Moliere's The Miser The purpose of this research is to examine

The purpose of this research is to examine The Miser by Moliere. The plan of the research will be to set forth a short outline of the story, and to discuss the principal critical ideas that have arisen around the play.

The action of The Miser is built around the central character (comic hero), Harpagon, who has been consumed by his avarice, and whose enactment of that avarice on all the other characters in the play provides its central tension. Harpagon opposes the marital intentions of his son Cleante toward Mariane because he wants to marry her himself; and of his daughter Elise toward Valere because he wants to marry her off to his rich elderly friend Anselm. The greed of Harpagon, who indulges himself in jewelry and finery but denies ordinary comforts to his children and servants, has driven his children to deceit and his servants to scheming around his wishes. With the servant La Fleche's help, Cleante obtains Harpagon's money box, which Cleante is able to use as leverage to persuade Harpagon to give up designs on Mariane and permit Elise's marriage to Valere. Harpagon's emotional distress is mitigated by two facts: (a) Mariane and Valere turn out to be Anselm's long lost children, and (b) his darling money box is returned to him.

Virtually all critical treatments of The Miser focus on the extraordinary character of Harpagon, from which all the action of the play proceeds. As Guicharnaud comments, "the miserly and lovesmitten old man pushes the un

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rding as such rules are suited to an idiosyncratic idea of social correctness, there is always retribution. Harpagon, like Arnolphe in L'ecole des femmes or Alceste in Le Misanthrope, is guilty of the kind of excess in belief and action that leaves others no dignity. Actions have consequences, particularly if such actions affect the way others will live their lives. It is extremism as much or more as the fatuousness of social forms that is the butt of Moliere's joke. At the core of Harpagon's character is a wish to alter situations to fit his personality. If Harpagon's personality is not wellrounded as the term is commonly understood, it is because Moliere has drawn character outlines instead of delineating psychology. His actions are exaggerated inasmuch as they deviate from the norm, yet normal inasmuch as they remain true to their type. Moreover, what one is pleased to consider the "norm" is discovered to be perhaps not so very normal or admirable after all. Harpagon's psychologybroadly drawn as it isis believable because he represents something that is very real in most people. There is a little of the miser, the misanthrope, the possessive lover, in many persons, and in displaying them onstage, Moliere questions

Category: Literature - M