36 pages • 1 hour read
MolièreLe Bourgeois Gentilhomme
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1670A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Importance of the Social Hierarchy
The play comments on the stock that 17th-century French society placed on rank and status. M. Jourdain has money, but no title. Count Duranté has a title but no money. Neither man has scruples. M. Jourdain is spending all of his money in pursuit of an imaginary status, that which Cléonte calls “imposture” and “a stolen title” (78). Molière depicts the act of social climbing as ridiculous and empty. However, considering that his audience consisted mainly of nobility and royalty, the play does not condemn those who were born into the upper class or necessarily disparage those who hold and value a title. Rather, the play offers and mocks nuisances that would be recognizable to members of the upper class. In a society where the middle class has begun to amass wealth through trade, a socially-ambitious man like M. Jourdain would be an object for derision. M. Jourdain fetishizes status and attempts to purchase it, but his inability to do so flatters the members of the upper class, who must possess qualities that cannot be bought.
Count Duranté, the high-rank leech, likely represents a familiar annoyance to members of the upper class who had both status and wealth. Duranté, unlike M. Jourdain, has intelligence and social awareness. This is not to say, however, that the play disparages the middle class. Mme. Jourdain, for example, is of bourgeois origins. Although she enjoys wealth, as evidenced by her prudence in urging her husband not to spend all of their money, she has no aspirations to rise above her rank. In fact, she does not want her daughter to marry above her station, either. She acknowledges that a member of the bourgeois will never fully fit in with the upper classes. Similarly, Cléonte does not have goals to increase his social status. He points out that “gentleman” is not a real rank. It is only a title that men give themselves to pretend to be a member of the upper class.
The title of the play, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, is an oxymoron. By definition, a “gentleman” cannot be middle class in 17th-century France. A gentleman must be noble, and a person must be born into nobility. M. Jourdain is foolish for convincing himself that he has achieved a status that he cannot achieve. And indeed, he shows his incapacity for learning the arts and sciences that members of the upper class would have been exposed to and educated on from an early age. Of course, his pompousness leads to hilarity, but it also makes him the villain of the piece. Molière’s plays frequently depict the rich, older man who is taken in by a fraudulent person who seems to possess the rank or qualities he admires. For upper-class audience members, the plays offer the chance to laugh and feel superior to such fools, whose stubbornness makes them easily duped.
Art and Education
In Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, art and education are the purview of the upper class. M. Jourdain complains to the Philosophy Master that he is angry that his parents did not force him to study all of the sciences. Of course, such training is a hallmark of the upper class. M. Jourdain has not had the educational opportunities afforded the nobility. He does not speak Latin (although he pretends that he does). He has not learned to appreciate and understand music and dance. He has never learned about fashion. However, the play also mocks the pretentiousness of artists and educators for placing such importance on their own artistic integrity. In the play, while the Dance Master in particular laments the fact that he is creating for a man who does not fully appreciate what he creates, all of the masters are hypocritical in that they sell out for money.
Education for the nobility in 17th-century France was enhanced by private tutoring, with an emphasis on the very things that M. Jourdain attempts to learn as an adult: music, dance, fencing, and philosophy, as well as the study of modern languages and the arts. Such education was a privilege, unavailable to commoners. It centered on an image of the ideal man, l’honnête homme (the upright man). The upright man was well-spoken, mannered, possessed and exercised intellectual curiosity, appreciated the arts, and was a poet. As a new student of these practices, M. Jourdain is too foolish and stubborn to know what he does not know. Count Doranté demonstrates that although he seems to need M. Jourdain’s money, he is versed in those disciplines that are taught to the upper class. When he speaks to Dorimène, he tops M. Jourdain’s unsophisticated observations and compliments with much more poetic language.
Performance
The play includes multiple types of performance. First, there are the performances of dancers and musicians throughout the play. These performances within the play, such as the Music Master’s songs, the dances, and the ballet interludes serve both as plot elements and as entertainments to appeal to Molière’s courtly audiences. Unlike M. Jourdain, they would be educated to appreciate them. The presence of the performances is an element of spectacle. The play also depicts the performances of the members of the working class, who pretend to esteem M. Jourdain in order to charm him into continuing to pay them. The tailor’s assistants, for instance, know exactly what to say to M. Jourdain in order to flatter him into offering a large tip. The count performs as M. Jourdain’s friend and confidante while using him for his own personal gain. The third performance is the elaborate ruse led by Covielle. This performance is like a play-within-a-play, except that M. Jourdain believes that it is real. The players wear costumes, including M. Jourdain, who does not understand that his outfit is a costume. They act as characters and even have an audience, as Count Doranté brings Dorimène to watch the show.
