AIP: The Misanthrope Social Network Experience

he Misanthrope, being an older comedy, is harder to read and comprehend than most of today’s works.  One of the many reasons for this is the archaic style of the plot. Many details are often lost on students who are then left looking to Sparknotes for answers.  Additionally, the choice of outdated language obscures some of the humour of the plot, causing confusion in the readers, rendering the text a boring or even frustrating read.  One can wonder which girl Alceste really likes, but which will he want to settle for in the end? Many want him to pick Célimène, but keeping track of all these people can be difficult and most portrayals and descriptions of these characters are long and tedious, and the word choice will lull any eager student into a nauseated slumber.  

How could this story be more easily remembered and understood? By using Facebook and other social media! Most students and other people struggling to understand or find interest in the text are readily familiar with many of these social networking sites, so the setting will not only be clear to people, but it will also draw in their attention. When the language is updated to a more modern dialect and the dialogue in the play is translated to the formats found in these websites, the Misanthrope can be rewritten into a drama that will be more attractive to younger people.

What we hope to do is recreate all of the action of the Misanthrope while enhancing the experience by using social media. Since the action in The Misanthrope is all dialogue, this should be relatively simple.  Each of the characters in the Misanthrope will have their own Facebook page with which they will be interacting with each other. Conversations that once took place in person as the book described it will now take place using status updates in a language that is more readily understood by the students of today.  Wall posts, direct messages, and phone texts will also be used as tools of communication between characters. Specifically, we will recreate the second scene of act one, where Alceste and Orionte get in an argument about poetry, using these methods. Also, each character's personality will be explored using the informational page in these Facebook profiles which includes favorite music, movies, books, and sports teams. For example, analyzing Alceste's character in the original play implies that if Alceste were a person in today's society he would like obscure music, would not be into sports, and read lots of books and informational internet sites detailing great thinkers’ ideas and philosophies. Célimène's page would have many posts from friends on her wall, and her likes would include many of the popular artists and books.  Her communications to her suitors would likely be done through text messages or other discrete forms of communication.

In addition to recreating the dialogue in the play to social media, we will also be creating a social network visualization in order to help explain each characters’ relationship with the other characters. This visualization will be done while still keeping the updated theme i.e. using the slang and manner of speech used today. The network visualization will help to illustrate and clarify the relationships, feelings, and motivations for each character. 

​We believe that creating these social media resources will lead us to create a retelling of the story that will be entertaining and more compatible from a language perspective to a newer generation that may not otherwise appreciate this gripping comedy. The humor will be clearer, the characters better fleshed out, and the implications of certain actions easier to grasp, not because it was more explicitly explained, but simply because it was translated into the language of the electronic age.

Sources: 

Moliére. The Misanthrope and Tartuffe. Trans. Richard Wilbur. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1965. Print. 

Erin Ekart

Christian Grondin