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Project II- Language in Comedy “Language is a skin. I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.” (Roland Barthes) In narrative texts, this “skin” is used to combine language and action to form tools that construct profound social messages. In comedic texts, words are used not only to tell a comical story, but also to show the audience what the playwrights/producers were trying to express. Specifically, in narrative comedic texts such as Molierre’s “Tartuffe” and “American Beauty”, written and physical language are used to carry the plots as well as expose humor, arrogance, religious criticisms, manipulation, corrosive discourse, and hypocrisy. Moliere’s Tartuffe doesn’t even introduce the main charter of the story until the third act of the play. Until that point Moliere had used the other characters and their words to create an image of Tartuffe. Orgon’s son Damis calls Tartuffe a “carping hypocrite” while Dorine in the first scene of Act One summarizes the entire situation with her line, “You see him as a saint. I’m far less awed; In fact, I see right through him. He’s a fraud.” Moliere’s characters are honest and sincere which causes the reader to immediately identify with them and through their descriptions creates a picture of Tartuffe as a liar and fake. Orgon and his mother side with Tartuffe at the beginning of the play and we feel frustrated because they have been duped by a fraud. Once Tartuffe is introduced we meet a pious man who scolds Dorine for showing too much cleavage. Tartuffe’s overly zealous religious convictions immediately give him away as a fake. Moliere knows that people are not perfect and sees that certain people try too hard to project a false image of them, using Tartuffe as an example.
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