The Hypochondriac AnalysisThe Hypochondriac AnalysisThe Hypochondriac conforms to views on Aristotelian importance of character in drama that suggests “If the protagonist had by nature a flaw that steered him more or less inevitably into a fatal situation, he would be a mechanism and predictable to us, incapable of inducing terror or recognition” (Aristotle 27). Nothing about Argan seems as inevitable as just about any protagonist in a rigidly plotted Aristotelian tragedy. If it may be beyond argument that Aristotle places plot above character, with The Hypochondriac Moliere dares to disagree by proposing that a more realistically drawn character without the baggage of a fatal flaw can be all the more recognizable.
The Hypochondriac Analysis can be applied to a lot of other human beings, but the fact remains that any individual who achieves an extremely low character point without a flaw in a plot or character is doomed to be reduced to a mere caricature. And so the Hypochondriac must be thought of as one-sided. Even when the protagonist is being watched by his own audience it is essential to note something that matters about the person or something about his or her character: the fact that he or she must be, and yet still be considered, “a flaw in the plot,” so that the character would ultimately become a piece of a larger picture, one that is not the way things are and could not be. And so, even if the protagonist was actually being watched and judged by his or her audience, the audience would be made up of other characters who in turn would have his or her attention, in this case, turned to another and different character.
The Hypochondriac is a metaphor for the problem of characters. This is, at best, an illusory and simplistic metaphor, but it holds true that there are certain characteristics that can and should be built upon the nature of a person. There is no universal nature, no individual character that embodies a different and often contradictory personality structure. For instance, if an object is an alien to our own consciousness, and there is nothing in particular to create (what is to become?) the character structure that defines who it is that the alien is, then a character could be created only upon the principle of self-esteem and self-expression instead of in any meaningful way about the person who created that specific object.
The Hypochondriac’s basic concept is that a person is a person who, like a person or a body, has innate emotional and biological attributes. While the Hypochondriac’s basic concept takes some of these attributes and puts them as part of the larger system, they are also an expression of many, many other traits that are related to one another and can be expressed through more varied and sophisticated constructs. Such constructs as a character’s personality, the person’s intelligence, the person’s sense of humor, a person’s beauty, etc. may be described as being similar in many ways, not only through their own unique abilities, but also in what they have in common. What is different about the “typical” of this kind of character is that they have not entirely changed and are not necessarily in a relationship that is either romantic or otherwise emotionally abusive, but rather have simply started to live the way they think in their own heads, or at least a more self-aware and responsible, part of them. In the hypochondriac, there is a general idea that there is nothing inherently and exclusively good about something, but something more fundamental that is a certain way of dealing with it. The “typical” character often feels a sense of belonging and uniqueness, a real sense of belonging where one can express certain aspects of themselves that are outside the established norm so that they may be perceived as belonging, but which make an attempt for authenticity, not merely as someone who has already learned. Of course, many of this sense of belonging may differ from one’s sense of normalcy (that one ought to be someone else’s normal, and someone else’s usual), but the idea in the way the character experiences it is the same as that in which you experience it in the normal. If the character is one who lacks the normal and is being subjected to a certain way of feeling, there may be some of the other characteristics listed above about the character and the person; but they are not necessarily the same as the standard and will tend to be different. Perhaps the hypochondriac has an innate sense of belonging and value that is different from that of others. So, in some ways, the character may feel a sense of self-importance and need to contribute to the more self-sufficient social systems that allow everyone to live an acceptable lifestyle and become a better person. It may seem obvious to the character that she needs to develop this sense of self-importance and need, but when she struggles to develop such “self-importance”, perhaps it also seems obvious to others that some aspects of the character are even more important in her life, something that is also at the core of others’ feelings, too, and such an external aspect.
The Hypochondriac’s fundamental belief in the character’s potential is that the normal will, rather than being the way things are, must be something that should
The Hypochondriac’s basic concept is that a person is a person who, like a person or a body, has innate emotional and biological attributes. While the Hypochondriac’s basic concept takes some of these attributes and puts them as part of the larger system, they are also an expression of many, many other traits that are related to one another and can be expressed through more varied and sophisticated constructs. Such constructs as a character’s personality, the person’s intelligence, the person’s sense of humor, a person’s beauty, etc. may be described as being similar in many ways, not only through their own unique abilities, but also in what they have in common. What is different about the “typical” of this kind of character is that they have not entirely changed and are not necessarily in a relationship that is either romantic or otherwise emotionally abusive, but rather have simply started to live the way they think in their own heads, or at least a more self-aware and responsible, part of them. In the hypochondriac, there is a general idea that there is nothing inherently and exclusively good about something, but something more fundamental that is a certain way of dealing with it. The “typical” character often feels a sense of belonging and uniqueness, a real sense of belonging where one can express certain aspects of themselves that are outside the established norm so that they may be perceived as belonging, but which make an attempt for authenticity, not merely as someone who has already learned. Of course, many of this sense of belonging may differ from one’s sense of normalcy (that one ought to be someone else’s normal, and someone else’s usual), but the idea in the way the character experiences it is the same as that in which you experience it in the normal. If the character is one who lacks the normal and is being subjected to a certain way of feeling, there may be some of the other characteristics listed above about the character and the person; but they are not necessarily the same as the standard and will tend to be different. Perhaps the hypochondriac has an innate sense of belonging and value that is different from that of others. So, in some ways, the character may feel a sense of self-importance and need to contribute to the more self-sufficient social systems that allow everyone to live an acceptable lifestyle and become a better person. It may seem obvious to the character that she needs to develop this sense of self-importance and need, but when she struggles to develop such “self-importance”, perhaps it also seems obvious to others that some aspects of the character are even more important in her life, something that is also at the core of others’ feelings, too, and such an external aspect.
The Hypochondriac’s fundamental belief in the character’s potential is that the normal will, rather than being the way things are, must be something that should
The nature of a character’s character as a function of its background may be considered an illusion, like a blind man’s body that can identify with no one. But there have been times, as we have seen over the past two hundred years, where we’ve had people who are still around to help us understand why a character can be so wrong: people who are still around because of human failings, and people who become so wrong because of their relationship to one another.
This may be the case if, for example, we have a person who in some respects is a better actor or a more successful person than we were at our founding. But that person becomes only one of many and it’s up to us to make that person better off by creating the character structure that we want one to be. It may also be the case some such person may get an undeserving reputation by being bad for whatever reason, while others will be good for nothing. The process of making sure that a character is a great actor requires that there be some way to identify and identify (a) the person who is best suited to playing him, and (b) the person or persons who the actor
Moliere might be desiring to turn Aristotelian conventions on its head and place character at the forefront of narrative importance might well be explained by virtue of his decision to open his comedy with a monologue that examines the use of language and diction through a purposely repetitive speech by his protagonist.
“Thirty sous for a clyster! I have already told you, with all duerespect to you, that elsewhere you have only charged me twenty sous;and twenty sous, in the language of apothecaries, means only ten sous.Here they are, these ten sous” (Moliere, 1959).That opening monologue spoken by Argan repeats the word “sous” almost twenty times and its near-rhyming twin “you” only slightly less often (Moliere, 1959). The repetitive quality of this opening scene is more than a little suggestive that the playwright may just possibly be making a somewhat snarky commentary on Aristotle’s consideration of the essential elements of drama.
If the placement of character above plot and the decision to open the play with a potentially ironic statement on the placement of lofty