The Blunderer — Inside the Classic

Mascarille's Frustrated Asides

Mascarille's asides form a running commentary on Lelio's ineptitude. When Lelio fails to follow his signs, Mascarille mutters, 'He understands not one of my signs,' and later, 'Go on, go on, numskull; you will do your own business effectually.' These remarks, directed at the audience, establish Mascarille as the play's intelligence—and its comic victim. His frustration is palpable: he has crafted a lie that Leander accepts, only to have Lelio undo it by speaking plainly. The asides also signal the play's debt to Italian commedia dell'arte, where servants often address spectators directly.

Lelio's Unwitting Sabotage

Lelio's blunders are not malice but a lack of awareness. When Leander claims Mascarille is now his servant, Lelio insists, 'He is my own servant,' ignoring Mascarille's whispered 'Gently.' Later, Lelio admits, 'If I am not acquainted with the designs you are setting on foot, I shall be for ever making mistakes.' This confession reveals the structural engine of the play: Mascarille must keep Lelio in the dark to succeed, but Lelio's honesty and curiosity repeatedly expose the schemes. The pattern—plot, blunder, exposure—repeats across acts, as noted in the introductory notice's observation that incidents 'take place successively, without necessarily arising one from another.'

The Servant as Playwright

Mascarille functions as an internal playwright, devising scenarios that the other characters unwittingly perform. He boasts of 'cunningly get[ting] a footing at his rival's' and nearly having 'his mistress placed in my hands.' His complaint that Lelio 'prevents me getting hold of her by a fictitious letter' shows that Mascarille's plots are thwarted not by rivals but by his own master. The introductory notice notes that Mascarille is 'the first original personage Molière has created,' distinct from coarse valets of earlier comedy. Here, his inventiveness is matched only by his powerlessness: he can scheme, but he cannot control Lelio's tongue.

Verbal and Physical Comedy

The excerpt blends verbal wit with near-violence. Leander draws his sword, Lelio threatens to 'thrash him within an inch of his life,' and Mascarille's aside—'Was there ever in the world a creature so dull of understanding?'—underscores the farce. The play's language includes period references like 'act Olibrius, the slayer of the innocents,' a boastful allusion. Molière's verse (the original is in rhyme) adds rhythmic energy to the quarrels. The scene's rapid shifts—from anger to confusion to mock-heroic—demonstrate the play's debt to both classical comedy and contemporary French farce, where physical action and verbal misunderstanding intertwine.

Readers approaching The Blunderer should attend to Mascarille's asides as guides to the play's mechanics. The comedy lies not in the success of schemes but in their repeated collapse, and Lelio's obliviousness is the constant variable. The introductory notice warns that some characters are 'not distinctly brought out,' so focus on the servant-master dynamic. The play rewards attention to timing: each blunder is a counterplot undone by a misplaced word.

That rainy afternoon, I kept returning to Mascarille’s exasperated asides—his cleverness forever undone by Lelio’s earnest bungling. It made me think of how intentions tangle with circumstance, how a good scheme rarely survives its own maker. The thought drifted, almost by accident, to Shaw’s quieter, sharper study of motives and missteps, Captain Brassbound's Conversion — Text and Context, which sat unread on my shelf like a patient answer.