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Tartuffe And Religion

Decent Essays

The word Tartuffe means religious hypocrite, which is the title of French playwright, Molière’s, 1664 play Tartuffe. This play is about, Orgon, a wealthy patriarch who succumbs under the influence of a religious and self-righteous hypocrite, Tartuffe, whom Orgon took in. As the story progress, Orgon becomes infatuated and obsessed with Tartuffe and his “religious” ideals. This obsession of Orgon’s grows and his family not fooled by Tartuffe’s act, think that Orgon is ludacris for falling for Tartuffe’s scheme. Because of Orgon’s fondness of Tartuffe, he postpones his daughter’s marriage to Valère, because he would like her to marry Tartuffe. As the story unfolds and the mess that is made by Tartuffe’s impersonation of a holy man in order to …show more content…

In 1664, The Catholic Church had immense power in France, and a play about a hypocritical criminal impersonating a holy man was seen as offensive to the Catholic nobility. This controversial play was then banned because of its offensive nature and all the religious criticism it received. The world that is depicted in the play differs from our own because the Roman Catholic Church is not the social and political power that it was in France during the time the play was written, but because religion is still a very important and prevalent part of our society today, the world depicted in the play is very similar to our own and the plays theme is still very relevant for a modern audience today. The controversial theme of the play is both its weakness and its strength. It is a weakness because it stirs up scandal and controversy, but it is the plays strength because of that same reason. Another one of the plays’ strengths was its comedic nature, because it gave a play with a controversial and serious theme a light approach that made it entertaining. Tartuffe’s, theme was based on the idea of religious hypocrisy, which was a criticism of the church and its rule and power, but is a theme that I think Molière wanted his audience to leave thinking about, because he wanted to challenge the audience to critique the

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