Play: The Miser

Overview
Molière's The Miser (1668) is a biting comedy of manners built around the figure of Harpagon, a man so obsessed with hoarding money that his life and relationships are reduced to transactions. The play exposes the absurdities of avarice through swift, farcical episodes that balance sharp social satire with physical comedy and verbal wit. Harpagon's single-minded pursuit of saving and controlling wealth distorts family ties and provokes a chain of misunderstandings that drive the action.

Plot
Harpagon's penny-pinching governs every household decision, from whom his children may marry to how the family's daily life is conducted. His son and daughter are both in love, but Harpagon's stinginess and self-interest threaten their chances of happiness: he demands dowries, plans marriages that serve his purse, and even covets the young woman his son loves. When Harpagon's beloved hoard of coins is stolen, chaos erupts. Suspicion, accusations, secret schemes and comic confrontations multiply as servants and suitors scramble to protect their own interests and uncover the thief.
The search for the missing money becomes the play's central farce, exposing the characters' greed, cowardice and hypocrisy. False confessions, mistaken identities and theatrical eavesdropping scenes heighten the uproar, and Molière uses the escalating disorder to ridicule social pretensions and legal absurdities. Ultimately, revelations and negotiated compromises restore order: the lovers' matches are secured and the theft is resolved, though Harpagon's miserliness remains stubbornly part of his character, leaving the audience to judge whether the moral victory is complete.

Main Characters
Harpagon dominates the stage as the archetypal miser: paranoid, controlling and comically incapable of empathy when money is at stake. His children, driven, romantic and often desperate, stand in stark moral contrast, seeking affection and autonomy against their father's calculations. A collection of servants, matchmakers and prospective spouses supply the play with its quick shifts of tone and momentum, acting as both conspirators and commentators on the folly of their social superiors.
Molière populates the household with figures who mirror and magnify Harpagon's failings: flattery and servility coexist with cunning and opportunism, and every character's interest in wealth or position becomes a motive for comic scheming. This ensemble structure allows Molière to expose avarice at multiple social levels, turning petty private concerns into broad public satire.

Themes and Style
The Miser skewers greed not merely as a personal vice but as a social pathology that corrodes relationships and distorts values. Molière treats money as both object and obsession: it drives dialogue, dictates action and functions as the play's most potent antagonist. The play also interrogates the mechanics of marriage in a transactional society, showing how economic calculation can undermine love and liberty.
Stylistically, The Miser blends biting comedy of manners with elements of farce: rapid-fire dialogue, exaggerated character types, and highly staged misunderstandings. Molière's ear for comic rhythm and his talent for public ridicule are at their height, producing scenes that are simultaneously ridiculous and revealing. Even the play's sentimental resolutions are tempered by irony, so the audience laughs but remains aware of the deeper moral critique.

Legacy
The Miser remains one of Molière's most popular and frequently performed comedies, its central figure entering literary and theatrical imagination as the quintessential penny-pincher. Its blend of humor and moral observation has influenced countless adaptations and translations, and Harpagon's name has become shorthand for miserliness in many languages. The play endures because it entertains while posing enduring questions about wealth, power and the price people pay when money governs the heart.