Summary
Act 5. The Garden, with two pavilions. Agnes enters with a lantern in one hand and two cakes and an orange in the other. She has brought the food for Hannibal, who has not eaten all day.
Suddenly, Figaro enters disguised in a red cloak, with Bartholo, Don Guzman, Basil, and Antonio. At first, he mistakes Agnes for Susan, but quickly realizes his mistake. Figaro has called together the men to apprehend the count and Susan in their affair, and tells them to hide themselves well until he calls for them.
When all but Bartholo and Figaro leave, Figaro rails against the inconstancy of women. Bartholo tries to calm him down, but Figaro is completely incensed. Before he goes, Bartholo tells Figaro to be patient and open-minded, saying, "your suspicions may be unjust,—should they prove real, then shake her from you, as her Ingratitude deserves."
Left alone, Figaro delivers a long soliloquy about inequality and the aristocracy. He talks about the fact that after struggling with poverty, he found himself equally dismayed by the upper classes: "But, notwithstanding my desire to be Something in this world, my detestation of the brazen Effrontery, profound Ignorance, and insupportable Insolence of these fashionable Friends of Nobility was so innate that I found I could better endure all the Miseries of Poverty than the Disgrace and Disgust of such Society." He collapses in melancholy.
The countess (in Susan's clothes), Susan, and Marcelina all enter, and Marcelina goes to hide and spy on the proceedings. Susan goes to take a walk, while Hannibal enters, mistaking the countess for Susan. She tells him to go away, but he does not. The count enters just as Hannibal is going to kiss the countess (whom he still believes to be Susan). At the last moment, the count puts himself in the place of the countess and Hannibal draws back and runs away.
As Hannibal runs away, Figaro moves forward to confront the count. The count believes him to be the page, and so hits him in the ear. He then goes to the countess, believing she is Susan, and kisses her passionately. He notes that she feels very different than the countess, and she remarks that he once loved the Countess. He replies, "Yes—Yes—I did so—But three Years of better Acquaintance has made the Marriage-state so respectable—And then Wives are so loving—when they do love, that is—that one is surprised when in search of Pleasure, to find Satiety."
He waxes poetic about the fact that women owe everything while men owe nothing, suggesting that wives ought to become mistresses sometimes. He gives her a ring and asks her to wear it. The count brings the countess into the Pavilion, into the shadows, when suddenly he notices Figaro. They rush off together.
Susan, pretending to be the countess, confronts Figaro, who tells her that the count and Susan have gone off to the pavilion together. Pretending to be the countess, Susan suggests to Figaro that they could have their own affair as revenge, and when Figaro agrees she becomes jealous. She begins to beat him, jealous, and he laughs uproariously when he realizes it is Susan and not the countess.
Figaro tells Susan that he knew it was her all along, as he recognized her voice, and they reconcile. The count enters and sees Figaro kissing Susan, whom he believes to be the countess, his wife. He becomes enraged, but they are interrupted by the entrance of a courier who was sent to Seville to follow Hannibal. He reports that Hannibal was not in Seville, as Don Guzman, Bartholo, Antonio, Basil, and the servants all come out.
The count orders the servants to seize Figaro, but Figaro behaves irreverently about this. The countess eventually comes out and reveals her identity, and the count realizes the trick that has been played on him. Everyone bursts out laughing, and the count feels ashamed and humbled. The countess gives Susan the purse and ring that the count gave her.
Everyone rejoices that everything worked out, and Susan delivers the final line: "Our Errors past, and all our Follies done, Oh! That ’twere possible you might be won To pardon Faults, and Misdemeanors smother, With the same ease we pardon One-another! So should we rest, To-night, devoid of Sorrow, And hope to meet you, joyously, To-morrow."
Analysis
In this final act, we find Figaro much less collected and savvy than in previous acts. Jealous of the affair he suspects Susan of having with the count, he is driven almost to madness, having gathered a large group of men to walk in on the affair. He speaks ill of women and their inconstancy, so convinced is he that Susan has betrayed him. It is unusual to see the crafty Figaro, who has been so unfazed by the extremely absurd events hitherto, so undone by the mere suggestion that Susan is having an affair. Such are the absurdities and misunderstandings of the "comedy of errors."
Indeed, Figaro's disillusionment is so strong that he ends up delivering an impassioned and lengthy soliloquy that details his deep existential angst. This angst has been triggered by his belief that Susan is having an affair with the count, and though his melancholy is rather subjective, he articulates a more general angst about the state of the world and class as well. He rails against the aristocracy, and the fact that he worked hard to leave poverty behind, only to find the upper classes just as disappointing and flawed.
Upon the first production of the play, it was this very soliloquy that struck many French audience members as the most audacious and controversial part. Indeed, after a private reading in the French court, King Louis XVI forbade the play from being performed. Beaumarchais made some changes to the text—in particular moving the action from France to Spain—and while the censors would not lift their performance ban, the king himself authorized its performance. One of the parts of the play to which Louis XVI most objected was this very soliloquy, seeing it as irreverent towards the upper classes.
The end of play shows all of the characters assuming other identities in order to trick one another. After the count finds Hannibal going to kiss the countess (whom he believes is Susan), he boxes Figaro's ears, believing him to be Hannibal. Then, when the count takes the countess away, Susan affects the voice of the countess to play a further prank on Figaro. All of the pleasure and drama of the final moments of the play are based around disguises, misunderstandings, and misidentifications.
Everything gets resolved at the end of the play. It turns out that the elaborate pranks that the characters play on one another works more effectively than any direct conversation might have. The count is humbled by realizing that his wife knows about his affair with Susan, and Figaro and Susan come together happily in marriage. The play shows the way in which sleight of hand, deception, and humor can reveal deeper and more salient truths than didacticism or direct confrontation.
