Essay Questions

Why does Alceste pass up the opportunity to marry Célimène?

On the surface, he refuses to marry her because she will not retire with him into isolation; he is planning to live in isolated reclusion from society as a protestation against its flaws and justice system. His stubbornness would not allow him to give up his rebellious stance, and since she would not go with him, marriage would be impossible.

On a deeper level, though, Alceste holds others to impossibly high standards of dignity and candor. To him, Célimène seemed an ideal woman, being both beautiful and sarcastically critical. It is important to note that Alceste sees her flaws, but still somehow finds her thoroughly appealing. When the extreme level of her arrogance was revealed, however, he began to be somewhat disillusioned with her perfection, and when she refuses to go with him, pleading her youthfulness as a reason, he realizes that not even she holds up to his harsh standards.

What is Alceste's main problem with society and its members?

Alceste sees society as being highly hypocritical; for the sake of pretentious civility, people will fawn over and flatter each other in public, but deride each other in private. No one, he thinks, will say exactly what he means, and that is the cause of all the duplicity and insufferable blarney. Ironically, this hypocrisy is most exemplified in the woman he loves: Célimène praises her suitors to their faces, including Alceste, but in private communication, she reveals her true feelings of irritation and boredom.

Why does Alceste decide to give up society and enter an isolated life?

Early in the play, Alceste has an encounter with an aspiring poet, Oronte. When Oronte asks his opinion of his poetry, Alceste answers in his traditional manner – with brutal honesty and tactlessness. He tells Oronte it is so bad that he should give up poetry. Oronte leaves, embittered, and launches a lawsuit against Alceste. It's unclear what charges are brought against him, but the verdict comes out against Alceste, and he refuses to contest it on principle. He therefore decides to leave society and live in isolation as both a fulfillment of his sentence and a protest against hypocritical society.