The School for Wives (French: L'école des femmes; in French pronounced as /lekɔl de fam/) is a theatrical comedy written by the seventeenth century French playwright Molière and considered by some critics to be one of his finest achievements. It was first staged at the Palais Royal theatre on 26 December 1662 for the brother of the King. The play depicts a character who is so intimidated by femininity that he resolves to marry his young, naïve ward and proceeds to make clumsy advances to this purpose. It raised some outcry from the public and established Molière as a bold playwright who would not be afraid to write about controversial issues. In June 1663, the playwright cunningly responded to the uproar with another piece entitled La Critique de L'École des femmes, which provided some insight into his unique style of comedy.[1]
The characters are:
The scene is a square in a provincial town.
Arnolphe, the protagonist, is a mature man who has groomed the young Agnès since she was 4 years old. Arnolphe supports Agnès living in a nunnery until the age of 17, when he moves her to one of his abodes, which he keeps under the name of Monsieur de la Souche. Arnolphe's intention is to bring up Agnès in such a manner that she will be too ignorant to be unfaithful to him and he becomes obsessed with avoiding this fate. To this end, he forbids the nuns who are instructing her from teaching her anything that might lead her astray. Right from the very first scene, a friend of his, Chrysalde, warns Arnolphe that such a scheme will likely fail, but Arnolphe takes no heed.
After Agnès moves into Arnolphe's house, Arnolphe meets by chance Horace, the young son of Arnolphe's friend Oronte, whom Arnolphe had not seen in years. Not realizing that Arnolphe and Monsieur de la Souche are the same person, Horace unwittingly confides to Arnolphe he had been visiting Agnès for the past week while the master of the house, one Monsieur de la Souche, was away.
Arnolphe then schemes to outmaneuver Horace and to ensure that Agnès will marry him.
Arnolphe becomes more and more frustrated as the play goes on. Agnès continues to meet with Horace despite Arnolphe's displeasure until, finally, a misunderstanding leads Arnolphe to believe that Agnès has agreed to marry him and Agnès to believe that Arnolphe has given her permission to marry Horace. When they realize the actual situation, Arnolphe forbids Agnès from seeing Horace. Horace, in his distress, comes to Arnolphe, asking for his help in rescuing Agnès from "Monsieur de la Souche".
In the final act Oronte and Enrique arrive and announce that Horace is to marry Enrique's daughter. The daughter turns out to be Agnès, rendering all of Arnolphe's scheming useless.
In the small but culturally significant world of Parisian theatre, the play created a sensation. Comedy had been looked down on by the intellectual élite as a minor genre, lacking dignity and solidity, until Molière replaced its fantastical characters and plots with individuals and situations close to real life. Talking of the stage, he said:
You've achieved nothing if you don't get people of today to recognise themselves. While his characters may have the dramatic necessity of one overriding trait, the more important ones have added complexity and even ambiguity. Supreme perhaps is the tantalising opacity of Agnès, who herself says very little in the play but has left readers and viewers intrigued ever since over how innocent she really is.[2]