![]() Madame Pernelle, suspecting that the two are making fun of her, storms out, though not before slapping her maid (a hypocritical action for a supposedly pious woman). Cléante and Dorine, two of the most reasonable characters in the play, contend that people will gossip no matter what, and that the worst moralizing gossips are often the worst sinners as well. Madame Pernelle will hear nothing against Tartuffe though, even threatening that if they do not listen to Tartuffe, the neighborhood will begin to gossip about Elmire’s flirtatious and extravagant ways. ![]() The rest of the household, however, believes (correctly) that Tartuffe is a hypocrite and a fraud, more interested in Orgon’s wealth than in the true teachings of the Church. ![]() Madame Pernelle wishes for her son’s entire family to follow the teachings of Tartuffe, a poor holy man whom both she and Orgon revere. She saves her special criticism for Elmire, whom she believes to be vain shallow. As she goes to exit, Madame Pernelle scolds each character in turn, for their sinful ways. They are accompanied by Elmire’s maid, Dorine, and Madame Pernelle’s maid, Flipote. In the first scene Madame Pernelle, his mother, ho has been visiting, takes her leave of the rest of Orgon’s household: his daughter, Mariane his son, Damis their stepmother, Elmire and her brother, Cléante. ![]() The play opens in the Parisian house of the middle-class but wealthy Orgon, who has recently won honor by serving the King of France loyally during a civil war, and who is currently on a two-day business trip. ![]()
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