“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.