Type of Work and First Performance
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Molière's The Miser (in French, L'avare) is a five-act stage play generally classified as a comedy of manners. Throughout the play, the author brilliantly blends satire and farce with a fast-moving plot that features many surprises. It was first performed on September 9, 1668, at the court of the French king, Louis XIV.

Sources

Molière modeled the protagonist in The Miser on a character in Aulularia (Pot of Gold), a comedy by the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (254-184 BC), according to the nineteenth-century French scholar Eugène Benoist. Benoist translated Aulularia in an edition published in Paris in 1878 by Librairie Hachette. 

In the Plautus work, an elderly Athenian named Euclio finds a pot of gold that he keeps hidden from others while in the midst of arranging for his daughter to marry a wealthy neighbor. In the Molière play, an elderly Parisian named Harpagon keeps hidden a vast sum paid to him while in the midst of arranging a marriage between himself and an attractive young woman. 

Molière may also have drawn a modicum of inspiration for his character from the life of Jacques Tardieu, a law-enforcement officer attached to the Châtelet, a Parisian court. Tardieu was a notorious usurer and miser said to have amassed a large fortune that made him one of the wealthiest citizens in Paris. In 1665, three years before Molière debuted his play, thieves attempting to tap Tardieu's riches, murdered him and his wife at their residence on the Rue de Harlay. Many residents of the city felt that Tardieu got what he deserved.

Setting
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The action takes place in Paris in the 1660s at the residence of an elderly miser named Harpagon. The sun king Louis XIV sits on the throne of France, presiding over an age of high fashion, architectural splendor, titillating gossip, and court intrigue.

Characters
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Harpagon: Title character and protagonist, who spends most of his time guarding his hoard of money and devising ways to reduce or avoid paying household expenses. He is a widower who has one son, Cléante, and one daughter, Élise. Although he is over seventy, he is attempting to arrange a marriage between himself and an attractive young woman, Marianne.  
Cléante: Son of Harpagon. He loves Marianne, the young woman his father wishes to marry, and attempts to procure a loan to help her and her sick mother, who are impoverished. Élise: Daughter of Harpagon and beloved of Valère. Against her wishes, Harpagon hopes to marry her to a wealthy man of his choosing. 
Valère: Son of Anselme (Don Thomas d'Alburci) and beloved of Élise. He accepts a job as steward in Harpagon's household to be close to Élise.
Marianne: Beloved of Cléante, who had saved her from drowning. 
Marianne's Mother: Sick woman cared for by her daughter. It is revealed near the end of the play that she is also the mother of Valère and husband of Anselme (Don Thomas d'Alburci). She has no speaking part.
Anselme (Don Thomas d'Alburci): Man to whom Harpagon wishes to marry Élise. Near the end of the play, it is revealed that he is the father of Valère and Marianne, whom he had thought were lost in a shipwreck. He is reunited with them after sixteen years. 
Frosine: Matchmaker who arranges for Harpagon to meet Marianne. 
Maître (Master) Simon: Go-between engaged by La Flèche to obtain a loan for Cléante.
Maître (Master) Jacques: Harpagon's cook and coachman.
La Flèche: Cléante's valet.
Dame Claude: Harpagon's housekeeper.
Brindavoine, La Merluche: Servants assigned to washing glasses and serving wine at a special dinner in Harpagon's house.
Police Magistrate (Commissaire): Officer who hears Harpagon's complaint that his money cache has been stolen.
Clerk: Assistant of the police magistrate. He has no speaking part.
Pedro: Elderly servant who survived a shipwreck with Valère. He has no speaking part.
Spanish Captain: Seaman who rescued Valère and Pedro and raised Valère as his own son. He has no speaking part.
Picard: Neighbor of Harpagon. He has no speaking part. 

Molière wrote some of his plays in verse and some in prose. The Miser is in prose. This format allowed him to break free of the rigid rules of Alexandrine verse, the standard format for plays in seventeenth-century France. (Examples of his plays in Alexandrine verse are Tartuffe and The Misanthrope.) Hobart C. Chatfield-Taylor (1865-1945) has written that Molière's prose dialogue is unsurpassed in its brilliance: "Molière's . . . genius lay, above all else in telling the truth about mankind,--and prose was its normal vehicle. As a poet, he has been surpassed, but never as a writer of concise, vigorous, and truthful prose dialogue,--a dialogue so expressive of human thoughts and human emotions that his characters are still as lifelike as on the day they were drawn" (335).

Chatfield-Taylor, Hobart C. Molière: a Biography. New York: Duffield and Company, 1906.

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Plot Summary

Élise, the daughter of the miser Harpagon, tells Valère that she loves him very much but worries that he will lose interest in her.

“I fear that cruel coldness with which your sex so often repays the too warm proofs of an innocent love” (1.1), she says. 

When he reaffirms his love for Élise, her spirits rise and she praises him for his attentions to her, beginning with the time when he saved her from drowning. That was when they first met and fell in love. Thereafter, for her sake, he neglected searching for his parents, from whom he was separated years before by a shipwreck that cast him adrift. A Spanish ship rescued him and his elderly servant. The fate of his parents was unknown. Valère also reminds Élise that he gave up his title of nobility in order to become her father's household steward. To get the job, Valère flattered Harpagon, praised his weaknesses as strengths, and pretended to agree with him on all matters.

Also living in the household is Élise's brother, Cléante. The next time she is alone with him, he confides to her that he loves a young woman named Marianne. She devotes herself to caring for her sick mother but has little money to pay for necessities. When Cléante visits her at her home, they have no time for courtship. She does not even know his name, although he realizes that she loves him. Cléante would like to provide financial assistance for her and her mother, but he cannot because of the tight knot his father keeps around the family purse strings. Cléante reminds his sister that they do not even have decent clothes to wear because of their father. Cléante then asks her to speak with their father about his predicament in regard to Marianne. If he refuses help, Cléante says, he will leave home.

“It is but too true that every day he gives us more and more reason to regret the death of our mother,” Élise says.

When they hear their father approaching, they go elsewhere to finish their talk.

Harpagon is browbeating La Flèche, Cléante's servant, for no particular reason other than he wishes to do so. When Harpagon orders La Flèche out of the house, he pats him down and checks his pockets to make sure that he does not walk off with some valuable from the house. After La Flèche leaves, Harpagon talks to himself, saying, “I hardly know whether I did right to bury in my garden the ten thousand crowns which were paid to me yesterday.” (He does not keep the money in the house for fear that a thief will find it.) 

Cléante and Élise, having completed their talk, approach their father and say they wish to speak with him about marriage. Harpagon says they need not bother themselves about that subject, for he has already made plans that he says will please everyone. Then he asks Cléante whether he knows a young girl named Marianne, who lives nearby. Cléante acknowledges that he does. Harpagon next asks Cléante what he thinks of her. Believing that his father has chosen for him the very girl that he already loves, Cléante praises her as charming, modest, intelligent, thrifty—perfect in every way. When Harpagon notes that she lacks a fortune, Cléante says money is of small importance compared with virtue. Delighted with his son's responses, Harpagon then announces that he plans to marry Marianne “provided I find she has some dowry” (1.5). 

Shocked, Cléante leaves the room to be alone. Turning to Élise, Harpagon says he has selected a widow for Cléante to marry and has chosen a certain Mr. Anselme for Élise, noting that he is "a staid and prudent man, who is not above fifty, and of whose riches everybody speaks” (1.6).

Élise politely refuses to marry Anselme. Harpagon insists that she marry him. She again refuses.

“You will marry him this very evening” (1.6), he says.

Élise vows that she will kill herself rather than marry him. Harpagon refuses to back down but says he is willing to let Valère decide the matter. Élise thinks it a good idea, especially since she and Valère are secretly in love. 

When Harpagon tells Valère that they have chosen him to settle an argument, Valère immediately sides with Harpagon without knowing what the argument is about. (He does so to avoid provoking Harpagon.) Harpagon then reveals that he has chosen Anselme as Élise's future husband. Valère is dismayed but does not object. When he is alone with Élise, he tells her that opposing Harpagon would only have worsened their chances of getting their way. The best thing to do, he says, is to play along with Harpagon for the time being. As for the scheduled wedding in the evening, he tells her to pretend that she is sick. 

Meanwhile, on orders from Cléante, La Flèche has struck a deal on a loan of fifteen thousand francs for Cléante. If the deal goes through, Cléante will use the money to help Marianne and further his goal of being with her. La Flèche tells Cléante that he had to use a broker, Master Simon, to negotiate the loan agreement with a lender who wishes to remain anonymous. The lender will charge an interest rate of only 5.5 percent, La Flèche says. But because the lender himself must borrow money for the loan at a rate of twenty percent, Cléante will have to pay a total of 25.5 percent interest. Cléante is understandably upset, but he says he will accept the terms. However, there is another condition: The lender will provide only twelve thousand francs in coins. He will provide the rest in property, including a bed, chairs, wall hangings, a walnut table, a brick furnace, a lute, a table, and a stuffed lizard skin. Cléante complains that he will not be able to sell the items for even a fraction of the additional three thousand francs he is to receive. 

Sometime later, Simon comes in and tells Harpagon about a young man “who will submit to all your conditions” in order to secure the money he needs. (The audience learns at this point that Harpagon is the anonymous lender.) When Harpagon asks whether the borrower is trustworthy, Simon says the young man comes from a wealthy family whose money he will inherit. His mother is already dead and, says Simon, his father is expected to die within eight months. 

Nearby, but out of earshot, are Cléante and La Flèche, who are surprised to see Simon conferring with Harpagon. When Simon looks their way and sees La Flèche, he assumes that the young man with La Flèche is the person for whom La Flèche was seeking the loan. Consequently, he introduces Harpagon to Cléante, unaware that they are father and son, saying that Cléante is the borrower. Harpagon and Cléante then exchange insults. Simon runs off. La Flèche hides. The heat of the conversation intensifies.

HARPAGON. It is you who are ruining yourself by loans so greatly to be condemned!
CLÉANTE. So it is you who seek to enrich yourself by such criminal usury!
HARPAGON. And you dare, after that, to show yourself before me?
CLÉANTE. And you dare, after that, to show yourself to the world? (XX.3)

Obsessive Greed

Harpagon ranks among the most tight-fisted characters in world literature. Famous fictional misers such as Ebenezer Scrooge and Silas Marner reformed. Harpagon never even thinks of doing so. At the end of the play, he is more concerned with his money than he is with the welfare of his children.

Love

After the shipwreck, the captain of the Spanish ship takes in young Valère and rears and loves him as his own son. To be close to Élise, Valère—a nobleman by birth—humbles himself and works as a steward in the home of Élise's father, Harpagon. Cléante jeopardizes and eventually loses his inheritance to help his beloved, Marianne, and her mother. To sustain her mother, Marianne provides her constant nursing care while enduring poverty. Don Thomas d'Alburci (Anselme) provides large sums of money to see that his children are happily married. 

Serendipity

Luck, coincidence, serendipity—call it what you will—is at work throughout the play to bring people together and resolve conflicts. For example, Frosine the matchmaker unwittingly strikes an agreement that brings Marianne to the home of her beloved, Cléante, and her brother, Valère. Later, La Flèche just happens to find the money cache that Cléante later uses to force Harpagon to approve Cléante's marriage to Marianne. Don Thomas d'Alburci (Anselme), believing his wife and children were all lost in a shipwreck, begins a new life sixteen years after the sea disaster—and settles in the very town where his wife and children are living. In Molière's fictional seventeenth-century world, it seems, serendipity often plays the same role that fate did in the mythological world of the ancient Greek dramatists.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Harpagon regards his money as his greatest treasure. But, as Shakespeare points out in The Merchant of Venice, “All that glisters [glitters] is not gold” (2.7.67). More valuable by far are love, friendship, family harmony, and common decency. In all of these things, Harpagon is poverty-stricken. 

Molière's chief goal in The Miser was to satirize well-to-do Parisians who amassed tidy little fortunes through avarice and usury. Molière achieves his goal mainly through witty, sharp-edged dialogue that ridicules the central character, Harpagon. The following passage in the fifth scene of Act 3 contains such ridicule. Jacques, the cook and coachman, is conversing with Harpagon. 

English
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JACQUES. I am sorry to hear every day what is said of you; for, after all,
I have a certain tenderness for you; and, except my horses, you are the
person I like most in the world.
HARPAGON. And I would know from you, Master Jacques, what it is 
that is said of me.
JACQUES. Yes, certainly, Sir, if I were sure you would not get angry 
with me.
HARPAGON. No, no; never fear.
JACQUES. Excuse me, but I am sure you will be angry.
HARPAGON. No, on the contrary, you will oblige me. I should be glad to
know what people say of me.
JACQUES. Since you wish it, Sir, I will tell you frankly that you are the
laughing-stock of everybody; that they taunt us everywhere by a
thousand jokes on your account, and that nothing delights people more
than to make sport of you, and to tell stories without end about your
stinginess. One says that you have special almanacks printed, where
you double the ember days and vigils, so that you may profit by the
fasts to which you bind all your house; another, that you always have
a ready-made quarrel for your servants at Christmas time or when they
leave you, so that you may give them nothing. One tells a story how
not long since you prosecuted a neighbour's cat because it had eaten
up the remainder of a leg of mutton; another says that one night you
were caught stealing your horses' oats, and that your coachman,—that
is the man who was before me,—gave you, in the dark, a good sound
drubbing, of which you said nothing. In short, what is the use of
going on? We can go nowhere but we are sure to hear you pulled to
pieces. You are the butt and jest and byword of everybody; and never
does anyone mention you but under the names of miser, stingy, mean,
niggardly fellow and usurer.

French
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JACQUES. Je suis fâché tous les jours d'entendre ce qu'on dit de
vous: car, enfin, je me sens pour vous de la tendresse, en dépit
que j'en aie; et, après mes chevaux, vous êtes la personne que
j'aime le plus. 
HARPAGON. Pourrais-je savoir de vous, maître Jacques, ce que l'on
dit de moi?
JACQUES. Oui, monsieur, si j'étais assuré que cela ne vous fâchât point.
HARPAGON. Non, en aucune façon.
JACQUES. Pardonnez-moi; je sais fort bien que je vous mettrais en colère.
HARPAGON. Point du tout; au contraire, c'est me faire plaisir, et je suis
bien aise d'apprendre comme on parle de moi.
JACQUES. Monsieur, puisque vous le voulez, je vous dirai franchement qu'on
se moque partout de vous, qu'on nous jette de tous côtés cent brocards à
votre sujet, et que l'on n'est point plus ravi que de vous tenir au cul et
aux chausses, et de faire sans cesse des contes de votre lésine.
L'un dit que vous faites imprimer des almanachs particuliers, où 
vous faites doubler les quatre-temps et les vigiles, afin de profiter des
jeûnes où vous obligez votre monde; l'autre, que vous avez toujours
une querelle toute prête à faire à vos valets dans le temps des étrennes
ou de leur sortie d'avec vous, pour vous trouver une raison de ne leur
donner rien. Celui-là conte qu'une fois vous fîtes assigner le chat d'un de
vos voisins, pour vous avoir mangé un reste d'un gigot de mouton ; celui-ci,
que l'on vous surprit, une nuit, en venant dérober vous-même l'avoine de
vos chevaux; et que votre cocher, qui était celui d'avant moi, vous donna, 
dans l'obscurité, je ne sais combien de coups de bâton, dont vous ne
voulûtes rien dire. Enfin, voulez-vous que je vous dise? On ne saurait 
aller nulle part où l'on ne vous entende accommoder de toutes pièces. 
Vous êtes la fable et la risée de tout le monde; et jamais on ne parle
de vous que sous les noms d'avare, de ladre, de vilain et de fesse-mathieu.

In 1668 (when Molière debuted The Miser), a typical European family of means employed a staff of servants to cook, keep house, watch children, maintain stables, and so on. Even middle-class families of modest income usually had some servants. Domestics not only made life easier for their employers but also enabled them to brag about the quality and number of their hirelings in the same way that modern families brag about the quality and number of their automobiles and home amenities. Household servants in seventeenth-century France may have included maids, coachmen, cooks, stewards, wet nurses, gardeners, and tutors. Good servants often received clothing and other rewards in addition to wages. 

Of course, servants in the fictional household of Harpagon receive anything but generosity. Their presence in the play helps to underscore Harpagon's overzealous attention to his possessions. Consider, for example, his instructions to Dame Claude for the special dinner he is hosting. 

English
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To you I commit the care of cleaning up everywhere; but, above all, 
be very careful not to rub the furniture too hard, for fear of wearing it
out. Besides this, I put the bottles under your care during supper, 
and if any one of them is missing, or if anything gets broken, you 
will be responsible for it, and pay it out of your wages. (3.1)

French
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Je vous commets au soin de nettoyer partout; et surtout prenez garde 
de ne point frotter les meubles trop fort, de peur de les user. Outre cela, 
je vous constitue, pendant le souper, au gouvernement des bouteilles; 
et, s'il s'en écarte quelqu'une, et qu'il se casse quelque chose, je m'en 
prendrai à vous et le rabattrai sur vos gages.

Molière effectively used hyperbole and dramatic irony to support his themes and infuse his dialogue with humor. 

Hyperbole

An outstanding example of hyperbole appears in Jacques' reply to Harpagon's order to prepare his horses for a trip to the fair. 

English
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Your horses! Upon my word, Sir, they are not at all in a
condition to stir. I won't tell you that they are laid up, for the
poor things have got nothing to lie upon, and it would not be telling
the truth. But you make them keep such rigid fasts that they are
nothing but phantoms, ideas, and mere shadows of horses. (3.5)

French
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Vos chevaux, Monsieur? Ma foi! ils ne sont point du tout en état de
marcher. Je ne vous dirai point qu'ils sont sur la litière : les
pauvres bêtes n'en ont point, et ce serait fort mal parler ; mais vous
leur faites observer des jeûnes si austères, que ce ne sont plus rien
que des idées ou des fantômes, des façons de chevaux.

Molière uses dramatic irony to demonstrate Harpagon's inability to see in himself the shortcomings for which he blames others. In the following passage, Harpagon criticizes Jacques for always thinking of money. Harpagon, of course, is the one who is obsessed with money.

English
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HARPAGON. Tell me, can you give us a good supper?
JACQUES. Yes, if you give me plenty of money.
HARPAGON. The deuce! Always money! I think they have nothing else to say
except money, money, money! Always that same word in their mouth,
money! They always speak of money! It's their pillow companion, money! (3.5)

French
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HARPAGON. Dis-moi un peu: nous feras-tu bonne chère ?
JACQUES. Oui, si vous me donnez bien de l'argent.
HARPAGON. Que diable, toujours de l'argent ! Il semble qu'ils n'aient autre
chose à dire: De l'argent, de l'argent, de l'argent! Ah! ils n'ont
que ce mot à la bouche, de l'argent! toujours parler d'argent! Voilà
leur épée de chevet, de l'argent!

English

ÉLISE (curtseying). I have no wish to marry, father, if you please.
HARPAGON (imitating Élise). And I, my little girl, my darling, I wish you to marry, if you please.
ÉLISE (curtseying again). I beg your pardon, my father.
HARPAGON (again imitating Élise). I beg your pardon, my daughter.
ÉLISE I am the very humble servant of Mr. Anselme, but (curtseying again), with your leave, I shall not marry him.
HARPAGON. I am your very humble servant, but (again imitating Élise) you will marry him this very evening.
ÉLISE. This evening?
HARPAGON. This evening.
ÉLISE (curtseying again). It cannot be done, father.
HARPAGON  (imitating Élise). It will be done, daughter. (1.6)

French

ÉLISE (faisant une révérence). Je ne veux point me marier, mon père, s'il vous plaît.
HARPAGON (contrefaisant Élise). Et moi, ma petite fille, ma mie, je veux que vous vous mariez, s'il vous plaît.
ÉLISE (faisant encore la révérence). Je vous demande pardon, mon père.
HARPAGON (contrefaisant Élise). Je vous demande pardon, ma fille.
ÉLISE, Je suis très humble servante au seigneur Anselme; mais (faisant encore la révérence), avec votre permission, je ne l'épouserai point.
HARPAGON. Je suis votre très humble valet; mais (contrefaisant Élise) avec votre permission, vous l'épouserez dès ce soir.
ÉLISE. Dès ce soir ?
HARPAGON. Dès ce soir.
ÉLISE (faisant encore la révérence). Cela ne sera pas, mon père.
HARPAGON (contrefaisant encore Élise). Cela sera, ma fille.

Anchises: Father of Aeneas, the hero of Virgil's Aeneid. 
fesse-matthieux: Skinflints, userers. This term, which appears in the original French version of The Miser, is the plural of fesse-matthieu (or fesse-mathieu), an allusion to Saint Matthew. Before he became one of the apostles of Jesus, Matthew was a tax collector for Herod Antipas and was said to have been a usurer. In the English translation of the play, the term usurers is generally used. Here is the passage containing the allusion, followed by the English translation.

LA FLÉCHE. Ma foi, Monsieur, ceux qui empruntent sont bien malheureux; et il faut
essuyer d'étranges choses, lorsqu'on en est réduit à passer, comme vous, par les
les mains des fesse-matthieux.

LA FLÉCHE. Indeed, Sir, those who borrow are much to be pitied, and we must put up
with strange things when, like you, we are forced to pass through the hands of
the usurers.

Marital and Courtship Conflict: Common Literary Motif

Over the centuries, writers have centered many tragic and comedic works—or parts of them—on spouses and wooers in conflict. Among these works is The Miser. Others analyzed by Cummings Study Guides include Molière's The Misanthrope and Tartuffe; Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing,The Taming of the Shrew, and Othello; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Euripides' Medea, Virgil's Aeneid (Dido episode), Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, andGustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. 

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Study Questions and Essay Topics

• Which character in The Miser do you most admire? Explain your answer.
• Who is the most sensible person in the play?
• In what ways does the play resemble a modern situation comedy?
• Molière exposes greed through comedy and satire. Others condemn greed through serious modes of expression, such as sermons or didactic essays. Which approach do believe is more effective? Write an essay that presents your opinion. Support your opinion with quotations from the play and from research sources.
• After Harpagon's son and daughter marry, Harpagon presumably will be alone in his household except for his servants. Do you believe he will change his avaricious ways? 

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Other Molière Plays Analyzed by Cummings Study Guides

The Imaginary Invalid
The Misanthrope
Tartuffe