preview

Sun King In Tartuffe

Decent Essays

Jean Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Moliere, is one of the most studied and renowned literary authors in history. Moliere was proficient in the art of satire and many of his plays used this element as the forefront of the plots to get across to the audience what it was Moliere wanted to get across. Moliere’s time period allows him to exploit the hypocrisy of his time through the use of his most powerful tool, his characters. During the time of Moliere, France was becoming the major power in Europe. The monarchy was absolute and the power of the king also became absolute and supreme. This worked to Moliere’s favor due to the King favoring Moliere. In fact, Moliere refers to the King as the “Sun King” in Tartuffe. Having the Kings support, Moliere was able to poke fun at French society and hypocrisy with very little if any hostility, however Moliere was always upping the ante and in 1664 he decided to take on the hypocrisy of religious zealots by writing the controversial Tartuffe. During this …show more content…

Tartuffe, a supposedly humble and noble man, needed nothing but food and shelter and a place to worship. Yet, encroaching on a family in a quest to gain more and more status within the family and eventually become owner of the actual household. Another example is Tartuffe’s supposed desire and holy pilgrimage to life long celibacy, but at the same time seducing the wife of the man who brought him off the streets, clothed, fed and housed him. It is in the way that Moliere describes and characterizes Tartuffe that really shows the frustration he was trying to get across. It can be said that Moliere’s characterization of Orgon is also a vent of frustration in that everybody can see through Tartuffe’s hypocrisy except he whom it mattered most to see. Anita Gates alludes to this in her article comparing Orgon to the King and how he is doing nothing about the rampant hypocrisy of Frances religious

Get Access