Monthly Archives: September 2018

Response to Tartuffe, Moliere

— Discuss the theme of appearances or masks in Tartuffe? How does the issue of appearances vs. reality connect with the central concerns of the play?

The theme of masks in Moliere’s Tartuffe is shown throughout the play through many different characters. The most recognizable deceptive character in the play is Tartuffe, who appears to be a zealous God-fearing man, but has shown otherwise. For example, he claims to whip himself and wear his hair-shirt to emphasize his devoutness towards God but he ironically has lived a life of leisure in Orgon’s household. He was a gluttonous pig enjoying piles of food and endless amounts of wine whereas he would supposed to help Madame Elmire when she suffered from her illness.
Furthermore, the role of masks can be shown through other characters such as Madame Elmire. When she realized that Tartuffe had real intentions to seduce her, she appeared to lead him on so she can save her daughter’s marriage as well as show her husband of Tartuffe’s evil intentions. This theme is repeated again towards the end with Monsieur Loyal wearing the appearance of being against Orgon’s house but was intentionally leading Tartuffe’s schemes on to indefinitely prove that he was guilty.

— How is the institution of marriage treated in Tartuffe? What are some of the models or ideals of marriage that are raised by Moliere or his characters?

Throughout the play, Moliere brings up multiple examples of how institutional marriage was in his time. To simply word it, the husband was the king of the family, and decided everything. One example of this would be when Orgon was to choose who his daughter, Mariane, would marry. To continue on the thought of Orgon’s daughter, Orgon decided to break his promise to marry Mariane to Valere, the man she loved, and offered her to Tartuffe, a man hated by everyone else in the family. The second example would be when Mariane didn’t fight Orgon’s decision to marry her and Tartuffe. She simply said that her father was the shot-caller and then basically told her lover she hates him and never wants to see him again. The third example was during the scene when Orgon and his wife Elmire made a plan to expose Tartuffe. The deal was that Elmire had to flirt with Tartuffe and make him advance on her. Shortly after, he did, but Orgon didn’t stop them. The only thing that pissed him off was when Tartuffe said Orgon would do anything he wishes. This showed how a wife was portrayed in the 17th century.

All of these examples perfectly painted what a marriage was back then, and in addition showed how the words of the man of the land were godly, and couldn’t be disputed.

Does “Bewitched” have anything to teach its readers? If so, what? What is Akinari’s message in this text?

The story, “Bewitched” teaches its readers that appearance can be deceiving which is why if people want to be strong-minded, they must learn to control their mind and avoid their temptations. When Toyo-o met Manago, he instantly felt attracted to her and called this attraction ‘love’ without questioning her mysterious background. However, even though Toyo-o does have a naive character throughout the story, his family was also deceived by Manago’s appearance, “even though Toyo-o was not convinced, they themselves welcomed her into their household and provided her with a room”(642). In this quote, after his arrest,  Toyo-o became more doubtful about Manago’s honesty yet his parents also fell into the trap of trusting Manago’s elegant looks. Akinari is, therefore, trying to say that many people fall into this trap of trusting wrong individuals.

Following a religion might be another lesson that the Akinari wanted to teach. His viewpoint can be analyzed from the statement that an old man said to Toyo-o at the picnic incident, “you must develop a more manly, a more determined spirit, which you now lack, in order to repulse it…You must never yield to temptations of passion and lust”(644). In this quote, the man says that passion and lust are human temptations that must be avoided if one wants to have a strong spirit. In a sense, this can also be seen as a request for Toyo-o to become a close follower of his religion. In the religion of Buddhism, for example, one belief says that suffering is caused by selfishness and personal desire, which is similar to what the old man’s message. Thus, if people want to be strong-minded, Akinary might be saying that religion such as Buddhism can help to teach them how to avoid their desires.

4. The text describes Manago as”bewitchingly voluptuous.” What does the character of Manago tell us about feminine beauty?

Manago is described as ”bewitchingly voluptuous.”, which means she was a charming, fascinating and seductive woman. It was all about her physical beauty, her sensuality and flirty voice. The character of Manago tell us about feminine beauty that women are primary portrayed as a sexual symbol by society. Women are supposed to be delicate and have some sort of beauty that men can be attracted to. Even though, Manago was an old big serpent she assumed that the only way to seduce a young handsome man, or any other, was by being a woman with an exotic beauty. So, this supports my argument of women being supposed to be a beautiful portrait that men fight for or cannot resist.

Describe the character of Orgon. Why do you think he’s so vulnerable to Tartuffe?

Orgon is an extremely proud and an egocentric leader of his household. He is the one making decisions for the rest of his family. He is blind to reason and makes quick rash decisions. Such men are easily fooled or deceived by fast talking men who appease to their reasoning. Since Orgon is a self centered person he is blinded to those around him, which makes him vulnerable to deceive. Tartuffe on the other hand is the exact opposite, who isn’t proud and prey on such men. Since Orgon was self centered it was easier for Tartuffe to divide him from his family. So he wouldn’t listen to their reasoning or accusations. He was the type of leader that would cause harm to his public on a whim of a higher authority. Which was what author was criticizing, the relationship between the king and the church. Blind faith could lead to disasters, which is immune to reason. All of actions were focused or had sole purpose of appeasing Tartuffe. At the end when he found out the truth, he was outraged and blamed the all the priests in the world. Its like he went from on end of the spectrum to another, to which his brother in law recommend practicing moderation. He went from blind faith to this blind rage, in both he still lack the ability to see reason. Thus, he was a guy consumed by his own pride that he lacked aptitude to reason which showed his venerability. Due to these traits he was easily tricked by Tartuffe who played on his ego and separated him from the rest of the family and used him to do his bidding.

1. Why do you think Toyo-o continues to be involved with Manago even after he suspects that she is a demon of some sort?

When Toyo-o saw Manago again, it was in the Tanabe store.  At first, he was taken by surprise as well as didn’t want anything to do with her given that he was convinced that Manago was the devil.  However, his sister and her husband were so moved by her extravagant story (the last two paragraphs on page 641), that they welcomed her into their household.  On page 642 Akinari states, “In a day or so Manago, ingratiating herself to her host and hostess, pleaded with them tearfully to win back Toyo-o for her.”  Ingratiating means intended to gain approval or favor, likebehaving in a way to gain an advantage.  Therefore, Manago was not genuine in her pleas.  Manago is a serpent so of course, she was able to convince Toyo-o or put him “under her spell” considering she can skillfully manipulate anyone just with her voice. Despite this, I believe that even if she wasn’t a serpent, Manago could still manipulate Toyo-o.  He is a weak character that had everything handed to him and is told what to do.  Going back to page 642, Manago skillfully instructed Toyo-o’s sister and her husband to help her [Manago] with getting Toyo-o back in which they were able to convince him to go through with formal wedding rites.

1. Why do you think Toyo-o continues to be involved with Manago even after he suspects that she is a demon of some sort?
2. Why do you think people (both in the 18th century, when Akinari was writing, and in our own day) are attracted to ghost stories or tales of the supernatural?
3. Does “Bewitched” have anything to teach its readers? If so, what? What is Akinari’s message in this text?
4. The text describes Manago as”bewitchingly voluptuous.” What does the character of Manago tell us about feminine beauty?

Describe one aspect of the play that seems very modern to you and one that seems very dated or old-fashioned.

One aspect of the play that seems very modern is how humans are still vulnerable to be deceived and how challenging it is for them to foresee the consequences from this problem. In the play, Orgon is the head of his household and is presented as a man of power and wisdom. However, despite of his authoritative status, he still fell into the hands of Tartuffe’s corrupt intentions. Similarly to this scenario, in the modern times, people are still vulnerable to manipulation and deception by others regardless of what status or level of education they have. For example, millions of people today spend a lot of their time using social media. Although social media seems ‘social’ and entertaining, the manipulation comes in when big companies intentionally make infinite scrolling pages so that we use these platforms as long as possible while  they make more money. Instead living our own life, spectating  someone else’s life is becoming part of our routine. The consequences from this routine are not analyzed enough in our society. Some examples of  consequences are  that the number of people wearing glasses is increasing, cyber bullying is born, and we are not as ‘social’ as we used to be. Thus, being vulnerable to manipulation is a part of a human weakness that seems very modern and the play is successful in depicting this weakness.

One aspect of the play that seems very dated or old-fashioned is the system of having an absolute monarchy as well as the idea of having a divine right to rule. Absolute monarchy is an old fashioned political system because the king and queen rule over the society without giving their people a voice. Another reason is because with absolute monarchy, separating the church and state is very difficult. The idea of divine right states that the king and queen have their power from god, therefore, these rulers stay as close to the church as possible. Today, however, people in many countries vote for their political representation and there are only a few countries with theocratic governments that include religion in their political system.

Describe the character of Orgon. Why do you think he’s so vulnerable to Tartuffe?

There are many denigrating traits that can be given to Orgon. After carefully thinking about the right way to describe him I would say that Orgon is a dreamer, unexperienced, ingenious and at the same time a strict dictator to those who don’t follow his beliefs. In most parts of the play we can see Orgon falling for Tartuffe’s lies. He rejected his own family just so Tartuffe would be in peace and unbothered. Orgon was willing to arrange a marriage between Tartuffe and his daughter Mariane with the purpose of making Tartuffe family, and Orgon also kicked out his son Damis accusing him of traitor for saying that Tartuffe was in love with his wife; which was true. I think Orgon is vulnerable to Tartuffe because he seems him as his salvation, as his keys to heaven. He believes Tartuffe will guide him to God and make all his suffering vanish.

Yet, at the end Orgon could see the real man Tartuffe was and that his family was always right about him, so, now he has experience with hypocrite people and will not fall into their lies again.

Hello Class!

My name is Kathy and I am currently a sophomore here at Baruch planning to major in entrepreneurship. The idea of doing the “9-5” is definitely not in my field on interest, especially now that I live in Queens where transportation is rather inconvenient compared to when I lived in Brooklyn. I came to Baruch thinking that it would be my ideal choice of a college since many of my older friends haven’t had any negative comments about their experiences but I was wrong. College life here is definitely a let down but in the end, it’s not too big of a deal for me as I don’t consider myself a very social person.

My hobbies include working with e-commerce, video games and collecting luxury goods. I know it may seem strange as all three are in completely different fields from one another but these are probably the only things I find interest in and can stay in focus with. In my free time, i’m probably binging a series i’ve already seen or playing games, sometimes even both. It’s a bad habit I hope to break eventually but being the procrastinator that I am, it may take a while.

I definitely want to improve on myself throughout the course of this semester since i’m well aware of the fact that writing isn’t my specialty, as you can probably tell from this post but i’m hoping to get through this semester along with the rest of you all.