Tartuffe is a play about religious hypocrisy. In the play, Orgon and Madame Pernelle are fooled by Tartuffe. They believe him to be holy and righteous. The audience, however, is aware from the beginning that Tartuffe is a fraud. In the scene you are asking about, Orgon describes his first encounter with Tartuffe. He says, “Every day he came to church and knelt/And from his groans, I knew just what he felt” (32-33). Tartuffe is overt and loud in his worship. According to the Bible verse above, one should worship privately (“enter into thy closet…pray to thy father in secret”). Tartuffe wants people to pay attention to him: “His fervent prayers to heaven and deep sighs/Made them witness his deep spiritual pain” (39-40). The Bible verse, on the other hand, suggests that God will reward prayers given to him in secret. Cleante reiterates this in his discussion with Orgon, telling him that loud prayers are not necessarily the sign of a holy man. “Religious passion worn as a façade/Abuses what’s sacred and mocks God (128-129). Orgon cannot see past Tartuffe’s seeming religious zeal to the man underneath, but the rest of the family has no problem identifying his religious hypocrisy.
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