Wylie Period 6 Team 8 Daphne Liu Misanthrope Essay

The Misanthrope Essay

Moliere’s comedy, The Misanthrope, details the courtship of Celimene by Alceste, who becomes the vehicle on which Moliere translates the message of “thoughtful laughter.” Alceste functions as Moliere’s channel through which he broadcasts the irony in Alcete’s behavior and criticisms. Because Alceste’s purpose reaches beyond simply being a misunderstood protagonist, Alceste simultaneously acts as a representation of the time period’s oftentimes ridiculous popular modes of thought and a misanthropic judge of France’s legal disarray, Moliere effectively parodies France’s legal system during the Enlightenment period and commonly associated French aristocratic society. By way of introducing a symbol of the disparity between society and individuals, Moliere incorporates the legal court system in The Misanthrope not only as a method of continuing the comedic storyline, but also to demonstrate Alceste’s physical and mental detachment from society as a product of his characteristic immobile mores.

By venturing beyond characterizing aloof and critical Alceste as a misanthrope who unwittingly becomes a reflection of all things he spurns, Moliere is able to transform his comedy into a loose mockery of the laughable French legal system. Alceste awakens thoughtful laughter because of how there are two layers to Moliere’s parody of a faulty legal system. First is the situational irony behind Alceste’s criticism of an unsuccessful legal system and how he subsequently becomes the victim of legal disagreements and petty fights. As a motif for Alceste’s involvement in not one, but two lawsuits — one with Oronte and the other that is tightly kept under wraps and about which the reader knows nothing of except for a few details.

The Misanthrope directly mocks and scorns a bygone French era by replicating a similarly disjointed society and drawing parallels between a passé French society and one in which Alceste demonstrates thoughtful laughter by creating humor in the play with his unrealistic expectations of society and rigid morals. Alceste’s key defining personality of having strong standards of honesty and being cynical is ironic and laughable because of how Moliere primarily uses Alceste as a satirical device. Moliere underlines that Alceste’s stringent ethical code absolutely cannot withstand the pressures of the society he clearly loathes and satirizes. By allowing a glance into a thoroughly derided period through the lens of lawsuits and a fragmented legal system, Moliere accurately captures the power struggle amongst the nobility by showing them humorously spouting nonsense while trying to justify their unlawful actions. What remains after the laughter that is drawn out by Alceste’s ironic and idealistic perceptions of society, despite sorely apparent problematic hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, is the reflection of The Misanthrope’s underlying symbolism.

In displaying France’s old legal system as a failed attempt at shortening society’s distances, Moliere illustrates the colorful history behind what exactly it is that evokes thoughtful humor. The convenient convention of lawsuits play an integral role in Moliere’s secondary message of describing why Alceste vehemently despises society and moreover, mankind and that commonly abused lawsuits were at the root of France’s legal trouble and headaches during the Enlightenment. Furthermore, Moliere questions the truth in human interactions and the unbalanced nature of lawsuits by showing how everyone is in a legal battle for their own greed while simultaneously pleasing other by conforming to what was decreed socially acceptable.