Play: The Bourgeois Gentleman

Overview

Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman), created in 1670, is a comedic portrait of social ambition and self-delusion. Framed as a comédie-ballet, the play blends spoken comedy with music, dance and theatrical spectacle to expose the absurdities of a wealthy commoner who wants nothing more than to be accepted as aristocracy. The work's wit is sharp, its characters broadly drawn, and its theatrical form deliberately playful, using music and choreography to heighten the mockery.

Plot

Monsieur Jourdain, a prosperous middle-class merchant, is convinced that wealth can buy him the manners and status of a nobleman. He lavishes money on tutors and masters for fencing, dancing, music, philosophy and etiquette, while failing to grasp that style and station are not simply lessons to be purchased. His household, including his long-suffering wife and his daughter Lucile, becomes the stage for his folly as suitors and opportunists either flatter him or exploit his vanity. Lucile loves Cléonte, who must disguise himself to gain Jourdain's consent; surrounding intrigues, deceptions and comic classroom scenes escalate until a capstone ruse presents Jourdain with the mock coronation of a "Turkish" noble, a ceremonious joke that crowns his absurd transformation in the most humiliating and hilarious way.

Main Characters

Monsieur Jourdain is at once ridiculous and pitiable, a man whose desire for upward mobility blinds him to common sense. Madame Jourdain balances exasperation and practicality, trying to preserve her household while managing her husband's extravagances. Lucile embodies sincere feeling and youthful resistance to social posturing, and Cléonte's cleverness and devotion provide the romantic counterpoint. Dorante and other flatterers move behind the scenes, manipulating Jourdain's vanity for their amusement or advantage. The ensemble of teachers, servants and dancing masters offers comic variety and exposes the gulf between appearance and reality.

Themes and Satire

The play skewers social climbing, vanity and the theatricality of status. Molière mocks both the aspiring bourgeois who confuses manner for essence and the nobles whose mannered rituals are themselves absurd. The comedy examines identity as performance: fashion, language and etiquette become costumes that Jourdain eagerly adopts, mistaking surface change for true elevation. Beneath the laughter there is a critique of a social order that prizes appearances and makes room for exploitation, while also showing how theatricality can reveal truth through exaggerated mimicry.

Form and Performance

As a comédie-ballet, the play interweaves spoken scenes with musical numbers and choreographed dances, originally composed and staged with collaboration from Jean-Baptiste Lully and choreographer Pierre Beauchamp. These interludes are not mere ornamentation; they intensify the satire by converting Jourdain's pretensions into overt spectacle. Premiered for Louis XIV, the production relied on courtly pageantry and physical comedy alike, making Molière's mockery visible and auditory, with the audience invited to laugh at the artifice as much as the character.

Legacy

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme endures as one of Molière's most vivid satires, a play whose humor remains resonant wherever social climbing and pretension appear. Its integration of music and dance influenced theatrical practice and showcased the possibilities of blending genres. Contemporary productions continue to find fresh comic energy in Jourdain's excesses, reminding audiences that the hunger for status, and the theatrical lengths people go to feed it, are remarkably modern.