About the work
George Dandin is a three-act comédie-ballet by Molière with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, known in full as "George Dandin ou le Mari confondu". It was first performed on 18 July 1668 as part of the "Grand Divertissement royal" at the Palace of Versailles before Louis XIV; a public version without the music and ballet followed on 9 November 1668 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
Plot
The wealthy farmer George Dandin has traded his fortune for marriage into the nobility, but his wife Angélique despises him and openly loves the courtier Clitandre. Despite repeated attempts to prove his wife's infidelity to her self-righteous noble parents, Dandin is humiliated at every turn. The play ends without reconciliation, leaving Dandin trapped in his hopeless situation.
Cultural significance
With its bitter, largely unreconciled ending, the play is regarded as one of Molière's darkest comedies. It was later analysed by Henri Bergson in his theory of laughter and has provoked debate over its morality since Jean-Jacques Rousseau.