Molière's Tartuffe Acts III–IV: Comic Structure and Hypocrisy

Introduction: Tartuffe's Entrance and the Stakes of Acts III–IV

The third and fourth acts of Molière's comedy Tartuffe raise the drama to a climactic confrontation that resolves in an unexpected direction at the end of Act III, setting up a new twist in the final act. Act III centers on the long-awaited introduction of Tartuffe — a character we have heard described from the play's opening but have not yet met. His entrance does not disappoint. It is filled with lofty religious musings and a willingness to call attention to Dorine's bosom while pretending that the sight summons impure thoughts in him.

Meanwhile, Elmire is planning to use her influence with Tartuffe to cancel his ludicrous scheme to marry Mariane and seize her money. Elmire's private meeting with Tartuffe — Act III, Scene iii — is, to a certain extent, the moment the audience has been waiting for from the beginning: the religious hypocrisy of the title character finally slips. The fondness he has shown toward Elmire is revealed for what it truly is — lust — and he makes a sudden move to seduce her, having wrongly interpreted her manner as flirtation.

The shock of Tartuffe's sudden lechery must have an obvious effect on the audience. Depending on how the moment is staged, viewers might feel they are witnessing a potential assault; on the other hand, the scene is clearly comic. In any case, the audience knows — as Tartuffe does not — that Damis is hiding in the closet, so anxieties for Elmire's safety are at least partially allayed.

The Seduction Scene and Damis's Failed Exposure

After Damis emerges in III.iv and announces that he will tell Orgon what he has witnessed, the audience fully expects the religious hypocrite to be exposed at last. After all, Tartuffe has just revealed himself — on the hope of revealing Elmire's body in the process. The dramatic irony is rich: we have seen everything, Damis has seen everything, and now Orgon must surely be made to see everything as well.

The cleverest element of Molière's comic construction, however, is that III.v — through the end of the act — is the scene that could and should, ostensibly, end the play. With eyewitness testimony in hand, surely Orgon cannot fail to perceive the truth of Tartuffe's nature? Yet Tartuffe, proving the truth of the old adage that the devil can quote Scripture to his purpose, manages to turn the tables on Damis entirely, painting himself as the innocent victim of slander in a hilariously slick parody of piety.

Tartuffe's Parody of Piety and the Subverted Denouement

Tartuffe will even confess himself to be:

A wretched sinner, all depraved and twisted,
The greatest villain that has ever existed.

Yet even his confession of wickedness sounds absolutely insincere. "Are you so hoodwinked by this rascal's art?" Damis asks, incredulous. Apparently Orgon is: Damis is thrown out and disinherited. The audience's expectation is subverted so completely by Orgon's capitulation that we can barely imagine a denouement — except that Tartuffe's sublime effrontery is so amusing that viewers may well expect the dramatist to raise his comic villain to a final, dizzying height, the better to watch him come crashing down.

This moment is a masterpiece of comic misdirection. Molière has structured Act III so that it builds toward what looks like an inevitable unmasking, then pulls the rug out entirely. Rather than deflating the tension, however, this reversal intensifies it. The audience leaves Act III not with satisfaction but with a sharpened appetite for justice — and a dawning suspicion that justice will not come easily.