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. In her essay Sarah Lawell focuses on the points which are raised by Moliere and which also demonstrate the importance of women to the whole gambit of human drama. Women are analysed with a special reference to their intrinsic contribution to society as well as their need to fulfil their sexual ambitions and desires accordingly however without being used. This is especially relevant to the plot in Tartuffe where the woman is rather left to fend for herself and to her own devices accordingly with several men using her for their own selfish aims. Obviously the woman is taunted and occasionally abused or left to decay when she is used by the man which is quite a sorry state of affairs even in this day and age. However Moliere was also a subtly persuasive playwright in the sense that he gave the woman her due even in situations where she was perhaps excluded and dominated by men who were always in the ascendant.
The way Orgon decides to marry his daughter to Tartuffe is also instructive in the way that the women’s thoughts are not even calculated is interesting in the extreme. She may feel slightly left out in this respect but is also very much part of things in this respect. Yet her opinion counts for nothing as she is left to face the music and a terrible life with Tartuffe who would surely abandon her whenever it suited him. This is also given importance by Sarah Lawell who has a lot to say about the way women were treated by men in the early 17th century. She focuses on the exploitation of women who were intrinsically treated like so many chattel and there obviously was absolutely nothing they could do to better themselves even when they tried.
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. The Christian aspect of the play may be seen in its forward looking emancipation of man who always arrives at some sort of crossroads in life only to be let down at the very end.
References:
Sarah Lawall: Norton Anthology of Western Literature vol2 ed8 pag235-236, New York, Norton, 2006, Print
Pitts, Vincent J. (2000). La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France: 1627—1693. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 250. ISBN 0-8018-6466-6.
"Molière: Introduction." Drama Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski, Editor. Vol. 13. Gale Group, Inc., 2001. eNotes.com. 2006. accessed 26 November 2007
"Molière." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. accessed 4 December 2007
