Plot Summary Of 'The Learned Ladies'

3. “The Learned Ladies” is a story about a girl named Armande who is in love with a man named Clitandre. All seems right in the world, especially when Armande’s father Chrysale has given them permission to marry, until Armande’s no-nonsense mother decides to marry her off to another man. Armande tries to fight off her mother’s strong will, but the two are no match for her mother who is enthralled with Trissotin, the man she has set her daughter up to marry. Armande is convinced Trissotin is only after their money, and she implores her mother to see reason. At the conclusion of the play Artista plays a clever trick by saying the family has lost all of their money, to which Trissotin immediately bolts, and Armande gets to marry Clitandre.

The intended purpose of “The Learned Ladies” was to teach people that almost everyone has ulterior motives. The first example we can see of this is with Trissotin who only wants to marry Armande to get to the family fortune. The second example we can see of people with ulterior motives is with Armande’s sister Henreitte. Henreitte only supports the marriage of her sister to Trissotin because it means she would have another shot with Clitandre, whose advances she previously shot down. The final example we can see with this idea is when Chrysale defends his daughter in marrying the person she wants to marry. Chrysale wants to help his daughter, but his ulterior motive may be having a reason to finally standing up to his

The theme of sticking up for yourself is exhibited multiples times throughout this play, but perhaps the character that displays it the most is Armande. Immediately from the start when she hears of her mother’s plant to marry her off to Trissotin, she fights back. She tells her mother she is in love with another man, and that she has no intention of marrying Trissotin. Another character who learns about this theme in the play is Chrysale. Chrysale up to this point has let his wife walk all over him. This is especially true in the case where Martine fires the cook for not speaking proper English. Chrysale knows this is an unreasonable cause to fire someone for, yet he lets his wife do it anyways. Chrysale makes up for this later when he brings back the cook to be reinstated. By the end of the play Chrysale has learned to stand up for his own opinion, not just passively follow his wife’s to keep her