Blog Post #3: Tartuffe

Blog Post #3: Tartuffe

Tartuffe: ‘Twould never occur to those who know me best

            To think I acted from self-interest.

            The treasures of this world I quite despise;

            Their specious glitter does not charm my eyes;

            And if I have resigned myself to taking

            The gift which my dear Brother insists on making,

            I do so only, as he well understands,

            Lest so much wealth fall into wicked hands,

            Lest those to whom it might descend in time

            Turn it to purposes of sin and crime,

            And not, as I shall do, make use of it.

            For Heaven’s glory and mankind’s benefit.

Cleante: …Does true religion teach that lawful heirs

            May freely be deprived of what is theirs?

            And if the Lord has told you in your heart

            That you and young Damis must dwell apart,

            Would it not be the decent thing to beat

            A generous and honorable retreat,

            Rather than let the son of the house be sent,

            For your convenience, into banishment?

This passage from Act IV, Scene I brings to the play the role of the church. Moliere wrote Tartuffe in 1664 during the reign of the French Roman Catholic Church, and in doing so, questioned this authority. When the play was first introduced to the public, it was met with a lot of criticism from the public, especially the church, for how the play colors the church and the people who derive from it. This passage in particular puts the church in a bad lighting.

Cleante is trying to reason with Tartuffe to persuade him to tell Orgon to invite his son, Damis, back into the house. Tartuffe’s response to this request is that if Damis returns then it’ll look like Tartuffe is trying to buy him back, thus making him look like the villain. Tartuffe states that by the decree of God he couldn’t possibly do such a thing because it’s against the Lord’s way to bribe a man. This would be held as a justifiable point if the audience didn’t already know that Tartuffe is manipulating Orgon in order to inherit his money and estate. However, due to this fact, it is clear to the audience that the clergyman is corrupt and self-centered, and furthermore, using the Lord as a shield to hide his true nature.

“I have resigned myself to taking the gift which my Brother insists on making…only…lest so much wealth fall into wicked hands…and not, as I shall do, make use of it for Heaven’s glory and mankind’s benefit.” Tartuffe is outright lying to Cleante, saying that he must take this “gift” that has been thrust upon him, but that Cleante shouldn’t worry because he’s doing this to benefit everyone, and also so that the money doesn’t go to a bad person. By saying this, Tartuffe just makes it all the more worse that he’s manipulating everyone because the audience knows he’s a bad person taking money from its rightful owner. Throughout the play Tartuffe wears a mask, disguising himself as a man of God and supposedly embodying what it means to be moral, when in reality he’s the worst one of them all.

This play and the character Tartuffe are all the more significant because they were created in France during the height of the church, and by painting Tartuffe as a corrupt clergyman, Moliere makes a statement about the Catholic Church. He is saying that the church isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, that there is dishonesty in this institution but the people of the world (symbolized by Orgon) are blind to its manipulation and fall prey to its deceit. This leads to the point of the play: that the church is all-encompassing and it’s important to analyze what it teaches us, instead of taking everything it says at face value.