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Tartuffe is the main character in Molière’s play, a religious hypocrite who tries to scam a French family. The play caused controversy and was banned but remained popular. Tartuffe’s sophistry and plotting lead to his downfall, and the character is often portrayed as a political or televangelical figure in modern productions.
Tartuffe is the main character of the French playwright Molière’s most famous play, Tartuffe. The character is a mockery of a self-righteous religious man, who tries to scam a French family out of their money. Because of this character, the game has been alternately banned and praised in France, but has remained consistently popular and controversial over the centuries.
In the play, Tartuffe convinced the passionate Orgon and his mother that he was a simple religious man, full of grace. Elmire, Orgon’s second wife, her children and his servants are convinced that he is actually a crook and try to trap him into revealing his true intentions. When Orgon’s son Damis misinterprets Elmire’s plan to bring down Tartuffe as proof of his infidelity, Orgon flees the house.
Still sure that the pious-looking man is a fraud, Elmire again creates a seduction scenario to prove to Orgon that his pious friend is actually a lustful hypocrite. When Orgon truly understands the truth, Tartuffe has used his influence to gain control of the house, finances, and even the hand of Orgon’s daughter. The family is on the verge of being expelled from their home, when the direct intervention of the king prevents their eviction and throws Tartufo in prison.
The villain character is often thought to practice sophistry as a means to carry out his schemes. This form of argument involves turning a complicated web of seemingly logical statements into an erroneous conclusion. It relies on the ability to deceive people by stating a conclusion with such vehemence that the audience pays little attention to the underlying logic. Molière’s hints that this is a common practice among religious officials, especially France’s Jesuit ministers, caused an uproar among France’s religious hierarchy.
The comedy was performed for the first time in 1664 at the Palace of Versailles. The fury of the religious reaction to the central character was so enormous that King Louis XIV, while privately admitting that he enjoyed the play, banned it from public production. Moliere attempted to rewrite the opera with modified themes, but the church continued to shun the production and even demanded Moliere’s execution for heresy. By 1669, most of the uproar died down and the play was once again performed in its original form.
The title character’s sophistry, reverse psychology, and careful plotting lead some pundits to dismiss him as a failure of a Machiavellian villain. Unlike the goal of Machiavellianism, Tartuffe is mostly unable to ruthlessly gain power while maintaining a respectable public face. Some interpretations suggest that it is not Tartuffe’s cunning but Orgon’s gullibility that allows a villain to seize power. In modern productions, the character is sometimes portrayed with political or televangelical ambitions, inflaming controversy through portrayals of the pious as villains and the believers as fools.
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