By Sabian Cuevas

“Tartuffe,” by Molière, first performed in 1664, is a play about that focuses on Orgon and his family's interactions with a man named Tartuffe in Paris in the 1660s. Orgon and his mother, Madame Pernelle, practically worship the ground that Tartuffe walks on all throughout the play, whereas the rest of the family sees right through Tartuffe’s masquerade from the start, understanding what a manipulative and deceiving person he truly is. “Tartuffe” ends with a deus ex machina ending that didn't have any foreshadowing leading up to it's occurrence in the play and it deprived the main protagonist and his supporting characters from having their moment to trump their antagonist. More importantly, the inclusion of this particular deus ex machina ending revealed the following about the contemporary social behavior behind the play: to have a play successfully staged and performed in France in the 1600's, playwrights had to be willing to both hurt the integrity of their play's plot and undermine their character's abilities to resolve their own conflicts to ensure that their play satisfied King Louis XIV. I'll give brief background information about Molière's audience before analyzing how the plot of "Tartuffe" unfolded and analyzing the characteristics of a few characters to assess how Molière undermined their ability to resolve their conflict in favor of producing an ending that the king could enjoy.

Beginning with some background information about the debut of "Tartuffe," it first debuted on stage at a “royal court at Louis XIV's great palace Versailles” (Baker). Molière was well aware of Louis XIV’s presence in the audience and adjusted the ending of "Tartuffe" accordingly. “Molière had to remain in the good graces of the king if he wanted to stage the play in public” and so that meant he had to write a play with King Louis XIV in mind (Cummings). Molière wrote a play that would “enjoy a reputation as one of the finest stage comedies in French literature” simply by putting King Louis XIV himself into the play (Cummings). King Louis XIV would be very pleased to hear the exempt in the play inform Orgon and his family that Tartuffe is going to prison instead of Orgon because they “have a king who sees into men’s hearts, and cannot be deceived” because “from his heart” he is a king who “remembers good longer than the bad” (Molière 196-7). King Louis, of course, would be satisfied with his involvement in resolving the main conflict of the play, but it created an ending that was unexpected not because it was some well-written mystery, but because the conflict was resolved by a king who was absent throughout the entire play as opposed to having a believable ending.

Taking a look at the plot structure of the play, we see the rising actions consist of Orgon's family members effectively having their lives destroyed all because of Tartuffe’s machinations and Orgon’s inability to listen to his family and realize that he’s wrong about Tartuffe. Tartuffe is ruining Mariane's original plan to marry Valère by being designated by Orgon to have her hand in marriage instead, which also ruins Damis' plan to marry Valère's sister. Damis also loses his inheritance since Orgon decides to leave everything to Tartuffe instead. At the climax of the play, Orgon has ended up in a situation where Tartuffe owns Orgon’s home and has him evicted, and Orgon is about to be imprisoned due to Tartuffe's possession of the strongbox that contained secret documents that Orgon couldn't afford to have made public. At this moment in the play, Molière has left his audience with the impression that all hope is lost and that Tartuffe might have actually bested Orgon and his family. There’s not a realistic solution in sight and the play could have either ended with Orgon being imprisoned and Tartuffe coming out on top as expected, or Orgon and his family could have somehow resolved this conflict on their own by relying on the development of their characters as evident from earlier in the play. There was no foreshadowing or any other form of indication from present in earlier events in the play that they could be suddenly saved by the king, so the deux ex machina ending shouldn't have occurred. Molière created the stepping stones necessary for Tartuffe to win or for Orgon and family to somehow turn the table on Tartuffe, but he had not laid out the necessary foundation for a resolution where the king saves the day to be plausible. There is no evidence to support the plausibility of the king having any sudden impact on the climax and resolution, and an ending where Tartuffe wins is too obvious given how the events of the play unfold, so instead I shall evaluate a few characters and discuss the possible involvement they could have had on the ending should Molière have chosen to stay true to the characters he had written and developed instead of giving into the king's whims when writing the climax.

I'll start with Dorine, who was easily the wittiest character in the play on Orgon’s side. Dorine had the potential to transform from a simple maid to someone who could play a role in outsmarting Tartuffe. This is a comedy after all and personally, I think it would have been hilarious to have the maid of the house clean up everyone’s mess, as a maid does. With Dorine, there have been several moments throughout the play where she’s demonstrated the ability to observe a situation and process more than just surface-level thinking in order to understand the true meaning and weight that various conversations carry. When speaking to Orgon after he returned from being gone for two days, Dorine toys with Orgon to assess how delusional he is regarding Tartuffe’s manipulation. She tells Orgon about “that headache Madame had” and how she “had a fever” (Molière 150). He replies by interrupting her and saying “and Tartuffe?” (Molière 150). Dorine answers but attempts to refocus the conversation, to which Orgon still continues to inquire about Tartuffe. She tries to shift Orgon’s priorities by emphasizing how poorly his wife was doing. “What a fever! Oh, how she did suffer,” and “Madame agreed to undergo a bleeding” were the things that she told him to try and snap him out of his Tartuffe-induced trance. Dorine, aware of Orgon’s oblivious state of mind ends the conversation by making the witty comment of “I’ll go and let her know how anxious you have been about her health” despite Orgon obviously caring more about Tartuffe more than his own wife. Later, Valère shows up and talks to Mariane about how he’s heard she’s going to marry Tartuffe. Mariane doesn’t make a strong enough case for her opposition toward her father’s plan toward Tartuffe, simply saying “I don’t know” when asked about the plan (Molière 164). Valère didn’t man up and try to maintain his relationship with her, simply giving up on her and advising her to go through with the marriage. The two both end up fighting since neither of them were bright enough to be clear about their feelings nor attempt to come up with a solution. Dorine, being the savior this story deserves, ends their petty and unnecessary fight. “You both are idiots!” she begins, saying that she “left you two alone to fight it out, to see how far you’d go” (Molière 166). Again, Dorine is showing us in the audience that she’s more than capable of using her brain when no one besides Tartuffe will. She outright tells them their fight is “stupid” and that they both clearly love each other (Molière 167). She even says “this marriage to Tartuffe would be a crime, we have to stop it” (Molière 167). She’s already making a better case for herself being the savior of the play than King Louis XIV has at this point. She’s able to read people’s true emotions underneath the act that they’re putting on, and she has a desire to stop Tartuffe. Dorine’s motive could even be that she doesn’t want Mariane to be sad since we’ve already heard her tell Mariane “please don’t go out that door. I’ll help you” and “look at me—I swear. We’ll find a way” before Valère showed up. Dorine cares about Mariane’s happiness which is why she’s bothering helping Mariane with her relationship issues when she’s a maid and she’s not being paid to emotionally comfort someone.

Damis displayed impetuous tendencies in the first few pages of the play when he said about Tartuffe "I'll put him in his place. It won't be pleasant" (Molière 145). Later, after he hears Tartuffe confess his love to Elmire, Damis rushes to tell his father what had transpired. He keeps pushing the subject despite Orgon telling him to stop, "I'll slap you if you say another word" (Molière 176). Orgon then instructs Damis to kneel and beg for Tartuffe to forgive him. Damis refuses and is promptly smacked by Orgon, disinherited, and kicked out of the house. When it comes to dealing with Tartuffe, direct confrontation does not work. Should anyone approach Tartuffe with hostility or malicious intent, they can expect to be met by Orgon. Tartuffe can only be dealt with by using his own tactics against him. When Tartuffe spoke with Dorine and tried to play the role of a saint by telling her to “take this handkerchief” and “cover your bust,” Dorine told him “it seems temptation makes a meal of you” and proceeds to tell him that she could see him naked and not be aroused (Molière 169). Tartuffe claimed that he’d have to leave the room if she kept talking like that, to which Dorine replied “if someone is to go, let it be me” before mentioning that Elmire was coming because she “wants to talk to you, if you’ll hang on” (Molière 170). Tartuffe slips up by saying “of course. Most willingly” and Dorine says to herself “look at him melt. I’m right. I always knew how he felt” (Molière 170). This encounter with Tartuffe further demonstrates how observant Dorine is and shows a cunning side to her that she seldom puts to use; she played Tartuffe into saying something that would confirm her suspicions of his ill intentions. From the beginning, she knew that Tartuffe wanted Elmire, and she was able flip the conversation against Tartuffe and in her favor so it could be proven that she’s right. Dorine might not be the only character who has the potential to deal with Tartuffe, as Elmire also came up with her own plan to expose Tartuffe shortly Dorine's conversation by seducing Tartuffe while Orgon hid under the table to learn the truth about Tartuffe and his desires.

In France in the 1600’s, we can see that playwrights and perhaps even those who create other forms of art felt incentivized to satisfy King Louis XIV in order to ensure their own success even if it meant compromising their own artistic vision and the integrity of their works. Molière sacrificed the integrity of his play’s narrative by writing a deus ex machina ending without foreshadowing to appease one member of his audience as opposed to utilizing the characters he had created and developed throughout the play to write a proper resolution to the climax, whether it be a good or bad ending. “Tartuffe” reveals the contemporary social behavior that playwrights in France in the 1600's were prepared to jeopardize the plot and characters of their play as long as it satisfied King Louis XIV.

Baker, Lyman Allen. "Tartuffe as a political parable." English 287: Great Books, 7 Dec. 1996, www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english287/sg-Moliere-Tartuffe-politics.htm.

Cummings, Michael J. “Tartuffe.” Cummings Study Guide, 2005, www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides2/Tartuffe.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2018.

Molière. “Tartuffe.” The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, third Edition, vol. D, W. W. Norton, 2012, pp. 144-197.