Hooked On Literature - Part 2

I used it to lay down the parameters within which we would work and to establish the rapports de force in our relationship. “I demand that you listen to me with utmost attention when I talk, and I promise I’ll do the same for you,” so I concluded my impromptu moral lecture within the lecture. From then on the first class and all the others unfolded without any problems. In fact, the committed students expressed their gratitude to me for having neutralized the compulsive talkers. Apparently, the same zappers had made a colleague’s life miserable in the first semester.

I gained, then, the class’ respect, but in turn, I had to deliver the goods. Fortunately, Molière’s comedy, Tartuffe was the first work on the program. I could not have chosen a more appropriate text to illustrate the extraordinary relevance of the literature I was teaching. To make my students realize this, however, I had to connect Molière’s play to the 21st century. The frightening rise in religious fundamentalism accompanied by the self-righteous bigotry, hypocrisy and violence associated with it provided me with the perfect context.

Those familiar with the comedy will remember that two characters dominate it: Tartuffe, a religious hypocrite, and his gullible dupe, Orgon. Tartuffe is a totally cynical, lecherous adventurer. He skillfully uses the Christian faith to satisfy his craving for money, power, and sex. While imposing his brand of puritanical tyranny on Orgon’s family, he is trying hard to seduce his benefactor’s wife, Elmire. So the question I asked of the class was the following: of the two, which one do you consider the most dangerous? For many, it was unequivocally Tartuffe.

He is the cancer within Orgon’s mind and heart. He is responsible for the increasingly violent antagonism between the head of the family and his children. He persuades Orgon to disinherit his own son in the name of lofty principles, and when finally unmasked by Elmire, nearly makes good on his threat to have them dispossessed and thrown out on the street. How, then, could anyone doubt that Tartuffe was the principal villain and a ruthless one at that?

But a minority in the class, myself included, maintained that the most dangerous of the two by far was Orgon. Tartuffe may well be a repulsive hypocrite, but you can always negotiate with a hypocrite. Every hypocrite has his price. If you are willing to pay the price, you can neutralize him. Orgon, on the contrary, is a fanatic. He sincerely believes that what he is doing is absolutely right. Far from being a virtue, his sincerity constitutes the ugliest of vices. He invokes religion to justify giving vent to all of his latent sadism without feeling monstrous about it. He can torture his family and feel good about it. In fact, the power Tartuffe wields over Orgon and Orgon’s family is based exclusively on the latter’s gullibility. If Orgon had been as lucid as the other members of his household, Tartuffe’s power would have collapsed within seconds.