In Moliere's Tartuffe, the titular character is a rogueish, villainous cad who takes advantage of the kind but naive patriarch Orgon. Orgon as a character is difficult to defend; much of the play involves other characters attempting to wake him up to Tartuffe's blatant and transparent hypocrisy. However, Orgon continually excuses Tartuffe's behavior or does not believe his family members, choosing to buy into the con artist's charms. Some may see that Orgon is the hopeless, hapless pawn, the obstacle that gets in the way of stopping Tartuffe from taking complete advantage of the family; despite this naivete, Orgon has a great deal of complexity to him that is not imediately apparent upon a surface reading of the play. Orgon is not as much of a scoundrel as Tartuffe on the outside, but he possesses his own selfish frailties.
Before the play opens, it is stated that Orgon was not nearly as unreasonable and blind as he was before; he was an honorable servant of the king, and had been a dignified and logical person. What happened to make him the way he is in the play? The answer is complicated and multifaceted; Orgon, as a combination of his religious piety and his middle age, latches onto relevance, which Tartuffe provides by being the nearest "religious" person available to him. No longer able to actively participate in society, he then chooses to attack it from the outside by denying his family his trust. Orgon is a man of extremes; he never does anything halfway. When he becomes a religious man, he attempts to become pious to an absurd degree, and then completely reverses his position after finding out the truth about Tartuffe. He completely hates pious men after that point, thus proving him as a man who simply needs to do something passionately and extremely, no matter what that is.
It can be argued that Orgon's love of Tartuffe is directly related to Orgon's newfound religion; Tartuffe claims to be pious, and so becomes a spiritual advisor of sorts to Orgon. This creates a sense of loyalty to Tartuffe, one that is now connected to his own self-worth. He praises Tartuffe for his apparent piety: "He used to come into church each day / And humbly kneel nearby, and start to pray. / He'd draw the eyes of everybody there / By the deep fervor of his heartfelt prayer; / He'd sigh and weep, and sometimes with a sound / Of rapture he would bend and kiss the ground" (1.5.6). This was a clear inspiration to Orgon, who then saw him as the man who could bring him peace and salvation. Therefore, the accusations against Tartuffe become, by proxy, accusations against the validity of his own religious belief. Not wanting to believe that he's been taken in, Orgon doesn't believe it until the absolutely undeniable evidence is seen for himself.
Orgon's defense of Tartuffe is taken to comical extremes; despite whatever blatant evidence is given to him, Orgon insists upon Tartuffe's virtue. Early on, it is established that he cares more about Tartuffe's well being than his wife's, giving greater concern for him being well than his wife's illness (1.4). Even after Damis catches Tartuffe in the act of seducing Orgon's wife, Tartuffe's reverse psychology (calling himself "an unhappy sinner full of iniquity") works to the point where Orgon denounces Damis himself: "Ah, you deceitful boy, how dare you try / to stain his purity with so foul a lie?" (3.6.2-3). Because of this incredible denial about who and what Tartuffe is, it is clear that Orgon's defenses of him come from, in some small way, self-delusion. Orgon's attempts to become pious and virtuous are directly tied to Tartuffe's claims being true; an attack on Tartuffe is an attack on his own self-awareness. Therefore, he is especially defensive with regards to these accusations, and pays them little true credence.
The other characters are readily able to notice Orgon's frequent contradictions and foolishness; much mention is made of this to each other, and to Orgon himself. When Dorine discusses it with Mariane, he notes Orgon's hopeless denseness to the point where he admits there is no reasoning with him: "Your father's addled; he's acting like a dunce. / Therefore you'd better humor the old fossil. / Pretend to yield to him, be sweet and docile, / And then postpone, as often as necessary, / The day on which you have agreed to marry" (2.4.90). Cleante says it best when, after Orgon finally clues in to Tartuffe's deception and swears off all pious men forever, she replies "Ah, there you go – extravagant as ever! / Why can you not be rational? You never / Manage to take the middle course, it seems, / But jump, instead, between absurd extremes" (5.1.10-11). The fact that the play itself is so closely anchored around Orgon's inability to see the forest for the trees is evidence of its presence as a major theme; the factors that go into his character deliberately deluding himself to that degree must be examined.
Orgon, no matter what side of the argument he is on, lacks all self-awareness of his own foolishness; defending his position, he ironically shouts "You're talking nonsense. Can't you realize / I saw it; saw it; saw it with my eyes? / Saw, do you understand me? Must I shout it / Into your ears before you'll cease to doubt it?" (5.3.17). Orgon's stubbornness in the face of his own blind loyalty is fascinating, as he is a staunch believer in his fellow man (to a fault); it just so happens that Tartuffe has made the biggest impression on him at that moment, and so he stands by him. It is fascinating, in a way, to see Orgon so fiercely loyal to someone without real cause; it stands to reason that he benefits from the idea of Tartuffe being sincere as much as Tartuffe does.
In conclusion, Tartuffe's Orgon is a protagonist that warrants much discussion as a victim of his own vanity and naivete. Becoming increasingly old and out of touch, he finds religion at the hands of a scammer (Tartuffe). Orgon becomes stubbornly blind about the man's iniquities, so as to not assume the worst in people and to continue believing that his religious belief is genuine. One the truth is found out, he strictly disavows and hates pious men and women, feeling his belief tarnished and manufactured by Tartuffe, and showing him to be a man of 'absurd extremes,' as many characters point out throughout the play. These factors make him a fascinating figure, and one that is deserving of examination.
Works Cited
Moliere. Tartuffe.
