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Jason Hirthler

Professor Michael Meade

ENG 601

25 July 2017

The Sins of Tartuffe

Molière’s Tartuffe offers an object lesson in hypocrisy. It isn’t simply religious

hypocrisy, but rather profligacy that employs religion as the cloak behind which it executes its

vice. It is never quite clear what role, if any, Tartuffe plays in the church. He’s obviously a

Christian acolyte, a votary, at least in name. So even if he has no formal role in the church, he

builds his reputation on a perception of piety, themed by poverty. While the play is called a

comedy, and readers and audience members typically expect humor rather than deep insight from

a comedy, the character of Tartuffe demonstrates that perhaps “the domain of comedy is as vast

and profound as that of tragedy” (Moore 341). By mining the deep vein of moral hypocrisy in a

comic context, Molière shows us that, “a light touch is not always a thin one” (Young 16).

Molière clearly wants to ensure his audience understands Tartuffe’s hypocritical

reputation and behavior before they ever meet him, before they are vulnerable to the actor’s

comic charms. Firstly, the name “Tartuffe” itself has a history. As Edward D. Montgomery notes

in ‘’Tartuffe’: The History and Sense of a Name,” there were instances of similar usages in the

commedia dell’arte tradition of Italian theater: the phrase truffaldino effectively meant,

‘buffoon,” while Boccaccio’s fantasy land of liars was called, “Truffia” (Montgomery 838).

Likewise, in Petronius’ Satyricon, the phrase, “terrae tuber” is thought to reference the truffle, a

dark and rather ugly mushroom foraged by pigs, yet at the same time a delicacy that is
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comparatively expensive. Both of these references suggest aspects of Tartuffe’s character, his

unattractive inward self, and the stealth and shrewd behavior with which he disguises his dark

interior (Montgomery 839).

Secondly, beyond the semaphore of the title character’s name, Molière continues the

drubbing of Tartuffe’s character without giving the lead a chance to respond. As writer Dudley

H. Miles points out, Molière “deferred [Tartuffe’s] entrance for two whole acts” (Miles 198),

laying the reputational foreground for his introduction. Madame Pernelle, Orgon’s mother,

spends the opening chapter abusing her son’s wife and children and housemaid in the defense of

Tartuffe. But Madame Pernelle is herself cast in a disagreeable light by virtue of her outburst

against her son’s family, representing herself as “a rather violent religious shrew” (Gray 79).

Then Orgon demonstrates his sheer surrender to the wiles of Tartuffe by returning from a trip

and, upon hearing the ailments of his wife and family, concerns himself only with Tartuffe’s

wellbeing (Gray 80). Then Marianne reveals herself as a chief casualty of the religious zealot’s

activities when she expresses her revulsion to Dorine of her impending marriage to Tartuffe.

Orgon, her father, is again shown to be emotionally immune to her entreaties so long as he lies

beneath the spell of his spiritual advisor.

It is on this cleverly laid foundation that we meet Tartuffe. The collective weight of the

foreknowledge, communicated by eyewitnesses, and the actions revealed to us in the action of

the play itself, are sufficient to confirm the premise of Tartuffe’s hypocrisy. His behavior, from a

Christian perspective--the most apt ethics by which to judge the man, is flawed on multiple

levels, four of which stand out: public piety, false humility, covetousness, and judgment.
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PUBLIC PIETY

Jesus made a pointed reference in the New Testament to conducting one’s charity in private:

“Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no

reward of your Father which is in heaven” (King James Bible, Matt. 6.1). Very early in the play,

before we ever meet Tartuffe, we learn that the pious man ignores this sage advice in the most

flamboyant fashion.

We are informed that he makes quite a spectacle of himself in church, conducting prayers

rather demonstratively and openly in front of the congregation. Orgon relates that, “he attracted

the eyes of the whole congregation” with his passionate prayers (Molière 7), which seem more

like public performances than intimate appeals to a personal deity. Tartuffe repeatedly kisses the

earth in a gross display of humility. Then he offers holy water to churchgoers while his subaltern

(a small boy) communicates to them Tartuffe’s indigence which, of course, summons financial

gifts from the sympathetic crowd. Of these gifts, he openly distributes a portion as alms among

the poor, while Orgon and others look on. Orgon also notes that Tartuffe “reproves without

distinction” (7), yet calls himself a sinner in all that he does.

All of this is publically performed--that is the key indicator of the hypocrisy beneath the

veneer of piety. After all, as a student of the gospels, Tartuffe is surely aware of the above

admonition to conduct alms privately, and Christ’s broader admonition to his disciples, in the

gospel of Matthew:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to

pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be

seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
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But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy

door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret

shall reward thee openly (King James Bible. Matt. 6.5-6).

FALSE HUMILITY

Much like private charity, Christ felt strongly about humility: “Likewise, ye younger, submit

yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility:

for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (King James Bible. 1 Pet. 5.5).

In scene V, Orgon’s loyal son Damis tells Orgon that Tartuffe is trying to seduce his

wife, Elmire. This is complete truth. Tartuffe makes a false show of humility and self-abasement

in an attempt to draw upon Orgon’s outsized pity for him. Tartuffe calls himself, “a wicked,

guilty, wretched sinner” and “the greatest villain that ever breathed” (Molière 28). As Judith

Shklar notes, Tartuffe understood how to “manipulate sincerity to his own advantage” (Shklar 8).

His extreme self-criticism suggests his sincerity. Likewise, he employs hyperbole and extremism

to cast his accuser’s claim in an absurd context and to exonerate himself from the accusation. By

suggesting he is the world’s worst vermin, he overestimates the sin Damis accuses him of:

attempted adultery. Moreover, he abases himself to fortify Orgon’s already high estimation of

him as a self-effacing saint. Tartuffe tells Orgon and Damis that he is indeed worthless and offers

to beg forgiveness on his knees. He knows that Orgon will be impressed by this show of false

humility and that his lack of resistance to the charge, his Christ-like surrender to what Orgon

sees as a false charge, will prejudice Orgon against the aggressor, Damis. Tartuffe allows Orgon

to misread the situation and disinherit his son.

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He later justifies his behavior and Orgon’s by saying, “Heaven’s will be done in all

things” (31), as though their actions were in some sense aligned with the will of God.

COVETOUSNESS

One of the more famous of the Old Testament Ten Commandments is: “Thou shalt not covet thy

neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his

maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's.” (King James Bible.

Ex. 20.17).

Just as Tartuffe permits Orgon to disown and curse his son without clarifying the matter,

he further allows Orgon to promise his daughter to Tartuffe, even as Tartuffe continues to try to

sleep with Elmire. These behaviors evince Tartuffe’s underlying greed.

Early in the play Tartuffe tells Orgon that his every “trifle” is a sin, and that when he

killed a flea he sinned in anger (Molière 7). This suggests that Tartuffe would plainly have

Orgon believe that Tartuffe vetted his every action, public or private, for its sin quotient. Yet he

privately tells Elmire, while trying to unclothe her, that “...the harm never consists in anything

but the noise one makes...and sinning in private is no sinning at all” (39). As William Entwistle

writes, Tartuffe essentially posits that “dishonour and honour are the same things as scandal and

absence of scandal; that, therefore, secret sins are not sins (Entwistle 386). In other words,

Tartuffe hardly believes in sin. He confirms this suspicion when he at last tells the resistant

Elmire, that despite heavenly prohibitions against adultery, there are ways “to rectify the

immorality of the action by the purity of our intention” (39).

Given this immorality or amorality, Tartuffe is untroubled by his desire to seduce Elmire,

nor is he bothered by his legal chicanery to steal Orgon’s property. When Orgon discovers his
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efforts to sleep with Elmire, he attempts to banish Tartuffe from the house. But Tartuffe coolly

replies, “‘Tis you who must troop off, you who speak so magisterially. The house belongs to

me;”.

All of this evinces Tartuffe’s essentially appetitive nature, one of the most damning of all

sins. As a vagabond, he affected rather to eschew charity as a pretense of spiritual poverty--that

he had little use for the material wealth of the world, as his mind was set upon the work of

heaven. Yet his indigence was a baited trap, designed to lure in unsuspecting benefactors such as

Orgon, the better to set up a clever wealth transfer from the would-be philanthropist to the pious

devotee.

JUDGMENT

One of the most oft quoted verses in the entire New Testament is Jesus’ line: “Judge not that ye

be not judged.” (King James Bible. Matt. 7.1). Here is yet another biblical maxim that Tartuffe

seems to have overlooked. He is rather quick to judge his neighbor, as it were. After stunning

Orgon with the news that he has gained legal possession of Orgon’s home, Tartuffe rubs salt in

the wound, as it were, by claiming, “...that I have wherewithal to confound and punish

imposture, to avenge offended Heaven, and them repent it who talk here of turning me out o’

doors” (Molière 41). We’ve already seen, when discussing Tartuffe’s false humility, that he has a

knack for excusing away his actions by claiming he is either doing heaven’s work or being

guided by heaven. Here he claims to defend heaven and avenge an action that only he appears to

know offends heaven.

Moreover, he compounds his faithlessness and pious judgmentalism when he sends the

bailiff M. Loyal to kick Orgon and clan from the house with minimal advance notice, and with a
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moving crew that acts more as evictor than mover. As M. Loyal feigns consideration as he serves

notice to Orgon, Tartuffe is evidently leveling criminal charges against Orgon before the prince.

As he arrives to take possession of the house, he pretends to receive Orgon’s abuses calmly in

order to “suffer everything for the sake of Heaven” (50). He declares nothing can touch his heart

through the shield of his duty to both god and state. Herein we see the full measure of Tartuffe’s

hypocrisy--his utter willingness to ruin the life of the one man who benefited him most.

CONCLUSION

A. Lytton Sells argues that, though a nominal Catholic, Molière was less influenced by

Christianity in his thinking than Skepticism. He writes that the French skeptic author François de

La Mothe Le Vayer was a major influence on Molière’s thought (Sells 444). He recognized how

the conceits of public piety, false humility, acquisitiveness, and cruelty were so easily

rationalized beneath a banner of divine authority.

If so, this may indeed be why throughout Tartuffe the eponymous character claims

himself or is said to be merely following the will of heaven. We are told early on by Mme

Pernelle that “the interest of Heaven is his only motive” (Molière 7). It is this claim to an

invisible authority, providing unspoken guidance toward unknown ends, that Molière uses to

highlight the malleability of religious morality, and Tartuffe demonstrates how it may be easily

shaped to one’s will, or discarded with whatever casuistry comes to mind. When Tartuffe wants

Orgon arrested, he need merely say that he would not intervene to thwart the will of heaven (in

punishing a sinner), and his hands are washed of responsibility.

We find that, according to Molière, inward culpability and externalized piety are not

separate but yoked together in the same behavioral dynamic. As W.G. Moore wrote, Tartuffe’s
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speech is “‘an alteration of hypocrisy and sincerity (Nichols 756).’” This sentiment is best

expressed by Orgon’s brother-in-law, Cleante, who seems to best distill the Janus-faced character

of Tartuffe:

Pray, would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and true devotion?

Would you term them both alike, and pay the same regard to the mask as you do

to the face?...

Men who know how to make their own vices consistent with their zeal; they

are passionate, revengeful, faithless, full of artifice; and to effect a man’s

destruction, they insolently urge their private resentment as the cause of Heaven;

being so much the more dangerous in their wrath as they point against us those

weapons which men reverence, and because their passions prompt them to

assassinate us with a consecrated blade (8).

At the end of Tartuffe, the redeemed dupe Orgon says of the defrocked Tartuffe, who has

been revealed for his conniving hypocrisy: “Leave the wretch to his evil destiny, and don’t add

to that remorse that oppresses him. Much rather wish that his heart may now happily become a

convert to virtue, that he may reform his life through detestation of his crimes” (52). This seems

like naiveté, the very thing that betrayed Orgon in the first place. It is why critic Lionel Gossman

has said, “‘Tartuffe cannot be given credit for having bamboozled Orgon. Orgon is as much

Tartuffe’s creator as Tartuffe himself’” (Zwillenberg 584). But it is Molière’s irony that the

Christian renders himself vulnerable by his grace and godliness to the type of man who, by

professing the piety of the Christian, disguises the sin that makes Christian virtue possible.
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Works Cited

Molière. Tartuffe. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000. Print.

King James Bible. King James Bible Online, 2017. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/.

Accessed 15 July 2017.

Gray, Henry David. “The Treatment of the Villain in Shakspere and Molière.” The Sewanee

Review, vol. 7, no. 1, 1899, pp. 68–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27528026. Accessed

15 July 2017.

Miles, Dudley H. “The Original of the Non-Juror.” PMLA, vol. 30, no. 2, 1915, pp. 195–214.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/457098. Accessed 15 July 2017.

Montgomery, Edward D. “" Tartuffe ": The History and Sense of a Name.” MLN, vol. 88, no. 4,

1973, pp. 838–840. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2907411. Accessed 11 July 2017.

Moore, W. G. “The Modern Language Review.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 62, no. 2,

1967, pp. 339–341. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3723878. Accessed 11 July 2017.

Nicholas, Brian. “Is Tartuffe a Comic Character?” The Modern Language Review, vol. 75, no. 4,

1980, pp. 753–765. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3726584. Accessed 15 July 2017.

Sells, A. Lytton. “Molière and La Mothe Le Vayer.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 28, no.

4, 1933, pp. 444–455. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3716333. Accessed 15 July 2017.

Shklar, Judith. “Let Us Not Be Hypocritical.” Daedalus, vol. 108, no. 3, 1979, pp. 1–25. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/20024618. Accessed 22 July 2017.

William J. Entwistle. “The Modern Language Review.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 42,

no. 3, 1947, pp. 385–387. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3717314. Accessed 15 July 2017.

Young, Stark. “Molière: Comedian of Society.” The North American Review, vol. 215, no. 795,

1922, pp. 241–248. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25120967. Accessed 14 July 2017.

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Zwillenberg, Myrna Kogan. “Dramatic Justice in Tartuffe.” MLN, vol. 90, no. 4, 1975, pp. 583–

590. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2906842. Accessed 15 July 2017.