The Miser''s plot, involving a rich money-lender called Harpagon, whose feisty children long to escape from his penny-pinching household and marry their respective lovers, is a
comedy of manners to which the 17th-century French upper classes presumably objected. It is less savage, however, and somewhat less realistic than Molière''s earlier
play, Tartuffe, which attracted a storm of criticism on its first performance.
The play is also notable for the way in which it sends up certain theatrical conventions. Many
comedies from the Elizabethan period and onwards contain
asides which are
delivered by
characters to the audience and which the other actors ignore. In L''Avare, however, characters generally demand to know who exactly these asides are being delivered to.
The play''s ending is also self-consciously ridiculous, mocking the pat endings of many comedies that end in sudden revelation and marriage.
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