Tartuffe and The Enlightenment Molière was born in Paris, France, in 1622, is one of the utmost comic masterminds the world has seen during his time. Molière growing up fell in love with the theater and was to dedicate his entire life to the theatrical profession. Molière usually wrote from the faction in civilization which he mocked. What is Enlightenment? Immanuel Kant states “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance”. During this time women have been the most discriminated -against group of people for most of humanity. They have been mistreated, held back in civilization, and limited to being only a house wife; while men make certain …show more content…
She does not mention Enlightenment belief, but merely uses her judgement unclouded by emotional outrage. In the play Orgon expects more angry passion from Elmire when she came to tell him that Tartuffe has proposed an affair to her. (Act IV, scene …show more content…
. . Do answer me, don’t be absurd. I’m not asking you to trust our word. Suppose that from a hiding place in here You learn the whole truth by eye and ear— What would you say of your good friend after that? She is basically asking him to have faith in his own eyes, or the first-hand demonstration of Tartuffe’s hypocrisy. As a piece of theatre, the scene is a humorous and ironic proof of scientific rationalism. A different significant characteristic of the enlightenment is the desire for equivalence and self-respect for all, the thought that all have a set of basic human rights. The Enlightenment questioned many of the former philosophies, one of which was ignorance. Tartuffe exemplifies these characteristics through the character Dorine. Dorine is Orgon’s lady-maid, in other words, someone with a low social standing because she is a member of the working class, and presumably ignorant because of this low social status. As first seen in the first few line of (Act 1, scene 1) Madame Pernelle … the values here aren’t good Or everyone would treat me as they should. The lord of Misrule here has his dominion— Dorine But— Madame Pernelle See? A servant with an opinion. You’re the former nanny, nothing