In this blog post, I’ve reflected on how Molière uses humor to explore human freedom, oppression, and inner desires, focusing on ‘The School for Wives’ and ‘The Miser’.
I usually enjoy watching comedy shows on TV. When I think about why I’ve loved comedy from childhood to the present, the answer is surprisingly simple. It’s because it’s funny. It makes us laugh. I believe part of comedy’s appeal is that it gives our minds—often filled with complex and heavy thoughts—a momentary break and allows us to escape into a world of lighthearted laughter.
Above all, comedy is lighthearted. And because it is lighthearted, it is free. Solemn and serious people sometimes find comedy uncomfortable. This is because comedy turns the things they consider important—the authority and dignity they believe must be respected—into lighthearted subjects of laughter. The more authoritarian a person is, the harder it is for them to tolerate having their serious demeanor become the butt of a joke. That’s why I believe watching comedy together and laughing can actually serve as an opportunity to bridge the gap between people.
In this regard, Molière’s comedies struck me as something different from works that simply make people laugh. Molière is one of the leading classical writers of 17th-century France. At that time, France was characterized by a strict and serious atmosphere, and it was an era that placed great importance on rules. Artistic works—especially plays—were required to adhere to strict rules. Yet, in such an era, Molière became a master through comedy. This is likely because his humor contained something that went beyond mere amusement to deeply touch people’s hearts.
If we stop to think about it, there’s always a reason why we laugh heartily when we see someone. Let’s imagine a person who appears very dignified and serious on the surface. Although they always act as if they’re thinking only about serious and important matters, that dignified facade might actually be a disguise to hide their true feelings. But when that facade is turned inside out to reveal what lies beneath, we feel a sense of catharsis. This is because we discover that behind their serious demeanor and solemn expressions lie desires and weaknesses that are no different from our own.
Molière’s works showcase precisely this kind of laughter. As we read his plays, the solemnity and authority that the characters project are stripped away, revealing the human desires and weaknesses hidden within. We laugh heartily at this. And after we laugh, our hearts feel lighter and freer. However, Molière’s works leave a lingering impression that goes beyond a simple burst of laughter. If his works were merely entertaining spectacles, they would hardly have remained so beloved to this day. I believe the reason he is regarded as one of the leading writers of the Classical era is precisely because that laughter contains a deep understanding of human nature.
Molière’s works are often referred to as “comic character plays.” Here, “comic character play” does not simply mean a comedy featuring characters with eccentric or peculiar personalities. The characters Molière portrays do not possess particularly unusual or strange traits; rather, they distill the defining characteristics of specific social groups from the era in which he lived. Through his characters, he exposes individuals who outwardly project dignity and authority while harboring selfish greed and vile desires beneath the surface. Molière depicted the decadent behavior of clergymen, nobles, and the bourgeoisie in his works and mocked it mercilessly.
So why do they become the objects of ridicule? It is because the authority and outward dignity they possess suppress their true human nature. While they outwardly champion sound common sense and virtue, in reality, they often suppress true refinement and virtue. I believe Molière turns authoritative figures into objects of ridicule precisely to expose such contradictions.
A play that clearly illustrates this characteristic of Molière is ‘The School for Wives’. Arnolf, the aristocrat in the play, views the social customs of his time with great criticism. In particular, he cannot tolerate the immoral behavior of women who cheat on their husbands behind their backs. He resolves that he, at least, will not fall victim to such customs. So, he takes in a young girl named Agnès when she is four years old and raises her as an innocent maiden completely unaware of the ways of the world. His intention was to thoroughly isolate Agnès from the world’s corrupt customs, allowing her to grow into a pure individual, and then to marry this woman who had grown up so innocently.
However, Arnolphe’s plan ultimately fails. He is betrayed by Agnès. At first, one might think the reason is that Agnès became aware of the ways of the world. One might also think it’s because she eventually became no different from other women. But in reality, it was exactly the opposite. His plan collapsed precisely because Agnès had grown up to be such a pure and innocent woman, just as Arnolphe had intended.
I believe that Agnès’s purity and innocence mean her natural nature has been preserved intact, without being corrupted. And the most important aspect of that natural nature is love. Upon meeting Oras, Agnès naturally awakens to love. She does not hesitate in the slightest when it comes to her love. In fact, she shows greater courage in the face of love than someone who is well-versed in the ways of the world. Agnès is purity itself and naturalness itself. And while preserving that purity and naturalness, she steps out into the world through her love for Horace.
What impressed me most while reading this play was that although Arnolphe tried to control Agnès completely, he was ultimately undone by the very purity he had created. Attempts to mold and control people according to one’s own will ultimately cannot overcome human nature.
I believe that what Molière advocates through this play is precisely this natural human nature. It is a critique of human spontaneity and freedom, as well as all the conventions and authorities that suppress them. The laughter Molière offers people is not simply laughter at someone’s foolishness, but laughter directed at oppressive conventions and authority. When Agnès tries to run away with the man she loves, Arnolphe sneers at her, asking if she attended a “good school.” Yet the “good school” he refers to is none other than nature itself.
Viewed in this light, the laughter in ‘The School for Wives’ is not merely a comic device. When man-made rules and authority attempt to suppress the natural human spirit, laughter becomes a force that exposes the flaws in that authority. Humans always have a desire to think and act freely, and that free spirit is always ready to mock the authority that oppresses them. I believe that the reason Molière’s works, written in 17th-century France, are still beloved today is that this sense of human freedom evokes empathy across time and place.
However, Molière’s satire is not directed solely at oppressive authority. Excessive and base desires rooted within human nature are also major targets of his satire. In this sense, ‘The Miser’ is particularly striking. Humans always harbor a desire for money. However, money is, after all, merely a means to navigate the world; it must not become an end in itself. We earn money to live, but we do not live merely to earn money. Yet in reality, many people treat money itself as the purpose of life. As materialism grows stronger, it becomes easy to believe that one can only live well by earning a lot of money.
Arpagone in “The Miser” is a character who portrays this aspect of human nature in its most extreme form. When his money is stolen, he wails as if he had lost his very life. To him, money is not merely property. It is a friend, his very life, and the very joy of living in this world. He feels as though his entire life has ended the moment his money disappears. Watching him, his obsession seems ridiculous, yet at the same time, it makes one wonder what he has staked his life on.
At first, watching Harpagon like this makes you laugh heartily, because his attitude—valuing his money above all else—is so extreme. But after reading ‘The Miser’ and reflecting on it further, laughter isn’t all that remains. Arpagone, a miser unlike any other in the world, actually comes across as somewhat pitiful. That’s probably why, after laughing to my heart’s content, I’m left with a sense of loneliness.
I, too, saw a play adaptation of ‘The Miser’ a long time ago during high school, and I remember feeling a sense of pity for the protagonist, Arpagone, even back then. At the time, I didn’t know exactly why I felt that way. Looking back now, I think it was probably because he seemed like such a lonely man. He was a character who, consumed by his desire for money, had trapped himself in solitude. And perhaps that possibility exists within all of us.
Through ‘The Miser’, Molière does more than simply turn the ugly side of human nature into a source of laughter. He compels me—who was laughing at the characters in the play—to look inward at some point. Humans are subject not only to authority that suppresses their freedom but also to desires that bind them. I felt that Molière’s greatness lies precisely in his ability to capture both of these aspects through humor, ultimately prompting us to reflect on what it means to be human.
If we examine Molière’s life to gain a deeper understanding of his works, we can begin to grasp why he was able to observe human freedom, desire, hypocrisy, and loneliness with such sharp insight. Molière was born in Paris on January 15, 1622; his birth name was Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. After studying at the Jesuit College of Clermont, he majored in law at the University of Orléans, but became deeply immersed in theater during his college years. Eventually, he formed a theater troupe called the “Théâtre Illustre” with the siblings of Madeleine Béjart and worked as a writer, director, and actor.
He was not successful from the start. In January 1644, when he was 22 years old, he staged his first performance, but it failed to attract an audience and left him deeply in debt. He was eventually driven to the brink of imprisonment following a lawsuit filed by his creditors. He subsequently left Paris and spent 13 years traveling through various regions of southern France, putting on performances. Having achieved some success and gained a reputation in the provinces, he returned to Paris in 1658 and was given the opportunity to perform before Louis XIV. Louis XIV, who took a liking to his works, granted him permission to use the royal Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon. The following year, his play ‘The Pretentious Ladies’ was a huge success, allowing him to establish a firm foothold in Paris.
However, as he staged plays that criticized the nobility and the clergy, persecution was inevitable. Although he enjoyed Louis XIV’s protection, it had its limits. The fact that Molière was under the king’s protection can be interpreted to mean that Louis XIV was a man of free spirit—contrary to his commonly known image as an absolute monarch—or that he sought to keep the nobility and the clergy in check while establishing absolute monarchy.
In 1662, Molière staged ‘The School for Wives’ at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, where it was a resounding success. However, this play provided those who disapproved of him with a pretext to criticize him as “irreligious,” “unbelieving,” and “a corrupter of public morals.” Although he enjoyed the king’s protection, even that could not shield him from all forms of persecution. Subsequently, Molière faced relentless pressure from the royal court and the Church, including the suspension of theatrical performances and the closure of theaters. When he staged ‘Tartuffe’, a satire on hypocrisy, in 1664, the performances were immediately halted due to backlash from churchgoers; similarly, when he staged ‘Don Juan’ the following year, he was forced to take the play off the stage after only 15 performances.
Even under such circumstances, Molière never stopped writing and staging plays. Despite struggling with poverty, he continued to write and act in his own plays, leaving behind some 30 works, including ‘The Miser’, published in 1668. In February 1673, he collapsed on stage during a performance of ‘The Imaginary Invalid’. He was taken home after the show ended but passed away that same night.
Looking back on Molière’s life, one cannot help but feel that his life itself was a continuous series of intense struggles. He had to lead his theater company and provide for the actors’ livelihoods, while simultaneously entertaining the king. He was the company’s director, an actor, a playwright, and a stage director. He appeared not only in his own plays but also in those written by other authors, and he performed in ballets and tragedies as well as comedies. Even knowing that death was approaching, he gave his all on stage to entertain the audience.
His final moments were as tragic as his life had been. He was barely able to be buried in a church thanks to his wife’s plea, made while kneeling before the king, as the priests had refused to perform his funeral. Ultimately, the funeral could only be held in the middle of the night, by order of the Archbishop of Paris. It is heartbreaking to think that a man who loved theater his entire life and brought laughter to people had to receive such a lonely treatment in the face of death.
However, the poverty and wandering Molière endured, along with his unceasing passion for theater, seem to have actually given him the strength to look deeply into human nature and life. His works are imbued with his life experiences and his observations of humanity. That is why his comedies do more than simply make us laugh. As we read his works, we laugh at the hypocrisy and desires of others, but at some point, we realize that the laughter is actually directed at ourselves.
In ‘The School for Wives’, authority that seeks to suppress human nature and freedom becomes the object of ridicule, while in ‘The Miser’, a man consumed by an excessive desire for money becomes the target of laughter. Yet Molière does not simply condemn them. Behind the laughter, he prompts us to consider why people act that way and what those desires and oppressions ultimately shape them into.
This leads me to believe that Molière was not only a great 17th-century French playwright but also an eternal explorer of human nature. While the characteristics of his era and society are clearly reflected in his works, his portrayal of human freedom, desire, hypocrisy, and loneliness transcends any specific time period. Even today, we are sometimes oppressed by authority and sometimes ensnared by our own desires. That is why Molière’s humor still resonates with us today, even after hundreds of years.
I believe this is precisely why Molière’s works continue to be loved and inspire countless people today, transcending time and borders. He made people laugh, but he did not leave them with laughter alone. He made them reflect on themselves after the laughter subsided and ponder what it means to be human. And it is precisely in this regard that his comedies transcend mere comedy to become a profound exploration of humanity and life.
