The literary process of the 17th century was characterized by the direction of classicism, which displayed the features of ancient literature. Moliere's play "The Philistine in the Nobility" is a kind of standard of the literary direction of this period.
Characteristics of the image of Jourdain
The protagonist of the play "The Philistine in the Nobility" - Jourdain, became a kind of mirror in which the author reflected all the shortcomings and vices of society. Jourdain is a rather elderly merchant who once had an irresistible desire to become part of an aristocratic society.
The protagonist began to completely rebuild his life and old habits in order to resemble a nobleman as much as possible. He hires a teacher and learns to dance, like secular gentlemen, equips his apartment according to the example of fashionable salons, dresses in clothes from expensive materials ordered from abroad, is looking for a groom with a noble pedigree for his daughter.
But this does not help Jourdain to join the coveted society, since all his actions on the way to achieving his goal cause only the ridicule of others. After all, what could be more amusing than an uneducated merchant who imagines himself to be a nobleman.
Close people use it for personal purposes: the daughter and wife demand new expensive outfits in order to match the future aristocrat. In order to marry off her daughter to a loved one, Jourdain's wife plays a real performance for her husband.
A low-income groom is dressed up as a Turkish sultan, whom, according to the script, the daughter should marry. Jourdain has become so accustomed to the role of an aristocrat that he does not see in the Sultan the poor guy Clement, who asked for the hand of his child a month ago.
Playing along with the upper class in everything, Jourdain is no more, no less than an unsuccessful caricature of him. Probably, his image would have evoked ridicule from more than one generation of readers, if not for the epiphany that Jourdain had at the end of the play.
He realized that all his life he had been striving for something higher than everyday vanity, and he chose the wrong path, wanting to inherit the nobility. Jourdain realized that he had actually lived his entire life prosaically, while his soul longed for lyrics.
At this moment, the protagonist becomes really sorry. However, this feeling is replaced by joy for him at last, he had his sight and looked at the world with a completely different look.
The meaning of the story
In the play "The Philistine in the Nobility", in addition to people who want to be equated with a high-ranking society, the aristocracy itself is ridiculed, along with its meaningless and empty laws of life.
Jourdain's game of the nobility is actually a demonstration performance for the upper class, because sometimes they themselves, with their fictitious rules of etiquette, and bad taste in some things, look just as comical as the main character of the play.
This is a man completely captured by one dream - to become a nobleman. The opportunity to approach noble people is happiness for him, all his ambition is to achieve similarity with them, his whole life is the desire to imitate them. The thought of the nobility takes possession of him completely, in this mental blindness of his, he loses all correct idea of the world. He acts without reasoning, to his own detriment.
He reaches mental baseness and begins to be ashamed of his parents. He is fooled by everyone who wants to; he is robbed by teachers of music, dancing, fencing, philosophy, tailors and various apprentices. Rudeness, bad manners, ignorance, vulgarity of the language and manners of Mr. Jourdain comically contrast with his claims to noble elegance and gloss. But Jourdain causes laughter, not disgust, because, unlike other similar upstarts, he bows to the nobility disinterestedly, out of ignorance, as a kind of dream of beauty. Mr. Jourdain is opposed by his wife, a true representative of the bourgeoisie. This is a sensible practical woman with self-esteem.
She is trying with all her might to resist her husband's mania, his inappropriate claims, and most importantly, to clear the house of uninvited guests who live off Jourdain and exploit his gullibility and vanity. Unlike her husband, she does not have any respect for the title of nobility and prefers to marry her daughter to a man who would be her equal and would not look down on the bourgeois relatives. The younger generation - Jourdain's daughter Lucille and her fiancé Cleont - are people of a new type. Lucille has received a good upbringing, she loves Cleont for his virtues. Cleon is noble, but not by origin, but by character and moral properties: honest, truthful, loving, he can be useful to society and the state. Who are those whom Jourdain wants to imitate? Count Dorant and Marquise Dorimena are people of noble birth, they have refined manners, captivating politeness.
But the count is a poor adventurer, a swindler, ready for any meanness for the sake of money, even pandering. Dorimena, together with Dorant, robs Jourdain. The conclusion that Molière leads the viewer to is obvious: let Jourdain be ignorant and simple, let him be ridiculous, selfish, but he is an honest man, and there is nothing to despise him for. In moral terms, Jourdain, gullible and naive in his dreams, is higher than aristocrats. So the comedy-ballet, the original purpose of which was to entertain the king in his castle of Chambord, where he went hunting, became, under the pen of Molière, a satirical, social work. In the work of Molière, there are several themes that he repeatedly addressed, developing and deepening them. Among them are the theme of hypocrisy (“Tartuffe”, “Don Juan”, “Misanthrope”, “Imaginary Sick”, etc.
), the theme of the tradesman in the nobility ("School for Wives", "Georges Dandin", "The tradesman in the nobility"), the theme of family, marriage, education, education. The first comedy on this subject, as we remember, was "The Ridiculous Pretenders", it was continued in the "School of Husbands" and "School of Wives", and completed in the comedy "Learned Women" (1672), which ridicules the outward passion for science and philosophy in Parisian salons of the second half of the 17th century. Moliere shows how a secular literary salon turns into a "scientific academy", where vanity and pedantry are valued, where they try to cover up the vulgarity and barrenness of the mind with claims for the correctness and elegance of the language (II, 6, 7; III, 2). A superficial fascination with the philosophy of Plato or the mechanics of Descartes prevents women from fulfilling their immediate basic duties of wife, mother, mistress of the house. Molière saw this as a social danger.
He laughs at the behavior of his pseudo-scientific heroines - Filamintha, Belize, Armande. But he admires Henrietta, a woman of a clear sober mind and by no means ignorant. Of course, Moliere does not ridicule here science and philosophy, but a fruitless game in them, which is detrimental to a practical, sound outlook on life. The last work of Moliere, constantly reminding us of his tragic personal fate, was the comedy "Imaginary Sick" (1673), in which the mortally ill Moliere played the main role. Like earlier comedies (Love the Healer, 1665; The Unwilling Doctor, 1666), The Imaginary Sick is a mockery of modern doctors, their charlatanism, complete ignorance, and also of their victim - Argan. Medicine in those days was based not on the experimental study of nature, but on scholastic speculations based on authorities that were no longer believed.
But, on the other hand, Argan, a maniac who likes to see himself sick, is an egoist, a petty tyrant. He is opposed by the selfishness of his second wife, Belina, a hypocritical and mercenary woman. In this comedy of characters and manners, the fear of death is depicted, which completely paralyzed Argan. Blindly believing ignorant doctors, Argan easily succumbs to deception - he is a stupid, deceived husband; but he is also a tough, angry, unfair person, a cruel father. Moliere showed here, as in other comedies, a deviation from the generally accepted norms of behavior that destroys the individual. The playwright died after the fourth performance of the play, he felt ill on stage and barely finished the play.
On the same night, February 17, 1673, Molière passed away. The burial of Moliere, who died without church repentance and did not renounce the "shameful" profession of an actor, turned into a public scandal. The Parisian archbishop, who did not forgive Molière for Tartuffe, did not allow the great writer to be buried according to the accepted church rite. It took the intervention of the king. The funeral took place late in the evening, without proper ceremonies, outside the cemetery fence, where obscure vagabonds and suicides were usually buried.
However, behind the coffin of Moliere, along with relatives, friends, colleagues, there was a large crowd of ordinary people, whose opinion Moliere listened to so subtly. No wonder Boileau, who highly appreciated the work of Moliere, accused his friend of being "too popular." The folk character of Molière's comedies, which manifested itself both in their content and in their form, was based primarily on the folk traditions of the farce. Moliere followed these traditions in his literary and acting work, maintaining a passion for the democratic theater all his life. The nationality of Molière's work is also evidenced by his folk characters.
These are, first of all, the servants: Mascaril, Sganarelle, Sozy, Scapin, Dorina, Nicole, Toinette. It was in their images that Moliere expressed the characteristic features of the national French character: cheerfulness, sociability, friendliness, wit, dexterity, prowess, common sense. In addition, in his comedies, Molière depicted peasants and peasant life with genuine sympathy (recall the scenes in the village in The Unwilling Doctor or Don Juan). The language of Molière's comedies also testifies to their true nationality: it often contains folklore material - proverbs, sayings, beliefs, folk songs that attracted Moliere with spontaneity, simplicity, sincerity ("Misanthrope", "Philistine in the nobility"). Molière boldly used dialectisms, folk patois (dialect), various vernaculars, turns that were incorrect from the point of view of strict grammar. Wits, folk humor give Molière's comedies a unique charm.
Describing the work of Molière, researchers often argue that in his works he "went beyond the limits of classicism." In this case, they usually refer to deviations from the formal rules of classicist poetics (for example, in Don Juan or some comedies of a farcical type). One cannot agree with this. The rules for constructing comedy were not interpreted as strictly as the rules for tragedy, and allowed for wider variation. Molière is the most significant and most characteristic comedian of classicism. Sharing the principles of classicism as an artistic system, Moliere made genuine discoveries in the field of comedy. He demanded to faithfully reflect reality, preferring to go from direct observation of life phenomena to the creation of typical characters.
These characters under the playwright's pen acquire social certainty; many of his observations therefore turned out to be prophetic: such, for example, is the depiction of the peculiarities of bourgeois psychology.
Composition on the topic: Characteristics of the image of Mr. Jourdain
The protagonist of Molière's comedy "The Bourgeoisie in the Nobility" Mr. Jourdain is the image of the nouveau riche and upstart, masterfully drawn by the author. His appearance in the work was due to the social position of the then French society: against the background of the impoverishment of the nobility, the bourgeoisie is becoming more and more enriched, more and more it is striving to catch up with the aristocracy. So the wealthy merchant Jourdain has only one concern - to become like a nobleman in everything and earn respect in high society.
Following the traditions of the nobility, Mr. Jourdain hires teachers for himself and seeks to gain knowledge in music, philosophy, learn to fencing and dance like nobles. And teachers only take advantage of its imperfection and extract money from it as best they can. Each of the teachers declares that his science is important, and it is precisely this that needs to be studied more deeply. But Mr. Jourdain needs much less from his mentors, because his knowledge of high society is only superficial. Therefore, in response to proposals to learn physics, ethics and logic, Mr. Jourdain asks the teacher-philosopher to teach him only "to learn from the calendar when there is a month and when it is not."
Mr. Jourdain naively believed in the all-conquering power of money and believed that in order to become a real nobleman, it was enough to hire an expensive tailor, and not spare money on a dress, and learn "noble manners." Vanity also pushes Jourdain to expenses. For example, once having heard the appeal to himself “your grace”, Mr. Jourdain increases the tip for the tailor’s apprentices, and they, having seen through his weakness, in their appeals reduce him first to “excellence”, and then to “lordship”, for which everyone gets more and more money.
The same vanity becomes the reason for Jourdain's refusal to Cleont, his daughter's fiancé. Unlike Cleont, who believes that a happy and strong marriage can only be with equal status, Mr. Jourdain thinks quite differently. At the request of Lucille's hand, he replies: "My daughter will be a marchioness, and if you make me even more angry, I will make her a duchess."
It should be noted that Mr. Jourdain was a fairly good person. He earned his capital by hard work, and did not spare money for those whom he considered his friends. But he was so naive that those who wanted to profit at his expense used his simplicity. If not for his blind desire to become a nobleman at any cost, his life would have turned out very differently.
According to the tradition of comedy, everything ends happily. She marries the beloved daughter of Mr. Jourdain and everything seems to fall into place. But the author leaves open the question of whether Mr. Jourdain managed to break into the high society. This question must be answered by the readers themselves, taking into account all the circumstances and the character of the hero.
Jourdain
Jourdain (fr. Jourdain) - the hero of Moliere's comedy "The bourgeois in the nobility" (Le bourgeois gentilhomme - letters, translation - "Bourgeois nobleman", 1670). Mr. J. is one of the most amusing characters of the great comedian. The actors of the play, the readers and the spectators make fun of him equally. Indeed, what could be more absurd for others than an elderly merchant, suddenly obsessed with secular manners and frantically striving to resemble an aristocrat. The thirst for a “change of fate” is so strong in Zh. that, overcoming natural non-musicality and clumsiness, he learns the intricate “pas” of fashionable dances, brandishes a sword, an indispensable attribute of the nobility, and, under the guidance of numerous teachers, comprehends the methods of seducing demanding representatives of secular society. Once again, in Molière's comedy, everything revolves around the game. Zh. can not wait to get used to the role of an inveterate courtier, and those around him, with a few exceptions, “play along” with the hero, pursuing their very mercantile goals. Even Ms. Jourdain, who resists her husband's costly follies, and her laughing maid eventually understand that it is enough to direct J.'s "game" in the right direction so that no one suffers from it. So, at the end of the play, with the help of disguised household members, the daughter of Zh. marries her beloved, whom the adamant father read exclusively for a nobleman. And Zh. himself, as a result of the cunning plan of the daughter's fiancé, becomes "mamamushi" and "an entourage of the Turkish Sultan." This quasi-Turkish word-monster is the best way to express the monstrous tastelessness and inorganicness of the claims of the newly-minted nobleman. It was composed specifically for J. by mischievous and enterprising fellows, Cleont and Coviel, who decided at all costs to marry the daughter and maid of a crazy bourgeois. The “Turkish ceremony”, designed to “initiate” Zh. into the nobility, is the culmination of the comedy and the “apotheosis” of the hero, who felt like a real “Muslim aristocrat” during the parody ballet extravaganza. The image of Zh., however, is more complicated than it might seem. Its social background, which is relevant for the era, does not prevent us from seeing in comedy a continuation of Molière's serious reflections on the play space of human existence, on the functions of the game that fills the life of society, on the various forms of play behavior and on the "costs" of human play activity. This time, the subject of the study was the game design of the cast train de vie (way of life). The clumsy bourgeois J., trying on the etiquette standards of the nobility, turns out to be a kind of mirror in the play, reflecting both the idealless, devoid of creative spirit, bourgeois way of life, and the excessively ornamented, cutesy style of aristocratic behavior. The space of the comedy-ballet, in which everyday scenes, singing numbers and dance involuntary divertissements side by side, is an expression of the genre originality of "The Tradesman in the Nobility". At the same time, pantomime, vocal and choreographic pictures framing the action, turn out to be a materialization of J.'s dreams of an aristocratic life in the form of a continuous ball of sophistication and gallantry. Zh.'s thematic complex includes not only the motive of groundless social claims. Creating for himself an illusory world of "high taste" and grace, Mr. Zh. is intoxicated not only with a new "made of Indian fabric" dressing gown, wig and suit with "flowers heads up". The key and most famous phrase of Molière's tradesman sounds like this: "... I had no idea that I had been speaking prose for more than forty years." The discovery made by Zh., reveals, of course, his illiteracy. But an uneducated, absurd, ill-mannered merchant, in contrast to his surroundings, is able to suddenly see the squalor of a life lived, devoid of a glimpse of poetry, mired in gross material interests. Thus, another theme of J. becomes a touching and sympathetic craving for a world of other values, which, however, was revealed by Moliere in a parodic vein. In this sense, Zh. opens a series of images of the bourgeois, seeking the spiritual sophistication of noble life, images, among which are Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Chekhov's Lopakhin. Mr. Zh. has at least three roles in the play. He acts as an actor trying out a winning role, as a toy of those around him who use his mania, and as a catalyst for the playful activity of young comedy characters. At the end of the play, the hero gets what he is looking for (after all, his goal has always been visibility); all participants and witnesses of the "Turkish ceremony" are satisfied. "The Philistine in the Nobility" is also a play about illusions, about the illusory nature and relativity of many human institutions, such as, for example, caste "rules of good manners" and "accepted" forms of life in society. And also about the fact that the game is the last, and perhaps the only way to give creative energy to human existence, to make the thickness of inert matter part in order to soar in the magical spaces of a dream. The image of Mr. J., a merchant living in a prosaic reality, but looking for poetry, confused and happy, a bourgeois and a nobleman, is one of the brightest manifestations of the insurmountable duality of being and one of the unconditional Moliere masterpieces. It is not surprising that comedy motifs became the basis of M. A. Bulgakov "Crazy Jourdain", written in 1932 for the Studio Theater under the direction of Yu.A. Zavadsky. The first performance of the comedy "The Philistine in the Nobility" took place at the castle of Chambord on October 14, 1670. Then in the same year J. in the theater of the Palais Royal played himself Molière. Among the outstanding performers of the role of J. Coquelin Sr. (1903). In Russia, life was played by: M.S. Shchepkin (1825), P. M. Sadovsky (1844), V. I. Zhivokini (1864).
Lit.: M. Gutwirth. Moliere ou 1'invention comique. La metamorphose des themes, la creation des types. Paris, 1966; see also lit. to the articles "Tartuffe", "Skalen".