The Miser

“And flattery wins every round, Elise, even with the most suspicious. Season a vicious insult with a pinch of praise and the game is won.”

Valere is one of many characters who tries to win over the miser with flattery. Part of the comedy throughout the play is characters doing their best to disguise their disdain for the miser with exaggerated compliments, all in hopes of getting their way with him. Their flattery, however, often simply creates more obstacles for them.

“Just what good will it do us, Elise, to inherit every sous he has hoarded […] when we are too old to frolic in the fields of youth?”

One of the main points of conflict in the play is the generational gap between Harpagon and his children. Harpagon hides away every cent and spends his life in fear, whereas his children recognize the beauty of living in the moment and favor love matches in the debate between True Love versus Transactional Relationships. Cleante gains agency when he realizes that he is depending on a fortune that will not come for many years, and that perhaps he should seek money for his marriage elsewhere.

“Steal? From you? You who locks up everything he has and stands sentry by it with his dogs day and night?”

La Fleche is constantly exasperated with Harpagon’s accusations. Though he and Master Jacques are the servants, they are portrayed as being much smarter and more cunning than Harpagon and the other wealthier characters. La Fleche refuses to flatter Harpagon, and lets him know that he could care less about his treasure. La Fleche’s indifference to money makes him impervious to Harpagon’s insults and threats.

“Oh, how smart I thought I was yesterday when I buried my newly-earned ten thousand crowns in a strongbox in the garden.”

This line sets up one of the major plot points of the script: the treasure in the garden. The strongbox being buried in the garden is key to the comedy, especially with all the entrances and exits to and from the garden. This is referenced throughout the play and serves as a constant reminder of the stakes Harpagon has in the play. The strongbox is also an important symbol in the play (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“Save, invest, prepare for a rainy day, for certain as God’s wrath, there’s going to be one.”

This is one of many lines that Harpagon says, betraying his miserly ways. Harpagon saves so much that he forgets to live. Everything in his house is falling apart, his children dress in shabby clothing, and his horses nearly starve to death because he tries to not spend money on their food. Another part of this quote is the irony of his treasure being stolen on a “rainy day:” His strongbox is taken literally in the midst of a thunderstorm.

“Tonight! All the fathers in the world couldn’t force me to do this.”

This quote is quite telling of Elise’s character. She is often underestimated as being demure and submissive by the men in her life, but at her core she is much more headstrong. She tries to play the flattering game with her father to get out of the marriage, one that he plays along with, but she is ultimately unsuccessful. When she is told that not only must she marry Seigneur Anselme, but that she must marry him tonight, she stands up to her father and refuses outright.

“Of course there are people who would tell you of parental love and affection and how they would want to protect their daughter from a dreadful mismatch of age, temperament, and passions.”

Valere, having found himself in a tight spot, does his best to retract his support of Elise’s marriage to Seigneur Anselme. To do this, he attempts to play on Harpagon’s emotions as a father. Unfortunately, he cares more about his money than he does his daughter, so this tactic proves to be fruitless.

“It’s a hard world out there, Fleshy, and only wit and cunning will get you through.”

Frosine also buys into the flattering game, one that La Fleche warns her will never get her anywhere with the miser. Frosine is boastful of her wit and cunning, and is determined to prove La Fleche wrong. Like all the other characters who flatter Harpagon, this plan backfires and she spends much of the play trying to undo The Consequences of Flattery.

“There are many things I can make, Monsieur Harpagon, but match-making is what I do best of all.”

Frosine is here offering her services as a matchmaker to Harpagon, and her flattery convinces him that Marianne finds him an attractive suitor and potential husband. The irony in this is that not only is she a bad matchmaker for lying to Harpagon, but she accidentally sets him up with his own son’s beloved.

“After all, no one, no matter how much in love, is going to marry a girl who doesn’t bring a little something to the bargain.”

Harpagon’s priorities are clear in this quote, as he proves that money is worth more to him than love in the debate between True Love versus Transactional Relationships. This, along with many of his other stingy comments, reveals him to be a character incapable of forming genuine emotional connections with others, unlike his children and their partners.

“Tangible, my dear lady: something I can hold onto. I can’t bank a dowry made of expenses she won’t spend.”

Frosine tries to convince Harpagon that marriage to Marianne makes good business sense, because she will not require much money to be spent each year. Harpagon rejects such reasoning, wanting tangible material goods instead of money he could hypothetically save. This is similar to how he sees all relationships as transactional: If a person cannot bring him some sort of money, he views dealing with them as futile.

“But oh how she waxes poetic over older men: their beards, their little folds of gristle, the hair in their nostrils, there is no part of an older man that does not excite her.”

Frosine’s comments about how much Marianne loves older men make for a truly comical scene. In it, she describes the parts of Harpagon thought to be traditionally unattractive as if they were the most attractive attributes possible. She carries the bit even further by pretending to be aroused by him herself. One of The Consequences of Flattery is that Frosine will soon find herself cornered by her own lies, while Harpagon will fall prey to manipulation and deceit.

“I can’t promise you I’ll be happy to have her as a stepmother, father. But I will obey your wishes and welcome her to the house.”

When Cleante sees Marianne in the same room as her father, he has to walk a fine line between confessing his love for her and hiding those feelings from his father. As a way to evade the issue, he phrases sentences that are technically telling the truth, but which have a double meaning: He will not be happy to “have [Marianne] as a stepmother” because he wishes to have her as his own wife.

“As the wise man said: ‘We must eat to live, not live to eat.’”

In an attempt to win Harpagon’s favor, Valere steps in when Master Jacques says he cannot prepare a grand feast without a lot of money. He chooses these words carefully, as they justify Harpagon’s miserly ways in a way that sounds noble. This makes Harpagon like Valere more, and causes a rift of jealousy between Valere and Master Jacques, once more highlighting The Consequences of Flattery.

“Pardon me, sir, but I despise flatterers, and this paysan is one of the first order.”

This is the scene in which a wedge is created between Master Jacques and Valere. Master Jacques is annoyed by Valere’s flattery, which he knows is insincere. When Harpagon replaces Master Jacques with Valere as the chef and as the livery boy, he begins to seek out methods of revenge. In preferring Valere’s flattery to Master Jacques’s sincerity, Harpagon leaves himself vulnerable to manipulation by others.

“In short, sir, you are the laughing-stock of all Paris. They use words like stingy, tightwad, codger, lick penny, harpy, extortioner, venal, covetous-things like that.”

Master Jacques tries to win Harpagon’s trust back by presenting him with the truth. Instead of being grateful to know what people are actually saying about him behind his back, Harpagon gives Valere the whip so he can beat Master Jacques. It is evident that Harpagon would rather believe lies told to his face if they are more flattering than knowing the truth.

“Sure, you’ll have your fits of depression, maybe even a little hospitalization, but soon he’ll be dead, you’ll be rich, and that’ll make up for everything.”

Just as Harpagon views marriages as a business transaction, so Frosine tries to get Marianne to do the same, invoking the theme True Love versus Transactional Relationships. In part, this is a tactic so that Marianne will agree to the marriage, but it is also a revelation of Frosine’s characterization: she, too, will do almost anything for money. Later she has a semi-change of heart, but in this moment she justifies Marianne’s misery with her own greed.

“I also know the agony of forbidden love, believe me I know, and I’ll do anything I can to help.”

As the play progresses, Marianne and Elise find solace in their friendship with one another. Though Cleante at first does not believe his sister to be old enough or experienced enough to have a love of her own, Marianne finds comfort in discovering someone who shares her problems.

“I’m at the will of my mother; it’s her dying wish that I marry a wealthy older man.”

Parental consent for major life choices is a critical part of this play. The play opens with Cleante lamenting that his father will never approve of his marriage to Marianne, and as the play draws near the end, Marianne is faced with the same problem. She does not wish to disobey her mother, but her heart belongs to Cleante. Like many of the characters, her choice must be made between love and money, and between love and duty, raising the question of True Love versus Transactional Relationships.

“Master Jacques, I command you to mediate this dispute, to prove that I am in the right.”

Molière’s irony is one of his trademarks as a playwright. Here, Harpagon tells Master Jacques to mediate the argument, while also commanding that he be proven right. This initiates a comical scene between the two of them and Cleante, in which misunderstandings abound.

“At his age. He ought to be ashamed of himself and leave love to the young. He’s had his chances.”

Another dispute in the play is who should be getting married or determining who marries whom, the young or the old? The key word in this quote is “love,” as Harpagon is not after love and neither is Marianne’s mother, at least initially. The younger suitors truly love each other, while the older generation thinks more pragmatically and economically, showing a generational gap in the debate of True Love versus Transactional Relationships.

“Every last one of them is guilty, guilty, guilty—what the hell was that? What are you talking about back there?”

For the duration of the play, the characters notice when they make asides to the audience. At the end of Act 4, Harpagon completely breaks the “fourth wall” and begins to address the audience directly, calling them out for laughing at him, pointing at them, and so on. He even accuses them of stealing his strongbox, once more emphasizing The Dangers of Greed. This type of comedy makes the play feel more immersive and interactive, and is seen a lot in modern comedies of all mediums, which speaks to Molière’s enduring influence in theatre.

“I beg you on my knees, sir, let me keep the treasure box whose lock I have picked; you will never regret it, sir.”

In this scene, Harpagon thinks that Valere is speaking about the literal strongbox that has been stolen from the garden. In fact, he is talking about a different treasure: Elise. Molière cleverly crafts metaphors for his love to cause comedic confusion amongst the characters: The treasure box “lock” that he refers to is not a literal lock, but instead Elise’s heart.