Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

The play comments on the stock that 17th-century French society placed on rank and status. M. Jourdain has money, but no title. Count Duranté has a title but no money. Neither man has scruples. M. Jourdain is spending all of his money in pursuit of an imaginary status, that which Cléonte calls “imposture” and “a stolen title” (78). Molière depicts the act of social climbing as ridiculous and empty. However, considering that his audience consisted mainly of nobility and royalty, the play does not condemn those who were born into the upper class or necessarily disparage those who hold and value a title. Rather, the play offers and mocks nuisances that would be recognizable to members of the upper class. In a society where the middle class has begun to amass wealth through trade, a socially-ambitious man like M. Jourdain would be an object for derision. M. Jourdain fetishizes status and attempts to purchase it, but his inability to do so flatters the members of the upper class, who must possess qualities that cannot be bought.

Count Duranté, the high-rank leech, likely represents a familiar annoyance to members of the upper class who had both status and wealth.