Alceste despises the hypocrisy of Parisian society and says so, loudly, to everyone, including the woman he loves. Molière staged this comedy in 1666 at the height of his powers, and its genius lies in the fact that Alceste is entirely right and entirely impossible. Every polite lie he exposes is genuinely dishonest; every truth he insists upon is genuinely unbearable. Célimène, the young widow he adores, is everything he claims to hate: witty, charming, and willing to say whatever the room requires. The play does not resolve the contradiction. It lets it stand, because Molière understood that the misanthrope's problem is not that he sees through society but that he cannot stop needing it. The comedy is merciless precisely because it is sympathetic.