Customer Reviews

The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)

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"Tartuffe" is a play written by Moliere in 17th Century France. It begins with the family of Orgon, a rich nobleman, who is being deceived by Tartuffe, a fake "Man of God". Tartuffe himself is not actually introduced until in middle of the play, which I think, gives an affect of making the audience wait in anticipation for the main character. Orgon is completely fooled by Tartuffe's ways and will not believe any ill words about him. So much so, that Orgon plans on giving his daughters hand in marriage to Tartuffe, while Tartuffe makes advances on Orgons wife, and Orgon will not believe it. The rest of the family sees right through this bogus Tartuffe, but for most of the play Orgon will not accept it. Finally, Orgons wife is able to set up a trap in which Tartuffe was caught in the act. Tartuffe already had the rights to all of Orgons property signed over to him, through his deceit, but when Tartuffe went to the king, the king saw right through him, and the play ends happily.

The play does end happily, while showing the king in a good light, which was the proper thing to do during that time period. However, because of it's criticism to the Catholic church, the play was actually banned on more than one occasion. The devout people of the Catholic church felt that Tartuffe was showing them in a bad light, because that is what Tartuffe was posing as.

Tartuffe is a very funny play. Through Tartuffe, Molière exposes and criticizes different aspects of French society around the 17th century. He criticizes the hypocrisy through the main character Tartuffe who uses religious values to get into a family and take advantage of them. He depicts forced marriage through Orgon's daugther Marianne, and the importance of father son relationship through Damis.

I think Dorine and Cléante are memorable characters in the play. Cléante was the perfect man for the "honest man" because he had less emotional connections and less interest in what was going on in the house. He talked out of reason and calmness. Dorine was the voice that said what people really thought. The play ended in by a suspicious intervention by the King. I think maybe Molière may have used the same strategy that Tartuffe used, boosting the King's ego to get him to appreciate his work.

Tartuffe is a famous play written by Moliere in the 17th century, under the reign of Luis XIV. It is about the guy, Tartuffe, who is seemingly a very humble man devoted to the church, but in fact has completely different plans and ideas. He meets Orgon, a rich noble man, at a church, and impresses him so much, that Orgon promises him his daughter's hand as well as the whole household. The rest of the Orgon's family realizes very fast that Tartuffe is a hypocrite, but they cannot oppose Orgon because in that period of time no one was going against the "King" of a family. The only person, who is openly opposing Orgon and trying to convince him that he is wrong about Tartuffe, is Dorine the maid, who brings the fresh air of the working class people of pre-revolutionary France in this noble family with a strict order. Eventually, Orgon finds out that he has been "dragged by the nose" after he witnesses how Tartuffe tried to seduce his wife.
After I read this play I realized why the name Tartuffe became a synonym for hypocrisy. There have always been people who passionately preach something that they don't strongly believe in. The play vividly describes those types of individuals, and shows a paradigm for that kind of behavior.

Re the kindle version of this book, I just rec'd this edition of Moliere plays a couple of days ago. I read the prefatory material, but then discovered that the actual text of the plays is faulty. The problem is that the text is in a tiny font size, and cannot be enlarged with the "Aa" command. So I could not read it at all.

Tartuffe a play, written by Moliere in the 1600s shows us that as humans we may have different perspectives of the same individual. Three of the characters that stood out to me throughout this play were Orgon, Dorine and Tartuffe. Orgon stood out to me because he was easily manipulated and the fact that he was unaware of this manipulation. It made me wonder how many times I have been in situation where others around me have warned me about a situation or a person and I have failed to see the problem.

Doirne stood out to me because she was a female who was independent; she was not the wife or daughter of any one in the play. She talked about things as she saw them and was almost childlike in her honesty. In class we referred to her as a mirror for the characters in play as she would normally say what they were thinking. In a different light, Tartuffe stood out to me because he was not introduced to the readers until the third act. By this time, I had mixed feeling towards who he really was as Orgon's household was split in this regards. When he entered we see him as a devout religious persons and a few scenes later he is making inappropriate passes at Elmire. It also made me think about my own actions and the actions of others as we would act a particular way when we are in one setting and then we would act differently in another. I guess if we are honest with ourselves we would realize that we have been Tartuffes' in one way or another and we should strive towards becoming honest human beings.

The book contains two of Moliere's best known works, "Tartuffe" (about a religious hypocrite) and "The Misanthrope." Clever and incisive, these works provoke commentary and poke fun at human qualities that everyone can relate to. Well worth reading for its humor and social commentary.