Introduction
[Realism, the Trend]
The theory of writing, Realism, in which the familiar, ordinary aspects of life are depicted in a matter of fact, straightforward manner designed to reflect life as it actually is. Realism often presents a careful description of everyday life, often concerning itself with the lives of the so-called middle or lower classes. According to Henry James, the main tenet of realism is that writers must not select facts in accord with preconceived aesthetics or ethical ideals but, rather, record their observations impartially and objectively. Realism downplays plot in favor of character and to concentrate on middle-class life and preoccupations. It became an important tradition in theater through the works of Ibsen and Shaw, among others. However, realism is most often associated with the novel (www.enotes.com). The attributes of the Misanthrope, a comedy of manners written by Moliere way back the seventeenth century, are of the characteristics described by the definition of Realism. The said play is a reflection of France in the time of nobilities when they dominant the land as very important persons who influences the land. The attitudes of the characters in the play also mirror those of the real world.
In addition, realism, the dominant movement in art and literature in the mid-nineteenth century, opposed the romantic veneration of the inner life and romantic sentimentality. The romantics exalted passion and intuition, let their imaginations transport them to a presumed idyllic medieval past, and sought subjective solitude amid nature's wonders. Realists, on the other hand, were preoccupied with the actual world, with social conditions and contemporary mariners, and with the familiar details of everyday life. With clinical detachment and meticulous care, they analyzed how people looked, worked, and behaved (http://legacy.owensboro.kctcs.edu).
In the play, Le Misanthrope or the Misanthrope, satirizes the hypocrisies of French aristocratic society, chronicling an eventful day in the unstable love-life of the ill-tempered Alceste and a flirtatious young gossip, Célimène, and the many fops and fools flitting in and out of her environment. In this sense, the play also manifests a realistic view of the society of the middleclass as they were hypocrites, as Moliere regarded them, to the aristocratic society.
The Misanthrope
[Realism through Sociological Approach]
The Misanthrope or Le Misanthrope is by common consent the greatest of Moliere’s plays, but attempts to discover the nature of its peculiar excellence have sometimes led critics to profitable paths (Turnell, 1948). Misanthrope basically means a person who hates or distrusts humankind – this personality is found on the character of Alceste. Moreover, the said play is a farce but it differs from the other farces by the playwright’s employment to dynamic characters. The characters of Alceste and Celimene are opposed to the traditional flat characters used by most satirists to criticize problems in society. Though Misanthrope is a farce, it suggests an idea which is deeper, more profound and more serious that it also contributes to the readers the sociological state of France’s upper and lower level classes.
Note: The following paragraphs are to tackle the characterization of the main character (Alceste), plot structure (also incorporated there is the summary), tone and theme of the play which are basically proven to portray the satirical story which is presented as realistic in a way that could help the readers to comprehend.
Characterization is an evaluation of the characters in a given literary piece. In this play, the main character of the play, Alceste will be characterized in the following paragraphs.
ALCESTE. According to function, he is the protagonist of the play. He is a misanthrope. The whole story revolves around him as he ridicules Oronte to detesting Celimene. According to development, he is a dynamic character. Alceste on the first acts of the play is terribly in love with Celimene. He also satirizes many of the other characters including Oronte. At the end of the play, he realizes that Celimene is not the right lady for him because of her bad attitudes and he will be changed to be a happy man by Philinte and Eliante. Moreover, Alceste was somewhat grotesque in his high-principled rigidity and his blunt rejection of accepted social patterns of behaviour (Felheim, 1962).
Alceste is cynical and frank about people and the way they act. Here are citations:
By personal speech:
“Alceste [to Philinte]: My God, you ought to die of self-disgust.
I call your conduct inexcusable, Sir,
And every man of honor will concur.
I see you almost hug a man to death,
Exclaim for joy until you’re out of breath,
And supplement these loving demonstrations
With endless offers, vows and protestations;”
“Alceste [to Oronte]: You’re under no necessity to compose;
Why you should wish to publish, heaven knows.
There’s no excuse of printing tedious rot
Unless one writes for bread, as you do not.”
“Alceste [to Oronte]: Frankly, that sonnet should be pigeonholed.
You’ve chosen the worst models to imitate.
The styles unnatural.”
By comment of others:
“Philinte: … I’ll tell you plainly that by being frank
You’ve earned a reputation of a crank,
And that you’re thought ridiculous when you rage
And rant against the manners of the age.”
Alceste is a sincere lover. Here are some citations:
By personal speech: “Alceste [to Philinte and Eliante]: Be witness to my madness both of you;
See what infatuation drives one to;
But wait my folly’s only just begun,
And I shall prove to you before I’m done
How strange the human heart is, and how far
From rational we sorry creatures are.”
The story of Misanthrope is not like the other plays though its structure is like the usual – exposition, rising action, climax, denouement and conclusion. The play’s exposition is when Philinte and Alceste both arguing of the topic of being hypocrite to other people especially those of higher class, as cited on these lines:
“Philinte: Now, what’s got into you?
Alceste [seated]: Kindly leave me alone.
Phil.: Come, come what is it? This lugubrious tone…
Alc.: Leave me you Spoil my solitude.”
He states: “…Mankind has grown so base, / I mean to break with the whole human race”. However, this conviction manifests itself in the primary conflict of the play, which consists of Alceste's intense love for Célimène, a flirtatious young woman who pays great attention to social appearances and conventions. Alceste's determination to reject society and its supposed dishonesty is countered by his desire to share a life with Célimène, whose actions oppose all that he stands for. In addition, the play opens as usual on a note which sounds uncommonly like farce, but the intention is serious. There is something wrong with Alceste and most of the play is devoted on discovering what it is (Turnell, 1948). With Act II, scene ii the work of exposition is complete.
The rising action comes when Alceste discovers of Celimene’s deception. As he and the other suitors scrutinized Celimene, Alceste loses his base and decides to go Paris but was stopped by Philinte to stay and think everything through.
The climax takes place when Celimene’s suitors knew that she has insulted and degraded them in her letter. The letter was read by Acaste to the crowd.
“Acaste [to Oronte and Alceste]: You’ll recognize this writing , I think;
The lady I s so free of pen and ink
That you must know it all too well, I fear.
But listen: this is something you should here.”
The falling action comes when Alceste’s offer was being rejected by Celimene. Alceste offered her marriage but in one condition as cited on the following lines:
“Alceste [to Celimene]: Woman, I’m willing to forget your shame
And clothe your treacheries in a sweeter name;
I’ll call them youthful errors, instead of crimes,
And lay the blame on these corrupting times.
My condition is that you agree
To share my chosen fate, and fly with me
To that wild, trackless, solitary place”
There are many more such scenes, whose resonance goes far beyond the plot, whose effect does not reside in the help or hindrance that they give to the denouement, to the marriage that it essential to literary comedy (Corrigan, 1981).
The conclusion of the play is Celimene was being detested by Alceste for everything she had done and Philinte and Eliante decided to get marry and make Alceste a happy man.
“Philinte [to Eliante]: Come, Madam, let’s do everything we can
To change the mind of this unhappy man.”
The tone is in satirizing French aristocracy; Moliere strikes a light, but critical tone. Satire is the dominant tone and there is more underlying tone due to the style of Moliere in writing the play. It is a satire and it also creates a humorous tone especially when the rebuttals of the characters when they argue coincide (Bates, 1906). Moreover, the author is mocking the hypocrisies of the people who found themselves dumbfounded of the grandeur and flamboyant life of the aristocrat society.
The theme of the play is acceptance of human flaws can help stop man’s blunt reactions of social behaviour. It is a comedy of manners; the play satirizes the French aristocracy for being hypocrite. Alceste, the protagonist, ridicules the persons who are being hypocrite of their true judgment of a certain apprehension. By these blunt reactions of Alceste, he creates a wall between him and the society. He may be not hypocrite but he offends and hurts other people feelings. Being sensitive and understanding are more important than to be truthful and frank. In this case, the affirmation of the said theme is permissible to the realistic sense that can also be universal as a thought.
The play, The Misanthrope, is like other usual plays with regular elements. What differs them is presentation of dynamic characters, Alceste and Celimene. The playwright, Moliere, lived in an age of intellectual scepticism. For when one considers the play as a whole, it is difficult not to feel that Moliere had come to share Alceste’s own scepticism. In no other play does he revel such variety and complexity of feelings, but in no other does he show such reluctance to judge the individual or so marked a tendency to call in question all accepted standard and formulas (Turnell, 1948). These incorporate to the realities of the author in his environment as part of the insights of their social context.
Sociological criticism focuses on the relationship between literature and society. Literature is produced in a social context (Lund, 1996). Moliere situated his play, the Misanthrope, in France were these nobilities exists. Like any other artists, Moliere wrote the Misanthrope with a specific purpose: to entertain and criticize the hypocrites to the nobilities. Writers may affirm or criticize the values of the society in which they live, but they write for an audience and that audience is the society (Lund, 1996). At the time the play was being produced on June 4, 1666, it was not directly praised by the French people, it was first appreciated in England. Moreover, both Tartuffe and Dom Juan, two of Molière's previous plays, had already been banned by the French government; Molière may have subdued his actual ideas to make his play more socially acceptable.
The plays of Moliere were written in early modern France. It is when the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century (or from the French Renaissance to the climax of the French Revolution). During this period France evolved from a feudal regime to an increasingly centralized state (albeit with many regional differences) organized around a powerful absolute monarchy, the Kingdom of France that relied on the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the explicit support of the established Church (www.wikipedia.com). These social and political issues set the plays of Moliere that were banned. Specifically, the Misanthrope, covers the feigned high principles of the middle and lower class men in that time. Alceste integrates a frank, truthful and honest but mocking individual in that time. Socially, Alceste’s role as a misanthrope is a tool for enlightenment and explanation of the times when the commoners were just clinging to the frocks of the nobilities.
The French nobility (French: la noblesse) was the privileged order of France in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern periods in which the play, Misanthrope was set. In the political system of the Estates General, the nobility made up the Second Estate. This three-way division of the Estates should not be construed however as implying a division of Early Modern French society into three rigid orders (clergy, nobles, bourgeois and peasants) without the possibility of crossover (www.wikipedia.com). The characters in the said play are of the nobles or bourgeois as introspected.
Economic studies of nobility in France reveal great differences in financial status. This is one of the causes of the hypocrisies in France that is also found in the play of Moliere. Alceste continues to reject these hypocrisies and resumes for the truth and to be frank which is not ethical sometimes if not properly used.
Conclusion
With the use of the Sociological approach and the integration of the trend of Realism, there is betterment in the understanding of the play and of the sociological context of the play, the Misanthrope. Moreover, the comprehension the analysis of some elements incorporates a more distinct result of the study. In conclusion, Misanthrope, a comedy of manners pours a high value of social context in the mind of its readers. Reality is the major component to make whole of the story.
Works Cited
Bates, A. (1906). The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 7. London: Historical Publishing Company.
Corrigan, R. w. (1981). Comedy: Meaning and Form: 2nd Edition. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Felheim, M. (1962). Comedy: Plays, Theory, and Criticism. Hewcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
Lund, M. (1996). Literary Criticism. In M. Lund. Baltimore County: Carver Center of Arts and Technology.
Turnell, M. (1948). Le Misanthrope. In M. Felheim, Comedy: Plays, Theory and Criticism (pp. 268-272). United States: Hewcourt, Brace and World, Inc.
www.enotes.com/literary-terms/realism
www.legacy.owensboro.kctcs.edu/crunyon/Eng262/03/realism/01intro/realism_and_naturalism.htm
www.threeplaysoftheabsurd.com/moliere
www.wikipedia.com" www.wikipedia.com
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