Misanthrope: A Tangled Love Affair by Evelyn Ashleigh

“The Misanthrope,” by Moliere is a comedic play filled with thoughtful laughter through the relationship between Alceste and Celemene. Through this ironic and contradictory love affair, Moliere is showing us the “comedy” in our lives even today.
The first aspect of this love affair that evokes thoughtful laughter is the very nature and values of the characters. Alceste is a frank and truthful man, a hater of all fakes, fronts, and façades. By contrast, Celemene might be compared to Blanche from a “A Streetcar Named Desire,” both use their appearance and flirtatious acts to achieve the attention they crave. Since Celemene seems to collect admirers like a young boy might collect baseball cards, it seems she is the last woman Alceste would fall for. The unlikely act of Alceste falling in love with Celemene makes us laugh thoughtfully because, although Alceste routinely preaches the importance of truth, the apple of his eye is also the epitome of deception.
We know Alceste loves Celemene, but does Celemene reciprocate his feelings? This is difficult to answer because she tells him she loves only him, yet she refuses to tell her pack of other admirers to leave her alone. This annoys Alceste greatly because he wants to be the one and only man in her life. Our thoughtful laughter is avoked when Celemene finally gives her love to only him at the end of the play, and Alceste no longer desires to love her. It is ironic because when they come to their senses at last and relize they were being foolish, there is no longer any room for deception after the hypocrisy had been cleared from the air.
Moliere effectively translates the relationship between lies and love, enchantment and diception. Through Alceste and Celemene, we see our own culture reflected in a way that shows how foolish human beings can be.