In Acts I and II of ôTartuffe,ö MoliFre seems to critique the characters on both sides of religious hypocrisyùthose like Tartuffe who perpetrate it, and those like Madame Pernelle and Orgon who allow themselves to be taken in by it. Tartuffe is the consummate religious hypocrite, using religious posturing to take advantage of his hosts while pronouncing judgment on everyone else for minor infractions. Pretending to be holy, righteous, self-critical, and self-sacrificing, he is instead grasping, conniving, critical of others, and duplicitous. Before he even appears in the play, the other characters say enough about him to reveal the truth about his feigned piety and his exaggerated efforts to appear sincere.
Tartuffe alone is not solely responsible for the impact of his own hypocrisy, however, and MoliFre delights in ridiculing equally the victims of his charade, Madame Pernelle and Orgon. If it were not for their incredible nanvetT, TartuffeÆs hypocrisy would have no effect, because the other characters see through all of his puffery. Dorine tries to enlighten Madame Pernelle on TartuffeÆs falseness with statements such as ôHe passes for a saint in your opinion; but believe me, he is nothing but a hypocrite,ö but Madame Pernelle refuses to accept such comments and merely criticizes the others for making them:
I tell you that my son has never done anything more sensible than in receiving this devout personage in his house; that Heaven itself, in time of need, has sent him here to reclaim all your erring minds; that for your salvationÆs sake, you ought to listen to him; and that he censures nothing but what is reprehensible (MoliFre, Act I, Scene I).
Orgon is as deceived as Madame Pernelle, elevating Tartuffe to the level of a saint. MoliFre demonstrates through OrgonÆs exchange with Dorine that Orgon is so intent upon endowing Tartuffe with saintliness that he does so without any correlation to th
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