Tartuffe is perhaps one of the most revealing of plays by Moliere as it deals with women’s follies and disenchantment with men. The character of Tartuffe is in fact crucial to the whole play as he is quite a fraud and morally corrupts everything which comes into contact with him. His relationship with Orgon is also a crucial and important part of the play and shows that the pretensions of Tartuffe are accordingly part and parcel of the whole play.
Tartuffe also has a disdain for women which is quite disarming in this respect and demonstrates that life is not always a bed of roses. The scheming of Tartuffe as he attempts to get himself married to Orgon’s daughter Marianne also shows the extent to which he has embedded himself into their family.
Eventually Tartuffe is trapped into confessing how his desire for Elmire dominates all his being. Eventually he manages to infiltrate himself into the family accordingly demonstrating that everything can be achieved by some reverse psychology. In fact most parts of the play show that reverse psychology is an important part of proceedings and that is actually what it is based upon.
The relationship between Orgon and Tartuff is also extremely important as it demonstrates how this man tends to completely dominate the family into which he enters. The sexual peccadilloes which are also a consistent part of what is going on demonstrate that Tartuffe’s opinion of women was nothing less than a sexual object without much interest in their academic achievements.
The manner in which the tables are turned on Tartuffe is also very instructive as it shows that even the man of average intelligence had power over women which could not be disdained. Yet women who were not regarded to be important catches were rather left abandoned and did not have any sort of say in their lives as this continued developing. Lawell is very much indignant on this issue as she feels that it is grossly unfair on the said women to continue suffering just because of their appearance and their lack of sexual proclivity or attraction.
The role of Elmire in Tartuffe is also interesting in that this matronly sort of woman shows that her power is very much in the ascendant as she holds the keys to Tartuffe’s eventual doom. She is also very part and parcel of the matronly sort of woman who influences proceedings in this manner and shows a certain strength in this regard.
So although Tartuffe may seem to be slightly denigrating towards women in this respect, a closer analysis of it demonstrates that this is not the case. Moliere inserts subtle phrases and influences which show that he is actually very much au courant with women and their foibles as commented by Lawell. Everything seems to turn full circle in the end and demonstrates that women can always play an important role in society although they may seem to be sidelined. It is one of those classic plays which has everything going for it in this respect.
Works Cited:
Sarah Lawall: Norton Anthology of Western Literature vol2 ed8 pag235-236, New York, Norton, 2006, Print
