Tartuffe, Frankenstein, and Candide: Religion vs. Reason
This essay examines three landmark works — Molière's Tartuffe, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Voltaire's Candide — as Enlightenment critiques of religious dogma and societal convention. The paper argues that all three texts privilege rationalism and natural common sense over blind religious faith, while also acknowledging the limits of pure reason. Molière's comedy shows instinctive common sense defeating religious hypocrisy; Voltaire's satire deploys both narrative and philosophical rationalism to expose Pangloss's optimism; and Shelley's Romantic novel goes furthest, questioning whether science alone can answer the deepest human questions about suffering, identity, and moral responsibility.
- Overview: Enlightenment Critiques Across Three Works: Thesis: all three works champion rationalism over religious dogma
- Natural Common Sense vs. Religious Hypocrisy in Tartuffe: Common sense and instinct expose Tartuffe's manipulation
- Philosophical Rationalism and the Defeat of Pangloss in Candide: Narrative and philosophical reason undercut Pangloss's optimism
- Science, Faith, and Moral Ambition in Frankenstein: Frankenstein's science overreaches moral and natural limits
- Conclusion: The Limits of Reason and the Claims of Nature: Shelley questions whether science answers humanity's deepest questions
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay constructs a clear comparative framework, grouping three texts under a single unifying thesis about rationalism versus religious faith, while carefully distinguishing how each author deploys that critique differently.
- It moves from the simplest case (Molière's common-sense comedy) to the most complex (Shelley's Romantic ambivalence), giving the argument a logical arc that builds in sophistication.
- The paper identifies a nuanced tension within Shelley's work — that she critiques both religion and science — setting Frankenstein apart from the other two texts and demonstrating close analytical reading.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses comparative literary analysis to show how a shared thematic concern — the Enlightenment challenge to religious authority — manifests differently across genres (comedy, satire, and the Romantic novel). By contrasting Molière's stock parody with Shelley's realistic novelistic characters, the essay demonstrates genre-awareness as an analytical tool.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a three-work thesis, then proceeds through each text in turn: Tartuffe (common sense defeats hypocrisy), Candide (philosophical and narrative rationalism defeats optimism), and Frankenstein (science overreaches and nature reasserts itself). A brief comparative moment between Voltaire and Molière in the middle section adds connective tissue before the discussion deepens with Shelley. The conclusion synthesizes Shelley's position as the most complex of the three authors on the question of reason's limits.
Overview: Enlightenment Critiques Across Three Works
Molière's comedic play Tartuffe, Mary Shelley's science-fiction Romantic novel Frankenstein, and Voltaire's allegorical political satire Candide all function as Enlightenment critiques of their authors' contemporary religious and societal norms. These works uphold rationalism as the most natural and beneficial foundation of human belief, in contrast to primitive or absolute trust in religious creed. However, all three works also suggest that natural human instinct — trust in common sense and sensibility — is equally required for living a full human life, alongside a rigorously rational and scientific apprehension of nature.
Natural Common Sense vs. Religious Hypocrisy in Tartuffe
Molière's Tartuffe portrays a religious hypocrite in the form of its title character, a man who makes his living by sponging off the family of a bourgeois gentleman. Crucially, it is not the most academically educated characters who disabuse the householder of his belief that Tartuffe is a pious man. Rather, it is the natural, instinctive reason and commonsensical impulses of the man's wife and his lower-class maid who first see through Tartuffe's manipulation. Tartuffe exploits religious fear to maneuver the householder out of his hard-won earnings and insinuate himself into the man's home, pockets, and even the affections of his wife and daughter. In Molière's world, natural common sense — not formal learning — is the faculty that defeats religious artifice.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.