Anyone who has seen "hypocrite" thinks that this script is sharp-edged, and the irony is directed at the Catholic Church. This is a brave challenge in France in the17th century.
France was still a feudal society at that time. Although since the15th century, the germination and development of capitalist relations of production have greatly strengthened the strength of the bourgeoisie and reached the level of equality with the aristocratic class, the bourgeoisie still does not have the power to overthrow the feudal system. In order to protect their own interests and develop capitalism, the bourgeoisie often adopts the strategy of supporting the royal power and weakening the feudal aristocracy. At the same time, the king is willing to get the support of the bourgeoisie in order to subdue the unruly feudal lords and strengthen his rule.
As a result, "the state power, as a superficial mediator, temporarily gained some independence for the two classes" and "it kept the balance between nobles and citizens", and gradually established a monarchy system in France. By the middle of 65438+the first half of King Louis XIV's rule in the 7th century, the absolute monarchy reached its peak, the king was in charge of the country, and the court became the political and cultural center of the country. This kind of absolute monarchy "appeared as the center of civilization and the foundation of social unity" at that time, which had certain historical progress.
However, the class foundation of absolute monarchy is feudal aristocracy, which cannot be separated from the support of Catholicism. Catholicism is the spiritual pillar of the feudal system in Europe, and it has always occupied a dominant position in the ideological field throughout the feudal era in Europe. At that time, blasphemy would be severely punished by the Inquisition or Inquisition. Many progressive thinkers in the Renaissance were burned to death and imprisoned in this way. Louis XIV was dissatisfied with religious power, but he dared not ignore the power of the church.
/kloc-in the 0 th and 7 th centuries, the French feudal diehard forces also established a secret religious spy agency "Saint Ti" to carry out strict ideological control activities. Catholic religious propaganda is full of deception, and church members are also characterized by hypocrisy. They preach asceticism and nativism, demanding that people endure oppression and bullying, but they never let go of their current power and enjoyment. The activity of "sacred experience" shows this hypocrisy more prominently. This is a secret police activity under the guise of charity. It sent some people disguised as devout believers, mixed into the ranks of conscience teachers, broke into parishioners' families, spied on their words and deeds, and persecuted progressives through informers.
Moliere was influenced by a French materialist philosopher at that time when he was a student. Later, during his wandering life of 10 years, he made extensive contact with people and established his own democratic stand. Therefore, after he returned to Paris, he hated the reactionary activities and hypocrisy of the church.
In The Hypocrite, there is a character Cleonti who plays the role of the author's "spokesperson", and some of his lines can well represent Moliere's thoughts. This character once said: "Nothing is more disgusting than pretending to be pious, seemingly sincere and boasting about charlatans." ..... These people are mercenary, regard piety as a profession and commodity, ... follow the heaven and pursue wealth with great enthusiasm; They know how to cooperate with their bad habits and their piety; They are easily angry, eager for revenge, disloyal and scheming; In order to harm a person, they are arrogant and cover up their vicious personal anger for the benefit of heaven. " We have seen too much of this hypocritical character today. Moliere took up drama as a weapon against this bad habit.
The script hypocrite is a crucial blow to this kind of religious hypocrisy, especially to the reactionary religious organization "sacred experience" characterized by hypocrisy.
Moliere knows that the "sacred experience" has a strong political background, and the performance of "hypocrite" will inevitably violate a huge feudal stubborn force, as he later said in the preface of "hypocrite": "Those people in the play have the ability to make people understand that they are stronger in France than anyone I have played so far." However, he still made unremitting efforts for the performance of the script.
1664 In May, Louis XIV held a grand garden party in Versailles, and Moliere took this opportunity to write down the first three acts and put them on for the first time. The protagonist Darduff is a hypocrite in a black cassock. The "sacred land" was terrified when it heard the news. He immediately called an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures. With the support of the Queen Mother, they banned the play. This "sacred experience" action made Moliere realize that his script hit the key point of the die-hards, and it was people like Darfur who opposed the "hypocrites", thus strengthening their determination to fight. In order to win social sympathy, he read his works on various occasions and performed the play in private houses.
1667, the queen mother died, and Moliere got the king's promise to stage a hypocrite again. Moliere wrote five acts of the whole play, changed the title of the play to Liar, renamed the protagonist Bannour Fu, and made him take off his cassock and become an ordinary Christian. These changes have not weakened the fighting nature of the script.
So the script lasted only one day, and the next day, the president of the Supreme Court of Paris ordered it to be banned when the king went out to war. A few days later, the Archbishop of Paris also posted a notice prohibiting parishioners from reciting or reading, and offenders would be excommunicated. This puts an end to all possibilities for hypocrites to meet the masses. 1669 In February, the Pope issued the edict of "Church Peace", which eased the religious persecution, disintegrated the "sacred experience" and gave the hypocrite a third chance to perform. Moliere simply restored the original title of the script and the original name of the protagonist. The performance was a great success.
The creation and performance of "hypocrite" shows that Moliere inherited the progressive tradition of humanists against feudalism and the church in the Renaissance and showed brave fighting spirit. So the church hated him and attacked the script.
Moliere's plays profoundly exposed the church and expressed the indignation of the broad masses of the people against the Catholic church. Therefore, they have been welcomed by people for hundreds of years and are still frequently staged on the stage in many countries.
The central figure of this comedy is Darduff, who embodies the bad habit of hypocrisy. Moliere successfully portrayed this character, profoundly exposed the nature of his liar, and completed the theme of the whole play.
The image of Darfur in Moliere's works is an artistic summary of many Darfurian characters in real life. When portraying this character, the author pays more attention to writing his context and social relations, trying to write a complete and full artistic image, which is a manifestation of his more realistic tendency than some classical writers at that time.
In the second scene of the second act of the play, through the dialogue between Olgen and the maid Dorina, the origin of Darduff is explained: he is a declining aristocrat from other provinces. "The land he was sealed has been discussed by his hometown people, and there is evidence to prove that he is indeed a nobleman." But later, he was so poor that he almost became a beggar. So he embarked on the path of religion, dressed as a devout gentleman, and joined the team of conscience teachers. Finally, he tricked the rich bourgeois Olgun into his family. This life experience in Darfur is representative to some extent.
/kloc-in the 0 th and 7 th centuries, the feudal aristocracy in France has been greatly weakened after 30 years of religious war. A group of nobles in Beijing ran to the palace and were raised by Louis XIV, while many small nobles in other provinces were bankrupt and cornered. Religion is one of their outlets. As Comrade Li Jianwu analyzed: "They are dying, some emphasize privilege, rally their associates, rob their homes, and live a life of robbers;" Some are not ashamed, selling land at a low price, thus losing their titles; Some people do not hesitate to lower their status and marry wealthy businessmen, who may have been their own tenants in the past. Some people are proud and struggling to carry baskets to the market; Some people, such as Darduff, have taken a fancy to the lucrative religious profession of conscience tutor, pretending to be pious and deceiving people like Olgen. "Darfur duff developed a set of hypocrisy skills of aristocratic society, dressed in an orderly way and serious.
In fact, this person does not look like a devout gentleman from the outside to the inside. In terms of appearance, he is thick and fat, with a bright face and a red mouth, which is far from the image of those ascetic monks. In action, he likes to eat and sleep, and never misses any chance of worldly enjoyment. He can eat two quails and half a diced leg of lamb at a meal. After eating, he went into his room, immediately lay in a warm bed, slept peacefully until dawn, and drank four glasses of wine the next morning. This is not like the life of an ascetic who despises the world. How can his actions be consistent with his consistent mission of "treating the world like dirt"?
However, such people are fascinated by Olgun, take him home to serve him in every way, tell him the hidden secrets related to his life safety, and plan to tear up the original engagement, marry his daughter, and even listen to his words. "You can watch your brother, children, mother and wife die without ... caring at all."
So, by what means does Darfur blindfold Olgun? That's his hypocritical piety. He saw Olgen's weakness, seized it and attacked it. His false piety is three points of affectation and seven points of flattery, which is exactly what Olgen appreciates most. Olgun is not a fool, Dorina said. Like many wealthy bourgeoisie at that time, he assisted the king in the period of civil strife and was brave and promising. Once in power, he becomes an upstart, imitates the habits of the upper class, takes religious piety as the fashion, and likes flattery from others.
These are some characteristics of the French upper bourgeoisie in the17th century. Moliere exposed this vanity of the bourgeoisie in his plays George Jordan and Fantasy of the Noble. All Darduff's performances in the church are for him. Darduff is in no hurry to succeed, but he is quite calculating and characterized by humility. Olgun only looked at the surface, not at the substance, and because his vanity was satisfied, he was intoxicated with the flattery of the other side, and he was complacent when he took a liar home. Therefore, Olgu's credulity and formalistic religious fanaticism were closely related to the social status of the upper bourgeoisie at that time.
For Darduff, Moliere is not limited to revealing his despicable quality of duplicity morally, but when tearing his hypocritical paintings, he focuses on revealing his villain nature, revealing his sinister intentions and the serious harm that this hypocrisy will inevitably produce, so as to further expose hypocrisy in the script.
Darduff is not only a fair-weather man, but also a slut. As soon as he appeared on the stage, he exposed the evil nature of lewdness: at the sight of Dorina wearing a topless skirt, his heart was filled with lewd thoughts. In order to hide this feeling and pretend to be a gentleman, he deliberately played with a handkerchief to cover his chest, only to be broken by Dorina. Passion is his Achilles heel, and Moliere opened the knife from here, revealing his true colors. But Darfur is not incompetent. When he was sexually exposed, he courted Orgu's second wife, Emil, and made such criminal activities that were absolutely disproportionate to a gentleman's status. He could actually describe his despicable lust as a manifestation of loving God: "Women like you all reflect the beauty of heaven, but the most precious miracle of heaven is displayed on you alone; God has given you a beautiful face, and anyone will be fascinated by it. You are a perfect creation, and I can't help praising the creator in my eyes. You are the most beautiful self-portrait of the creator, and I can't help but feel warm love in my heart. ..... oh! I will always worship your delicious miracle, and no other person can compare with it. "
This is just a simple religious hymn, but it expresses a disgusting animal desire. When the evil deeds were exposed and faced with danger, Darduff could still pretend to be innocent and humiliated calmly and skillfully, and said, "God deliberately punished me before taking this opportunity to test me." I dare not sell myself short and have a say, no matter how big the crime is. "Even knelt down and asked the whistleblower for forgiveness.
In this way, he pretended to be more like a saint, and Orgun trusted him infinitely. He naturally achieved the goal of saving the day and blaming others. Olgu drove away the son who exposed the affair and gave him all the inheritance rights. This guy has the cheek to bear all this in the name of "May God's will accomplish everything". Clint pointed out that his behavior is not in line with the duties of a Christian. Darduff still has a grandiose quip as the correct answer: "Because I am afraid that this property will fall into the wrong hands, they will be assigned this property and behave badly in society. Unlike my kindness, it is used for the honor of heaven and the welfare of the world."
Now we can see that this man is lustful and greedy, plundering other people's property, seducing other people's wives, satisfying his endless desires, and doing all kinds of bad things. This man has no moral belief and doesn't know that there is shame in the world. Religion is like a piece of clay in his hands. He can improvise and skillfully use his teachings to deal with various situations.
In the fourth act, he pursues Emile again. This time, it was a clever plan set by others. Although Darduff was sophisticated, he was so eager to get benefits that he abandoned the name of heaven and stripped off the disguise of a gentleman. Olgen finally realized that he was a big bad guy and shouted angrily, "Nothing is more terrible than ghosts coming out of hell." Get rid of him at once. Darfur is once again in danger.
But Darfur did not show weakness. When hypocrisy can no longer deceive people, he simply abandoned the mask and revealed the ferocious truth.
Because at this time he has mastered the property and fate of Olgu, the mask has not made much sense to him. He simply tore his face and turned to take out the tricks of hooligans and villains. He used the law to collude with the imperial court and drove the Olgun family out of the gate. He went to the court to report that Olgu had violated national laws and personally led the Guards to arrest people. For this kind of ungrateful behavior, he can also find an excuse to say, "My primary responsibility is to safeguard the interests of the holy, and under the legal power of this sacred sense of responsibility, there is no gratitude at all." It is really shameless to the extreme. Dorina put it well: "Everything the world respects, he has a trick to turn himself into a beautiful cloak and put it on his body." For such a villain, no matter what kind of adversity, he can brazenly and quietly find a sacred name for his evil deeds.
Moliere told us through Darfur that this hypocrite is not an isolated individual. He is connected with the government and even the court, and the law and system are also beneficial to him. Such people bully the weak and fear the hard, and the Olgun family will inevitably suffer a devastating disaster; The bad habit of hypocrisy contains sinister intentions and will certainly cause serious harm. Moliere's observation and analysis of the problem reached such a depth, which was really commendable at that time.
The image of Darduff has profound typical significance. The church is characterized by hypocrisy, and by extension, hypocrisy is also a bad habit of the whole French upper class during the reign of Louis XIV.
In the court of an autocratic monarch, hypocrisy is a means to seek favor and promotion, while in the aristocratic class, hypocrisy is their specialty in intrigue. As a representative of declining aristocrats, as a representative of the church, as a representative of hooligans with court and court background, Darduff is a representative of hypocrisy and bad habits.
So it was constantly pointed out that it was similar to a real person. In fact, Darfur is by no means a portrayal of individuals, but a product of French feudal society in the17th century, and it is a highly generalized model. In Europe, Darfur has almost become synonymous with hypocrites.
The ending of this comedy is unexpected. The king was observant and recognized Darduff as a big liar, so he arrested him. As for Olgun, he remembered his merits and pardoned his crimes, so a disaster vanished. Classical comedies require happy endings. Moliere can't find the basis for the ending of Organ's comedy in real life. He can only rely on the power of the king to safeguard justice, which of course reflects Moliere's political attitude-he supports the king. At the same time, it shows from another aspect that the society did not have the objective conditions to punish Darfur at that time. Moliere's design is, of course, only a subjective wish of his.
Moliere is a master of classical comedy, and this comedy is also written according to the creative method of classicism.
Classicism is a literary school that meets the needs of French monarchy in the17th century. It dominated the French literary world at that time and was popular in European countries from17th century to18th century. Classicism requires that creation should take rationality as the highest principle. Classical writers also summarized the creative experience of ancient Greek and Roman writers according to their own understanding, and regarded it as an immutable law, which required contemporary writers to strictly abide by in order to unify literature and art under the control of authoritarian regime.
Moliere began his drama activities by studying folk drama, and later entered the court and accepted the classical creative principles. But he didn't stick to the rules, and sometimes he broke through. Classicism requires drama to abide by the "three unifications", and Dahl also meets this requirement, but Moliere can skillfully use these laws to promote the plot, portray the characters and express the theme. For example, in accordance with the requirements of "three unifications", the location of the play remains unchanged, and it has been arranged at Olgun's house. Moliere made full use of this indoor environment to create a clever artistic conception. For example, in the third act, Damis hid in the suite, and in the fourth act, Olgen hid under the table, all of which caused the key plot. Other dramatic moves, such as courtship in Darfur and the clever plan of the Emir, can only take place indoors. Without this environment, those are incredible.
Moliere's comedy pays great attention to shaping typical characters, so it is called character comedy. The whole artistic conception of a hypocrite is to create a hypocritical character. In shaping this image, Moliere, on the one hand, based on the theme of the script, emphatically exposed the harmfulness of Dahl's hypocrisy.
On the other hand, we should also consider how to master the sense of proportion, distinguish hypocrites from truly virtuous people, let the audience see the true face of this villain from beginning to end, and reduce the resistance of the performance. He made it clear in the preface to the script: "The material needs to be handled carefully. I not only took various preventive measures to deal with them, but also tried my best to distinguish hypocrites from real gentlemen through various means and all care. In order to do this, I spent two whole scenes preparing my villain. I won't let the audience hesitate for a second. According to the mark I gave him, the audience recognized his face at once. From beginning to end, he didn't say a word, didn't say a word, and didn't describe a wicked character for the audience. At the same time, I put a truly noble person on his opposite side and also showed the character of a noble person. "
The structure of the whole play can be roughly divided into three parts. In 1 and the second act, Darduff's hypocrisy is explained from the side to prepare for his appearance. Bill 3 and Bill 4 positively exposed the hypocrisy of Darfur; The fifth act further exposes his lost face and harmfulness.
Moliere divided people outside Darfur into two factions. Olgen and his mother are admirers of Darfur, while the others are opponents of Darfur. In the first two scenes, Darfur did not appear, but the two factions had a heated debate around their different views on Darfur. During the debate, he naturally introduced the origin of Darfur, how Darfur entered Olgun's house and where he was. These are all questions that must be explained clearly when portraying characters.
Moliere introduced the characters one by one before they appeared, and when the characters appeared, he could concentrate on exposing Dahl's hypocrisy with pen and ink instead of distracting the audience with pen and ink to explain the past.
In describing these dramatic scenes, Moliere showed a high degree of artistic skill. The first scene of the first act is considered by Goethe as "the greatest and best opening in existence". Mrs Bernard didn't like the family's disrespectful attitude towards Dahl, and she was anxious to leave. No matter who advised her, she was scolded, and the debate immediately started around Darfur. In this way, contradictions were put forward from the beginning, which attracted the audience and explained the identity of each character and their positions and attitudes in this conflict. It's really straightforward, and it's also the fourth scene of Act 1 When Olgun came back from the countryside, he ignored his sick wife and only asked Dahl. He repeated four times, "Where is Darfur?" "Poor man!" These two sentences have a strong comic effect. The charm of foreign gentlemen exceeds that of young and beautiful wives, which shows the depth of their confusion.
In the third act, as soon as Darduff appeared, Moliere exposed his hypocritical face and despicable heart with a small gesture, and his skill was amazing! In the following scene, Moliere seized the plot clue of Darfur seducing Amir and arranged two failures for him. Darduff turned defeat into victory twice under unfavorable conditions, which more prominently showed the viciousness of his means and the cruelty of his heart, and showed the danger and terror of such characters, which is exactly what the theme thought should emphasize. Darduff tore off the mask layer by layer with his own actions, and the exposure of the script gradually deepened.
In this comedy, Moliere also ignored the classicism principle that all schools are strictly divided and not allowed to cross, and inserted tragic factors into the comedy. Marianne's marriage to Farrell was almost destroyed, and so was Olgen.
The insertion of these tragic factors makes the dramatic conflict of this comedy more tense and sharp, thus more effectively exposing the harm of hypocrisy in Darfur. Moliere also used folk art for reference, absorbed many lively plots and techniques, and enhanced the artistic effect of the script.
Of course, the classical creative method also fetters Moliere's hands and feet, so that the social life reflected in the script is relatively narrow. The characters are single and lack of richness. However, despite its flaws, The Hypocrite has become an immortal drama in the history of world drama due to its profound ideological content and high artistry, and its fighting spirit of exposing evil forces will inspire generations to wage unremitting struggles with all kinds of Darfurians.