Personal Happiness and Social Obligations

1606 Words7 Pages
Personal Happiness and Social Obligations Social obligations and personal happiness can sometimes be conflicting as depicted in the three stories; Tartuffe by Moliere, Punishment by R. Tagore, and Love Suicide at Amijima by Bunraku. These stories explore unique problems that common people face in search of happiness. They explore the issue of pursuing personal happiness at the expense of moral and social obligations of care. Each story presents a unique case of struggle that reflects some of the issues that typical people go through in society as they search for love and personal fulfillment. They show the readers some of the consequences of deviating from social obligations in pursuance of personal happiness and fulfillment. Tartuffe by Moliere is a play about Tartuffe and his religious hypocrisy. He has managed to convince Orgon beyond reasonable doubt that he is a good religious man. Although other people do not fall to his trick, Orgon believes in him even more than his own family. Tartuffe, on the other hand, takes advantage of Orgon’s naivety and ignorance. Orgon welcomes him with open arms into his house not knowing what this religious hypocrite had planned to do him and his family. The other family members were aware of his hypocrisy and were not happy about this. In fact, Tartuffe was seducing his friend’s second wife without shame. On one occasion, they set him up, but Orgon did not believe anything that was said until he himself saw that Orgon was making passes at his wife. Luckily for Tartuffe, he had seen the letters that Orgon kept and demanded that he should be the one to leave the house. However, a twist of things happened and Orgon recovered his house while his hypocrite friend was imprisoned (Molière 63). With reference to social obligations and personal happiness, this story explores some of the challenges that people go through in an attempt to

More about Personal Happiness and Social Obligations

Open Document