Reception of Molière’s Comedies and Ethics of Laughter

One of the ways in which performers can take advantage of the ethical benefits of self-deprecating laughter is by establishing an identity between themselves as comedians and their characters as the vehicle of their humour. Instead of trying to distance themselves from the figures in their plays, comedians often ignore the conventionally raised boundaries between life and fiction, and keep reminding their audiences of the potential similarities between the character and the performer. The creation of an identity that resides in the space between the supposedly inseparable duality of actor and character grants comic performance a distinct phenomenological status: in addition to finding a physical form for verbal content, the gist of such a production is also in merging the imaginary and the real. The identity of the subject and the object of ridicule is, therefore, not simply an autobiographic curiosity but plays a crucial role in the reception of a production. The effect of such an identity on a critical approach to the ethics of laughter can best be seen in Molière’s example. Molière’s firsthand experience in bloodletting and enemas, and the public awareness of his hypochondria, for example, enabled the French playwright to ridicule not only everything connected with patients but also to make fun of medicine and doctors. His comedies such as Le Malade imaginaire, Le Médicin malgré lui, and Le Docteur amoureux were received warmly and without any controversy. On the other hand, Le Tartuffe and Dom Juan, plays that ridiculed traits that were not considered to be Molière’s own, almost ruined his career.