Saturday, January 17, 2015

By the end of the play, what kind of person is Tartuffe? Has he changed? Will his behavior return? Provide quotations from the plays to support your ideas.

There's precious little evidence to suggest that Tartuffe has changed by the end of the play. Indeed, if anything, he's become even more devious and hypocritical. In the penultimate scene, he arrives with some officers of the law to have Orgon carted off to jail. Orgon challenges Tartuffe, in a vain attempt to appeal to his non-existent good nature:

But do you remember, ungrateful wretch, that my charitable hand raised you from a miserable condition?

Yet Tartuffe is completely indifferent to Orgon's reproachful words. In one last example of his total hypocrisy, Tartuffe tries to convince Orgon that he's only acting out of duty:

Yes, I know what succours I might receive from thence, but the interest of my prince is my highest duty. The just obligation whereof stifles in my heart all other acknowledgments; and I could sacrifice to so powerful a tie, friend, wife, kindred, and myself to boot.

No one in their right mind can be taken in by such self-serving nonsense. Tartuffe has never once displayed any genuine sense of duty to anyone but himself. Using the king's name is just a blatant excuse to justify having Orgon arrested. Not only is the audience unconvinced by Tartuffe's craven attempt at self-justification, but the characters on stage don't believe him either, as can be gauged from Elmire's immediate reaction:

The hypocrite!

Just as Tartuffe once pretended to be a devout servant of God, now he pretends to be a loyal servant of the king. But he's fooling no one, least of all Dorine:

How artfully he can make a cloak of what is sacred!

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