Play: George Dandin, or The Abashed Husband

Overview
George Dandin, or The Abashed Husband is a bitterly comic play first produced in 1668 by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière. It follows the misfortunes of George Dandin, a wealthy peasant who marries his daughter Angélique into a family of declining nobility. The play exposes the collision between money and birth, turning marital hoopla into a spectacle of humiliation and social posturing.

Plot Summary
Dandin celebrates his new status after marrying Angélique, convinced that money has bought him entrance to genteel life. He soon discovers that his wife remains attached to her previous social world and maintains a secret lover, Clitandre. Angélique's parents and household collude to protect appearances, repeatedly dismissing or disguising Dandin's complaints and suspicions.
Attempts by Dandin to secure his honor and prove his wife's infidelity repeatedly backfire. Scenes meant to reveal the truth are outwitted by servants and relatives who craft plausible denials or flatly lie to preserve the family's reputation. The play culminates in a public exposure that leaves Dandin more isolated than ever; his pleas are mocked, his evidence deflected, and the assembled nobility and servants unite to rebuke him. The ending offers a bleak, ironic justice: the husband remains "abashed," humiliated by those whose status he sought to buy.

Characters and Tone
George Dandin is at once comic and tragic: prosperous, literal, and painfully earnest, he embodies social aspiration turned into stubborn delusion. Angélique represents youthful entitlement and conditional obedience; her coquettishness and cunning are polished by parental complicity. Clitandre functions as the conventional gallant, exploiting social codes and private alliances to pursue his desires. The parents and household form a chorus of aristocratic complacency, using etiquette and rank to outmaneuver Dandin.
The tone vacillates between farce and satire. Comic misunderstandings and slapstick mingle with a growing edge of cruelty: laughter frequently has a sharp aftertaste because the jokes fall on a man who has used wealth to buy dignity and found only mockery. Molière pushes the humour toward discomfort, inviting the audience to laugh while also questioning who deserves scorn.

Themes and Satire
At its heart, the play interrogates class pretensions and the instability of social mobility. Molière satirizes both the aristocracy, for whom lineage justifies dishonorable behavior, and the bourgeois aspirant, for whom wealth is a naïve ticket to respect. Marriage functions as a stage for these tensions: conjugal vows become a battleground where honor, appearance, and property intersect.
Cuckoldry operates as the central motif, used to expose hypocrisy and to invert power relations. The noble family uses its cultural capital, manners, legalisms, and social networks, to neutralize Dandin's monetary power. The drama also probes gender dynamics, showing how women and servants manipulate social expectations to obtain freedom within a rigid hierarchy. The result is a satire that spares no class: everyone plays a part in the farce, but the most humiliating consequences land on the man who misread the nature of respect.

Staging and Reception
The play's compressed scenes and pointed dialogue lend themselves to tight, incisive staging. Directors often emphasize its dark comic core, balancing broad physical comedy with moments of bitter irony. Early audiences received the play with mixed reactions, laughing at its situations while feeling uneasy about its harsh view of social life.
George Dandin endures as a study in social cruelty and comic injustice, frequently revived for its sharp characterization and its capacity to turn conventional comedy into a stinging moral observation. Contemporary stagings continue to find resonance in its depiction of status anxiety and the theatricality of respectability.