Tartuffe
Translated by Curtis Hidden Page
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This timeless satire offers a sharp, hilarious critique of religious hypocrisy and blind faith that remains startlingly relevant today.
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Book Summary
In Molière's classic comedy, the pious fraud Tartuffe ingratiates himself into the household of the gullible Orgon, who blindly trusts him over his own family. Through a series of deceptions and near-disasters, Tartuffe's hypocrisy is exposed, leading to a royal intervention that restores order and justice.
The play opens with Madame Pernelle scolding the household for their lax morals while praising Tartuffe, a man Orgon has taken in as a spiritual guide. Despite warnings from his sensible brother-in-law Cléante, the maid Dorine, and his children Damis and Mariane, Orgon remains blindly devoted to Tartuffe, even planning to break his daughter Mariane's engagement to Valère and force her to marry Tartuffe. Damis tries to expose Tartuffe's hypocrisy after witnessing him make romantic advances toward Orgon's wife Elmire, but Orgon refuses to believe him and disinherits Damis, signing over his estate to Tartuffe. Elmire then stages a trap, hiding Orgon under a table while she pretends to reciprocate Tartuffe's advances; Orgon finally sees the truth. However, Tartuffe, now legally in possession of the house, attempts to have Orgon arrested. In the final act, the king's officers arrive—not to arrest Orgon, but to seize Tartuffe for his long history of fraud, restoring Orgon's property and blessing the marriage of Mariane and Valère.
Reading guide
Go deeper in Tartuffe
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
Tartuffe
Tartuffe enters the household as a beggar turned spiritual adviser, and by Act I his influence over Orgon has already reshaped the family's plans and affections. His genius is a kind of double speech: to Orgon he is all humility and self-abasement, but alone with Elmire he presses her hand, strokes her lace, and murmurs that Heaven's charms shine in her face. That gap between the kneeling penitent and the scheming guest is the engine of the play's early and middle acts.
Orgon
Orgon is a wealthy bourgeois whose devotion to Tartuffe has become the organizing principle of his household, overriding his wife's judgment, his son's protests, and his daughter's wishes. His flaw is not stupidity so much as a craving for pious certainty: he wants a spiritual authority he can obey without question, and Tartuffe supplies it. When the play finally forces him to witness the truth, his rage at being duped is as excessive as his former credulity, and the box he entrusted to Tartuffe becomes the measure of how much he has risked.
Elmire
Elmire moves through the household with the ease of someone who sees clearly and speaks carefully, whether deflecting Tartuffe's advances or managing her husband's temper. Her famous tactic of hiding Orgon under the table to let Tartuffe convict himself shows a strategist's patience: she would rather stage a demonstration than argue with a man who cannot be argued with. Her composure under Tartuffe's wandering hands is both a social performance and a form of self-defense, and it makes her the play's most reliable judge of character.
Dorine
Dorine is the household's sharpest tongue and clearest eye, a servant whose loyalty licenses her to mock her betters to their faces. When Mariane despairs over being married to Tartuffe, Dorine's response is not comfort but provocation: she threatens to let the marriage go through until Mariane stops sulking and starts resisting. Her running commentary on the courtship of Mariane and Valère exposes how much of the family's trouble comes from pride and stubbornness rather than genuine obstacles.
Mariane
Mariane is a dutiful daughter whose father's sudden plan to marry her to Tartuffe throws her into a paralysis of grief and indecision. Her scene with Valère is a comedy of mutual wounded pride: each offers the other permission to walk away, and neither will say plainly what they want. She matters because her predicament makes the household's stakes concrete, and because her passivity is exactly what Dorine and Elmire must work around to save her.
Damis
Damis is the household's impatient conscience, convinced that if he can just catch Tartuffe in the act and tell his father plainly, the scales will fall from Orgon's eyes. He hides in a closet, bursts out with the news of Tartuffe's advances to Elmire, and expects gratitude; instead he watches his father embrace the hypocrite and turn on him. His failure is the play's sharpest lesson in how little good plain truth does against a man determined to believe a flattering lie.
Religious Hypocrisy
The central theme, embodied by Tartuffe, who uses a mask of piety and devotion to manipulate Orgon and pursue his own selfish, lustful, and greedy ends, while the play distinguishes between true faith and false, performative religiosity.
Gullibility and Blind Faith
Orgon's irrational and unquestioning devotion to Tartuffe blinds him to the obvious truth, causing him to ignore the warnings of his family, disinherit his son, and nearly ruin his household, illustrating the dangers of misplaced trust.
Reason vs. Passion
The conflict between rational, moderate characters like Cléante and the impulsive, passionate reactions of Damis and the blind, obsessive passion of Orgon, with reason ultimately prevailing to restore order.
Family and Authority
The play explores the abuse of patriarchal authority, as Orgon's tyrannical decisions regarding his daughter's marriage and his treatment of his son create family conflict, while the servants and younger generation challenge his misguided rule.