested through the Christians and Jews of Venice.
Moliere’s Tartuffe is a great ironic story centered on one man’s family and the trials and tribulations throughout their household. The protagonist in Tartuffe is Orgon. Orgon is portrayed as an over-trusting fool. He is over concerned with his beloved guest to such great extent that he becomes blind to the obvious fallacies that stand before him. As said in scene two by Dorine, “. . . but he’s quite lost his senses since he fell beneath Tartuffe’s infatuating spell. He calls him brother, and loves him as his life, preferring him to mother, child, or wife,” Orgon has put his family and the truth aside from him and has lost his reason (21-22). It is Orgon’s state of mind which this story actually thrives upon. Without the fool, there is no one to take advantage of.
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,