Farce is an inevitable element of theater and plays. Having a personal point of view about which elements of farce the theatric performances are to follow, Eric Bentley has created several aspects which are believed to be the part of farce. The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde, Lysistrata by Aristophanes, and Tartuffe, or the Impostor by Molière are three comedies where the elements of farce may be met. Eric Bentley dwells about scoffing at marriage as one of the elements of farce. The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde and Tartuffe, or the Impostor by Molière contain such elements as one of the themes in the play is the desire to get married. Bentley says that “above all we must not laugh at the family and its source, the institution of marriage” (Bentley 195).
Wilde dwells upon the future marriage and the possibility of that marriage to occur. The man characters, called Earnest express their desire to get married however, the process of matchmaking becomes a farce as young people are not serious about their intentions. Wilde says through Lady Bracknell, “To speak frankly, I am not in favor of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable” (Wilde 86). This quote makes sure that marriage gas become about politics and social agreement more than about love. This is the position of the whole society, not of this singular person. That is why the marriage is usually considered as farce – no as the desire to unite two loving hearts. The whole play is full of quotes where the institution of marriage is presented as something which does not count too much, people dwell upon marriage as about something a picnic or the similar affair, “But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming” (Wilde 224-225) Algernon says.
The situation in Tartuffe by Molière is different as the theme is not a marriage but the family as a whole. A head of the family trusts a strange person more than to the members of the personal family, he is ready to give all hiss assets and the house to a person who managed to insinuate oneself into his favor. Tartuffe did all possible to make sure that Orgon trusts him and loves him more than the family members as it is impossible to explain in other words the devotion of Orgon to Tartuffe, “Ah! if you had only seen him when I first met him, you would feel for him the same love that I have. He came every day to church, and with gentle looks knelt down straight before me on both his knees. He attracted the attention of the whole congregation by the ardor with which, wrapped in saintly ecstasy, he sent up his prayer to Heaven. He sighed deeply, and every moment humbly kissed the ground” (Molière 16). Orgon is so fascinated with Tartuffe that he is unable to see the real estate of the things and the whole capital he managed to earn during his life is given to this person while the family is left with nothing.
Farce in Lysistrata by Aristophanes also has the relation to family relations as being tired with constant wars women have decided to stop those by a strange and original method. Lysistrata has made all women in Greece to refuse their men in making love and this had to become the end of the war. The very idea, according to Bentley may be judged as farce. “Farce [is] shielded by delicious darkness and seated in warm security, we enjoy the privileges of being totally passive while on stage our most treasured unmentionable wishes are fulfilled before our eyes by the most violently active human beings that ever sprang from the human imagination” Bentley says and then he continues that in the bedroom farce people “savor the adventure of adultery, ingeniously exaggerated in the highest degree, and all without taking the responsibility or suffering the guilt” (Bentley 198).
Thus, Lysistrata by Aristophanes is a farcical play which helps people think about the priorities. Each farcical comedy is created with the purpose to make people think about their actions as being exaggerated in the plays, most of the actions presented there are either the desire or the actions people perform and in some cases it is better to learn the failures from the plays than to act in such a way in real life. Of course, it is impossible to see the women who try to manipulate their men by sexual relations, or the refusal from those, however Aristophanes wanted to show that women and sexual desire have more power on men than they may think. Molière’s Tartuffe shows that people sometimes trust more to strangers than to personal family which leads to the fraud and other undesired outcome.
Works Cited
Bentley, Eric. “Farce.” 193-211. Print.
Molière. Tartuffe. New York: Hackett Publishing, 2008. Print.
Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays. New York. Modern Library, 2003. Print.