Tartuffe 33

The way Tartuffe is acting reminds me of Quagmire, from Family Guy, who is a total pervert.

Tartuffe commits the sin of lust and thereof the sin of envy. Earlier on, in the play, Orgon says that Tartuffe is more jealous than Orgon, of the company Elmire socializes with. The fact that Tartuffe is actually lusting for Elmire shows that this is envy of Elmire’s friends that they are able to be with her instead of him.                                                                                                             Image taken from:                                                               http://froidethumide.ratata.fi/Site/Data/1934/Images/Quagmire_by_iKapow.jpg

 The School for Wives is another play by Moliere. The play is about how a man, Arnolphe, tries to create the perfect wife for himself and how his grand scheme goes into complete disarray. Arnolphe is overly obssessed with the “evil” of woman, on how they trick men, manipulate men, and commit sins to further their own happiness even if it meant dishonoring their husbands, and how the smarter woman are the worse off for the man. Arnolphe buys a four year old girl, Agnes, from a poor  woman. Arnolphe has the girl raised to be as dumb as possible due to a strict (non)learning regimen that makes her ignorant of worldy happenings and possessions, and hides her away, so that she would ultimately only love him and be his wife. Arnolphe goes away for a trip, and another man, Horace, causes Agnes to fall in love with him, after an incidental meeting and scheming of his own. Due to Horace’s ignorance, Horace confides in Arnolphe that he is in love with Agnes and that she is being locked up by a despicable man. Arnolphe, with knowledge of the happenings between Agnes and Horace, try to thwart the love affair between Agnes and Horace, without Horace knowing that Arnolphe is the man holding Agnes captive. Arnolphe’s schemes all backfire, and he is in disarray. Unfortunately, the most I could get out of the ending of play is that Arnolphe commands Agnes to go to a room and there is no complete ending, as far as I was able to find.                                                                                                                There are some similarities between Tartuffe and The School for Wives. Both plays go about with this level of absurdity. In The School for Wives, Arnolphe is being completely absurd with his scheme to create this perfect wife and how all woman are “evil” in some way, and in Tartuffe, the way Madame Pernelle and Orgon are obssessed about Tartuffe. Chrysalde reminds me of Cleante, full of proper and wise words. Alain and Georgette remind me of Dorine, rather free willed and impudent at times.Also, when they are about to be punished, they finally do what is proper, when comparing Arnolphe threatening not to feed one of them for four days compared to Orgon theatening to slap Dorine. Arnolphe gives off the feel of Orgon, according to the anthology, in that he is trying to have full control over Agnes, with the way she is raised and the maxims that he wants her to follow. Some of the maxims reminded me of the first scene in Tartuffe, where Madame Pernelle complains of the affairs of Elmire, in a social setting. Both plays feature the main male character as wealthy individuals whose plans for a marriage goes into disarray.

Moliere the movie.                                                                                            http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796335/

Moliere (French dramatist):

                                                                                                                Born as Jean Baptiste Poquelin on January 15, 1622, and died February 17, 1963. Moliere is his stage name.                                                                                                                     “Molière was born (and died) in the heart of Paris. His mother died when he was 10 years old; his father, one of the appointed furnishers of the royal household…..Although his father clearly intended him to take over his royal appointment, the young man renounced it in 1643, apparently determined to break with tradition and seek a living on the stage.”                                                                                                                      Tartuffe references these happenings in Moliere’s own life. In Tartuffe, the setting is in Paris, the mother of the siblings are dead, Orgon helped the royal family during the war, and Damis rejects Orgon’s wishes and leaves the house.                                                                                                                     “rather to animate the absurd, as in such masterpieces as Tartuffe, L’École des femmes, Le Misanthrope, and many others.”                                                                                                                The absurdity of Orgon and Madame Pernelle, in Tartuffe, didn’t need to be that prominent to see that it was.                                                                                                                “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme….This is comedy in Molière’s happiest vein: the fatuity of the masculine master is offset by the common sense of wife and servant.”                                                                                                               This play seems similar to Tartuffe in this aspect.                                                                                                                    “…before the king, Louis XIV….” And “…secured the favor of the King’s brother Philippe, duc d’Orleans.”                                                                                                                     Despite the fact that Moliere’s plays garnered harsh criticism and opposition, he early already had gained audience from many prominent individuals, such as the King and the King’s brother.                                                                                                                     “.. as if people suspected that here was an emergence of a comic genius that regarded nothing as sacrosanct.”                                                                                                                     If Moliere is truly able to “regarded nothing as sacrosanct” then he might be able to better express himself to the audience and convey a better understanding of the picture he is trying to display since he would be able to make use of all material available.                                                                                                                     “Ideas are expressed to please a public, not to propagate the author’s view. If asked what he thought of hypocrisy or atheism, he would have marveled at the question and evaded it with the observation that the theatre is not the place for “views.” There is no documentary evidence that Moliere ever tried to convey his own opinions on marriage, on the church, on hell, or on class distinctions.”                                                                                                                     Since there was so much outrage and opposition towards him, it would be hard to believe this to be true. However, this does seem a likely logical prospect given the absurdity of Orgon and Madame Pernelle in Tartuffe.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  “All that is known is that he worked for and in the theatre and used his amazing power of dramatic suggestion to vivify any imagined scene.”                                                                                                                      This “power of dramatic suggestion to vivify any imagined scene” is a double edged sword. The images came to life, became more relatable to, and made everyone, both the general audience and the people of guilty conscience, take recognition of the truths of the time. The wrongs of the guilty were being showcased, and “brought to life”, and the guilty felt “exposed” and offended.

Moliere.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Image taken from wikipedia.

”..which these gentlemen do not care about at all, but that of Moliere makes fun of them, and that is what they cannot bear.”                                                                                                                    The preface is of Moliere defending Tartuffe against those who condemn it. Ultimately, the true main reason for their censure is that they cannot tolerate being the target. They can criticize everyone for everything but when they are being criticized they are not able to handle it. The bully can not handle being bullied.

“Son of a prosperous Paris merchant”                                                                                                                     I thought “to comment on his own immediate social scene” is what Moliere seemed to do in Tartuffe. Moliere might have created this play as reference to his own life as a wealthy merchant’s son, and based it on actual events that happened in his youth.                                                                                                       “Orgon… seeks ways to preserve control”                                                                                                                The explanation given seems logical but I do not really believe it.                                                                                                       “Madame Pernelle…. thus fostering her illusion that she still runs things.”                                                                                                                     I felt this was kind of the way Madame Pernelle was when Dorine argues that the neighbor is just jealous of Elmire because she is old, no longer has beauty, and is jealous of Elmire. Madame Pernelle is old and no longer has what she did before, and continues to want to claim what she had lost.                                                                                                           “..king orders everything, as though a benevolent god had intervened.”                                                                                                             Many kings, emperors, rulers, had claimed divine power, in the past, and some still do today. It would not be surprising for the king to be viewed in this way.                                                                                                                    “Moliere’s defense of his intentions(not to mock faith but to attack its misuse), it is not hard to see why the play might trouble religious authorities.”                                                                                                                     I believe Moliere does both mocking and attack the misuse of faith, in Tartuffe.

My opinion on Tartuffe is negative. I dislike the play and would not recommend it to other people to read. Overall, I had a lack of interest or was indifferent. I did like some parts of the play, and liked Dorine, but not enough to outweigh the dislikes.                                                                                                                The parts of the play that I did like were Act 2, Scene 1 to Scene 3, and mainly Dorine. The reason for liking those parts is also mainly because of Dorine. Dorine is fun and enjoyable to read about. If not for Dorine, I would have gone mad.                                                                                                            There is much of the play that I disliked. I hated the characters of Orgon, Madame Pernelle, Flipotte, and Tartuffe. Most of the scenes were not interesting or to my distaste. I am anti-religion, and generally do not like readings regarding religion. Even though Tartuffe is a play that is mocking blinded-by-faith religious people, and showing how people take advantage of others’ faith, I still don’t like reading about them. The way Madame Pernelle and Orgon acted caused me aggravation because I dislike unreasonable and irrational people. Tartuffe is a despicable person for abusing religion and taking advantage of other people’s faith. Most of the scenes were not interesting to me, or made me feel angst.

This extended ending is much more to my liking than the way it actually ended. There is a scene where you get to see Dorine, Mariane, Damis, and Valere in a state of happiness. The only scene that actually feels good throughout, without any real unpleasantry. The ending lets you to imagine and speculate on the happenings that will come next. Will Orgon repeat the history with Tartuffe? Will Orgon learn from his mistake and not be as taken awry? Will the story go in a completely different direction? This ending leaves a cliffhanger that makes you wanting for more.

Orgon goes to church to pray to God for all the happiness in his life. As Orgon leaves the church, he sees Tubed on his knees praying to God. Orgon asks Tubed why he is outside of the church instead of being inside the church. Tubed says that he is not worthy of being in the church because he basically is worthless, and that he would disgrace the name of God and the church if he was praying inside of the church. Tubed is happy just to be alive and grateful to God that God allows him to live. Tubed will continue to pray on the hard ground, even though his knees become very rough from doing so. Orgon seemingly foolisly offers Tebud his home and whatever he can to help, as he did for Tartuffe.                                                                                                                   Tubed is “debut” backwards. Debut is French for “start” or “beginning”, according to Google translate. The use of this name, in this way, is to show that this ending actually goes back to the start of the story. This gives a possible idea of how Tartuffe came into Orgon’s life. Also, the name shows that this is the start of another story for Orgon.