Tartuffe

An Analysis of Hypocrisy in Moliere's Tartuffe

No greater example of the religious hypocrite exists in all history than the example of the Philistine. What characterizes the Philistine (and all hypocrites) is something Richard Weaver describes as a barbarian desire to see a thing "as it is" (24). What Weaver implies is that the hypocrite, while making a great show of piety and the possession of virtue, actually lacks the interior life that indicates the real possession of transcendental virtue. The hypocrite is encouraged by outward show: he cares nothing for the life of the soul. The soul, in fact, being of a spiritual and abstract nature, is not even something the hypocrite takes care to fathom. For this reason, the hypocrite is impatient of all contemplation -- as Weaver says: "Impatient of the veiling with which the man of higher type gives the world imaginative meaning, the barbarian...
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