“The Bourgeois in the Nobility” is a comedy-ballet created by the great Molière in 1670. This is a classic work, complemented by elements of folk farce, features of ancient comedy and satirical compositions of the Renaissance.

History of creation

In the autumn of 1669, ambassadors from the Ottoman Sultan visited Paris. The Turks were greeted with particular pomp. But the decorations, spectacular meeting and luxurious apartments did not surprise the guests. Moreover, the delegation stated that the reception was sparse. It soon turned out that it was not ambassadors who visited the palace, but impostors.

However, the offended King Louis nevertheless demanded that Moliere create a work that would ridicule the pompous Turkish customs and specific morals of Eastern culture. It took only 10 rehearsals and the play “Turkish Ceremony” was demonstrated to the king. A month later in 1670, at the end of November, the performance was presented at the Palais Royal.

However, after some time, the talented playwright radically transformed the original play. In addition to satire on Turkish customs, he supplemented the work with reflections on the topic of modern mores of the nobles.

Analysis of the work

Plot

Mister Jourdain has money, a family and good house, but he wants to become a true aristocrat. He pays barbers, tailors and teachers to make him a respectable nobleman. The more his servants praised him, the more he paid them. Any whims of the gentleman were embodied in reality, while those around him generously praised the naive Jourdain.

The dance teacher taught the minuet and the art of bowing correctly. This was important for Jourdain, who was in love with a marquise. The fencing teacher told me how to strike correctly. He was taught spelling, philosophy, and learned the intricacies of prose and poetry.

Dressed in a new suit, Jourdain decided to take a walk around the city. Madame Jourdain and the maid Nicole told the man that he looked like a buffoon and everyone was rushing around with him only because of his generosity and wealth. A quarrel ensues. Count Dorant appears and asks Jourdain to lend him some more money, despite the fact that the amount of debt is already quite substantial.

A young man named Cleon loves Lucille, who reciprocates his feelings. Madame Jourdain agrees to her daughter's marriage to her lover. Mr. Jourdain, having learned that Cleont is not of noble origin, sharply refuses. At this moment Count Dorant and Dorimena appear. An enterprising adventurer courtes the marquise, transferring gifts from the naive Jourdain in his own name.

The owner of the house invites everyone to the table. The Marquise is enjoying delicious treats when suddenly Jourdain’s wife appears, who was sent to her sister. She understands what is happening and causes a scandal. The Count and the Marquise leave the house.

Koviel immediately appears. He introduces himself as a friend of Jourdain's father and a real nobleman. He talks about how the Turkish heir to the throne arrived in the city, madly in love with the daughter of Mr. Jourdain.

To become related, Jourdain needs to undergo a rite of passage into mamamushi. Then the Sultan himself appears - Cleont in disguise. He speaks in a fictitious language, and Koviel translates. This is followed by a mixed initiation ceremony, complete with ridiculous rituals.

Characteristics of the main characters

Jourdain - main character comedy, bourgeois who wants to become a nobleman. He is naive and spontaneous, generous and reckless. Goes ahead towards his dream. He'll be happy to lend you money. If you make him angry, he instantly flares up and starts screaming and making trouble.

He believes in the omnipotence of money, so he uses the services of the most expensive tailors, hoping that their clothes will “do the trick.” He is fooled by everyone: from servants to close relatives and false friends. Rudeness and bad manners, ignorance and vulgarity contrast very noticeably with claims to noble gloss and grace.

Jourdain's wife

The wife of a tyrant and false nobleman is contrasted with her husband in the work. She is well-mannered and full of common sense. A practical and sophisticated lady always behaves with dignity. The wife tries to direct her husband to the “path of truth”, explaining to him that everyone is using him.

She is not interested in titles of nobility and is not obsessed with status. Madame Jourdain even wants to marry her beloved daughter to a person of equal status and intelligence, so that she can feel comfortable and good.

Dorant

Count Dorant represents the noble class. He is aristocratic and vain. He makes friends with Jourdain solely for selfish reasons.

The man's entrepreneurial spirit is manifested in the way he cleverly appropriates the gifts of the lover Jourdain, presented to the Marquise, as his own. He even passes off a given diamond as his own gift.

Knowing about Koviel's prank, he is in no hurry to warn his friend about the insidious plans of the scoffers. Rather, on the contrary, the count himself has plenty of fun with the stupid Jourdain.

Marquise

Marquise Dorimena is a widow and represents a noble noble family. For her sake, Jourdain studies all sciences, spends incredible amounts of money on expensive gifts and organizing social events.

She is full of hypocrisy and vanity. In the eyes of the owner of the house, she says that he has wasted so much on the reception, but at the same time enjoys the delicacies with pleasure. The marquise is not averse to accepting expensive gifts, but at the sight of her suitor’s wife, she pretends to be embarrassed and even offended.

Beloved

Lucille and Cleonte are people of a new generation. They are well-educated, smart and resourceful. Lucille loves Cleontes, so when she learns that she will be married off to someone else, she sincerely resists.

The young man really has something to love. He is intelligent, noble in manners, honest, kind and loving. He is not ashamed of his relatives, does not chase illusory statuses, openly declares his feelings and desires.

The comedy is distinguished by a particularly thoughtful and clear structure: 5 acts, as required by the canons of classicism. One action is not interrupted by secondary lines. Moliere introduces ballet into a dramatic work. This violates the requirements of classicism.

The theme is Mr. Jourdain's obsession with noble titles and nobility. The author criticizes in his work the aristocratic mood, the humiliation of the bourgeoisie before the class that supposedly dominates.

For literary process The 17th century was characterized by the direction of classicism, which reflected the features of ancient literature. Moliere's play "The Bourgeois in the Nobility" is a kind of standard of the literary movement of this period.

Characteristics of Jourdain's image

The main character of the play “A Bourgeois in the Nobility,” Jourdain, became a kind of mirror in which the author reflected all the shortcomings and vices of society. Jourdain is a fairly elderly merchant, who once had an irresistible desire to become part of an aristocratic society.

The main character began to completely rebuild his life and old habits in order to resemble a nobleman as much as possible. He hires a teacher and learns to dance, like secular gentlemen, arranges his apartment according to the example of fashionable salons, dresses in clothes made from expensive materials ordered abroad, and looks for a groom with a noble pedigree for his daughter.

But this does not help Jourdain to join the coveted society, since all his actions on the way to achieving his goal only cause ridicule from others. After all, what could be more amusing than an uneducated merchant imagining himself as a nobleman?

Close people use him for personal purposes: his daughter and wife demand new expensive outfits in order to match the future aristocrat. In order to marry off her daughter to her loved one, Jourdain’s wife puts on a real performance for her husband.

A low-income groom is dressed up as a Turkish sultan, whom, according to the script, the daughter is supposed to marry. Jourdain has become so accustomed to the role of an aristocrat that he does not see in the Sultan the poor guy Clement, who asked for the hand of his child a month ago.

Playing along with the upper class in everything, Jourdain is nothing more, nothing less than an unsuccessful caricature of it. Probably, his image would have caused ridicule of more than one generation of readers if not for the epiphany that Jourdain had at the end of the play.

He realized that all his life he had been striving for something more sublime than everyday vanity, and chose the wrong path, wanting to inherit the nobility. Jourdain realized that he had actually lived prosaically his entire life, while his soul longed for lyricism.

At this moment, the main character becomes truly sorry. However, this feeling is replaced by joy for him - he finally saw the light and looked at the world with a completely different look.

The meaning of the story

In the play “The Bourgeois in the Nobility”, in addition to people who want to be considered equal to high-ranking society, the aristocracy itself is ridiculed, along with its meaningless and empty laws of life.

Jourdain's play at nobility is actually a demonstration performance for the upper class, because sometimes they themselves, with their fictitious rules of good manners and bad taste in some things, look just as comical as the main character of the play.

Mister Jourdain - main character Moliere's comedy "The Bourgeois in the Nobility", a bourgeois who dreams of becoming a nobleman. Jourdain has a cherished dream - to learn social manners and become a real aristocrat. To do this, he hires a host of teachers, tailors, hairdressers, musicians, etc. He does not skimp and spends a lot of money on their services, for which they promise to make him a real nobleman. This brings endless inconvenience to his household, but pleases his workers. They are ready to call him “Your Grace”, “Your Grace”, to praise his ridiculous outfits and songs, just to receive a generous payment. Jourdain himself is an uneducated man, ignorant, with rude manners, but with pretensions to the noble class. In readers and viewers, it rather evokes laughter rather than disdain.

Vanity pushes him to waste. Everyone borrows from him, including Count Dorant, whom Madame Jourdain calls a “cash cow.” Having fallen in love with the widow Marquise Dorimena, he gives her diamonds and arranges receptions and performances. He asks his teachers to teach him how to bow before ladies correctly and write love notes. Meanwhile, the cunning Dorant attributes all this crazy waste to himself, which wins Dorimena’s heart. Blinded by the dream of becoming a nobleman, Jourdain is ready to interfere with the personal happiness of his only daughter. Young Cleont, who asks for her hand, is not a nobleman by blood, which is why Jourdain refuses him. However, Coviel, playing on Jourdain's vanity, later introduces Cleonte as the heir of the Turkish Sultan, madly in love with his daughter

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At first impression, Marya Ivanovna is an ordinary eighteen-year-old girl, whom the narrator at first “didn’t even really... like”: “chubby, ruddy, with light brown hair, smoothly combed behind the ears.” She is modest and shy: she sits on the sidelines, blushes and blushes when people talk about her. The attractiveness of her appearance and spiritual beauty are not immediately revealed. She is prudent: she did not respond to the feelings of the educated Shvabrin, who knows how to show off (“his conversation was sharp and entertaining”). The simplicity, sincerity, and sensitivity of the captain's daughter endeared Grinev to her more and more, until finally he realized that he loved Masha with all his soul. And Masha “without affectation admitted” to him “her heartfelt inclination.”

Having learned that her father does not bless Petrusha to marry her, Marya Ivanovna sees in this “the will of the Lord” and does not allow the thought that she might go against the will of Grinev’s parents: “...“I will not marry you without the blessing of your parents. Without their blessing you will not be happy. Let us submit to the will of God. If you find yourself a betrothed, if you fall in love with someone else, God be with you, Pyotr Andreevich, and I will wallpaper for you...” Then she began to cry and left me.”

Masha’s kindness, modesty, and sincerity endear her to everyone around her. The serf girl Palashka worries about her fate; Savelich loved her like a father. At the risk of her life, Popadya hid from Pugachev that Masha was the daughter of the commandant of the fortress. It is no coincidence that Grinev’s parents, upon Masha’s arrival to them, “soon sincerely became attached to her, because it was impossible to recognize her and not love her.”
Select what you need and write)))

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1Ernest Himenguey wrote about this in his works

Answer left by: Guest

He is a voluntary exile from the captivity of “stuffy cities”, he is “pursued by the law.” And although his past is romantically mysterious, his current aspirations are clearly defined: “he wants to be... a gypsy,” “a free inhabitant of the world.” Clearly aware of the moral vices of his contemporary society, Aleko cannot put up with the evil that it brings. And in this respect he is a leading man of his time. However, Pushkin does not idealize his hero. Demanding freedom for himself and denying the freedom of others, Aleko appears in the poem as an egoist. This, according to Belinsky, “Turk at heart” recognizes only his right to possess the woman who has stopped loving him, and he condemns the old gypsy who forgave Mariula. Thus, the conflict in “Gypsies” is based on the contradiction of the passions of the hero himself. The determined and courageous freedom-lover Aleko himself turns out to be an obedient slave and martyr. The hero’s selfishness reveals in him the instinct of ownership, which was generated by his past social environment, the “stuffy cities” from which he fled. But Aleko could not escape from himself, from his individualism - the circle closed.

One of the main directions in Moliere's comedies is the ridicule of the wealthy bourgeoisie and criticism of the rapidly degraded aristocracy. Thus, in his work “The Bourgeois in the Nobility” he creates the image of the tradesman Jourdain, who at all costs wants to become a nobleman. This passion takes over all the thoughts of the hero, becoming an obsession and pushing him to funny, unreasonable actions.
Moliere based the plot on a general trend that was increasingly taking root in the society of the 17th century. This time was characterized by a division into “court” and “city”. Moreover, in the “city” there was a constant tendency towards the “court”. In order to get as close as possible to those from whom their bourgeois origin separated them, the petty bourgeois bought positions, land holdings, and diligently (sometimes to the point of absurdity) mastered all the noble manners, language, morals, clothing style and many other features of the life of high society. But, despite all the efforts of the townspeople, the differences between them and the nobility remained significant. In his comedy, Moliere sought to show the destructive power of the “court” over the minds and actions of the bourgeoisie. And at the same time, his goal was to deprive the nobles of this power, to expose, to show their true low essence, the pettiness of their interests, hidden under the guise of nobility and sophistication, and, consequently, to emphasize the groundlessness of the aspirations of representatives of the philistinism to imitate the high society in everything. The harmful influence of such aspirations can be most clearly seen in the image of the main character of the comedy.
At first, Jourdain's passion for the nobility is simply an innocent weakness. But, as the plot develops, it grows, reaching enormous proportions, expressed in unthinkable, almost manic, actions and judgments. For the hero, the opportunity to get closer to the nobility is the only goal, the highest happiness. He tries to achieve maximum resemblance to representatives of the nobility, and his whole life is spent imitating them in absolutely everything. “Now I dress like nobles dress,” he says boastfully. In addition, Jourdain tries in every possible way to emphasize his imaginary superiority, to flaunt it: “I want to walk around the city in a new suit, but just watch, don’t lag behind a single step, so that everyone can see that you are my lackeys...” Gradually the idea of ​​joining Jourdain is so captivated by secular society that he loses all real understanding of the world and life. He completely loses his mind, causing harm, first of all, to himself with his actions. In his hobby, he reaches complete spiritual baseness, beginning to be ashamed of his loved ones, his parents. He does not pay attention to real values, to true human feelings. His daughter Lucille loves Cleontes with all her heart - the noble young man, honest, truthful, capable of sincere feelings, but not from a noble family. And Jourdain demands that his son-in-law must certainly have a noble origin. This forces Cleont to use a trick - to pass himself off as the son of the Turkish Sultan. As the plot develops, we understand that those around us are increasingly beginning to take advantage of the hero’s weakness for their own selfish purposes. He is fooled by everyone who benefits from it: teachers of music, philosophy, and dance rob him, play along with him in everything, openly flatter him, trying to get rich at his expense. Tailors and various apprentices also deceive him. The hero's gullibility and desire to enter high society are also taken advantage of by the rogue Dorant, an impoverished count who uses Jourdain's mania for his own purposes, seeking to profit at the expense of the simple-minded and naive bourgeois.
In the times about which the author writes, the contrast between the nobility and the bourgeoisie was manifested, first of all, in the high level of noble culture and the low level of development of the bourgeoisie. However, in his thirst for imitation, the hero does not see these obvious differences. He does not realize how comical the claims to secular grace and gloss, culture and education look, against the background of his rudeness, ignorance, vulgarity of language and manners. He is so captivated by his idea that, without any doubt, he agrees to undergo the ridiculous rite of passage into “mamamushi”. And, moreover, he is ready to actually believe in his transformation into some kind of noble person.
Moliere made many discoveries in the field of comedy. Always striving to truthfully depict reality, he created vivid typical characters in his works. So did his master Jourdain. Depicting the life and customs of his contemporary society, reflecting the specifics of the social system, the author expressed his protest and decisive demand for social justice in such a unique form.