Anna on Tartuffe

Anna Savina: Blog Post

In the Moliere’s play “Tartuffe” there are only two characters who liked hypocrite Tartuffe. They are mother and son, Madame Pernelle and Orgon. Orgon is one of the main characters in the play but his mother appeared only twice. The play started with Madame Pernelle. But what was Moliere’s reason to introduce Madame Pernelle’s character? There could be two possible reasons for it.
The first reason is to put Orgon in the same situation as his whole family was before, when he was blind and obsessed with Tartuffe. Finally, in the fourth Act he realized who Tartuffe was. We can compare Act 1 Scene 5 and Act 5 Scene 3. Two scenes are exactly the same. But the characters changed. In the first scene the whole family confronts Orgon about Tartuffe. And in the second scene Orgon has already took everybody’s side and tried to explain his mother who Tartuffe was. Of course, she did not believe him and this was clear parallel of the plot lines. In such way Molier taught Orgon a lesson and punished for his silliness and absurdness. Scene 3 in the Act V starts with Madame Pernelle and her son’s conversation. He tried to explain her the reality about Tartuffe. Orgon sustained a defeat. To make it more severe the author used Dorine with her ironic remarks. At first, through her character we hear: “Poor fellow!” These were exactly the same words which were used by Orgon in the first Act. Moliere wanted to remind the audience how ridiculous Orgon was in the beginning. Later on Dorine said: “It’s your turn now, Sir, not to be listen to; / You’d not trust us, and now she won’t trust you.” The author one more time made the accent on the similarity of the plot lines.
The second reason to have Madam Pernelle’s character in the play is to show the biggest danger of hypocrisy: it is difficult to believe in hypocrite’s villainy and amorality until you directly experience his criminal and immoral activity and see his face without fake pious mask. With the help of Orgon’s and Madame Pernelle’s characters we can see the plot spiral. Both mother and son realized the true Tartuffe’s nature only when they could see the real proof. Finally, in the Act 5 Orgon was convinced that Tartuffe was completely a different person. Both mother and son followed the same plot path. But Orgon was the first one and Madame Pernelly followed him. In the first Act and second Act we could find the similarities in their speeches. Orgon: “Say of him, then, /That he’s very worthiest of men, And that you’re fond of him, …” Madame Pernelle: “He’s out to save your souls, and all of you / Must love him, as my son would have you do.” Both tried to convince others to love Tartuffe as they did. Right after the scene when Orgon experienced evil intentions of Tartuffe we could see that he finally realized what was happening all that time. Orgon: “That man’s a perfect monster, I must admit! / I’m simply stunned. I can’t get over it.” The same repeated with madame Pernelle. She was able to believe her son only when Tartuffe proved his hypocrisy in front of her. It happened when Monsieur Loyal told news about eviction. Madame Pernelle: “ I’m thunderstruck. I’m utterly aghast.” The scary thing in both situations is that neither Orgon nor madame Pernelle had any doubts about honesty and sacredness of Tartuffe until he uncovered his true face.