The Miser Characters

Last updated on December 10, 2021

First produced: 1668

First published: 1669 as L’Avare (English translation, 1672)

Type of work: Play

Type of plot: Comedy

Time of work: Seventeenth century

Locale: Paris, France

Harpagon Miser, The (ahr-pah-GOH[N]), the father of Cléante and

Élise, a wealthy, vicious, money-mad old widower. He loves money
more than reputation, honor, or virtue, according to his son’s valet,
and spends his time watching and guarding it. Fearful of being
robbed and killed for his wealth, he buries his money in his garden.
Even his children are suspected of planning to rob him. Because he
treats them with austerity, they complain of their lack of decent
clothes. For his daughter, he plans a marriage to a wealthy man, for
himself a marriage without dowry but with “other” things. The
servant is warned not to rub the furniture too hard when polishing it
and thus wear it out; the valet is searched on being fired to ensure he
has not stolen anything. Even his horses suffer from avarice: He
feeds them straw. Hypocrisy is another dominant trait revealed in his
statement, “Charity enjoins us to be agreeable when we can.”

Cléante (klay-AHNT), Harpagon’s son, a kindhearted youth who

admits his obligation to his father. He is determined to leave
Harpagon if he can get no help from him, and he is forced to gamble
for money for clothes. Outspoken, he tells his father he is a usurer.
He acts with cleverness and boldness when he thwarts his father’s
parsimony by ordering elaborate refreshments for Mariane and gives
her Harpagon’s ring. His courage builds up to the point of defying his
father on the question of marriage.

Master Jacques (zhahk), Harpagon’s cook and coachman. He hates

flatterers and is outspoken. Because these traits and his clever sotto
voce comments have earned him several beatings, he swears to give
them up. He is also a trickster and practical joker. His false messages
carried between Harpagon and Cléante renew their mutual
antagonism, and his false accusation of Valère as a thief is cause for
a beating. There is another side to the man: He has a feeling for the
horses being starved by their straw diet. Next to them, he loves his
master and regrets the world’s evil report of him.

Valère (vah-LEHR), a rich young Neapolitan shipwrecked sixteen

years earlier, now serving incognito as steward to Harpagon. He is
sincere and honorable in his love for Élise but uses shrewd and artful
means in his endeavors to marry her. His method is to “take men’s
hobbies, follow their maxims, flatter their faults, and applaud their
doings”; however, he admits that this practice is not sincere.

Élise (ay-LEEZ), Harpagon’s daughter and Valère’s sweetheart after

he saves her from drowning. She is formal in speech even in her
comments on love; Valère says she is prudent. She fears that her
father, the family, and the world will censor them, but she is realistic
enough never to say one thing and then do another.

Mariane (mahr-YAHN), Valère’s sister, also shipwrecked, sincerely in

love with Cléante. She is obedient to, and loving in her care of, her
mother. When Harpagon proposes marriage to her, thus shocking
Cléante, she cleverly replies in a manner satisfactory to both
 aspirants for her hand.

Frosine (froh-ZEEN), a designing woman, a flatterer and a

matchmaker who earns her living by her wits. Heaven has given her
no income other than intrigue and industry, she says. Despite her
cleverness and wit, she is tenderhearted toward lovers and tries to
help them. She regrets her efforts on Harpagon’s behalf, especially
after he refuses to pay her.

La Flèche (flehsh), Cléante’s valet, whose sense of humor is shown

in his sotto voce comments and in explanations he makes when he is
overheard. He is shrewd in his appraisal of Harpagon.

Anselme (ahn-SEHLM), the father of Valère and Mariane, an honest

man who left Naples after the loss of his wife and children. He is
faithful to friends, fair to Valère (unknown to him then), and liberal
and generous, even to Harpagon, for he agrees to pay for the double
wedding of Harpagon’s son and daughter to his daughter and son.
He even buys a wedding suit for Harpagon.

Master Simon, an agent and moneylender, shrewd in his estimate of

Cléante and his need for money. He flees when Harpagon sees that it
is his son who wants to borrow.

Brindavoine (bra[n]-dah-VWAHN) and

La Merluche (mehr-LEWSH), lackeys to Harpagon.

Mistress Claude (klohd), Harpagon’s servant.

Bermel, Albert. Molière’s Theatrical Bounty: A New View of the Plays.

Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. Original
interpretations of the plays, partly designed to help actors think
about the characters’ motivations, such as why Harpagon seeks a
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 new wife. Sees The Miser as a rich and complicated work.Hall, H.
Gaston. Comedy in Context: Essays on Molière. Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 1984. Analyzes Molière’s work thematically.
Sees Molière’s use of comic images as implying both laughter and
moral judgment, using the example of Harpagon’s soliloquy in Act IV
of The Miser.Lewis, D. B. Wyndham. Molière: The Comic Mask. New
York: Coward-McCann, 1959. Provides a rich description of Molière’s
life and works, immersing readers in seventeenth century French
society. Sees The Miser as basically depressing because Harpagon
represents a case of clinical obsession totally devoid of normal
human feelings.Mander, Gertrud. Molière. Translated by Diana Stone
Peters. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1973. Discusses The Miser,
particularly in terms of its focus on bourgeois family life, seeing the
conflicts there as the most bitter in Molière’s works. Sets forth the
opinion that Harpagon’s avarice makes him a monster, forcing others
into unnatural or uncharacteristic actions, but he is not a tragic
figure.Walker, Hallam. Molière. Boston: Twayne, 1971. Sees The Miser
as combining issues of sex and power with those of money and
greed and, thus, being as much a moral drama as it is a comedy,
explaining the ambivalent response of most audiences. Sees the play
as satisfying because of the artistic inevitability of the ending and
the fitness of all the parts.
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