The tone undergoes many a change throughout the passage. It commences with
“ I have no difficulty in understanding him, if you knew the crafty man ….” It begins assertively and straight to the point at which the speaker wishes to depict. He says “je n’ai..” “je ne …” “ je partis…” je t’..” at the beginning which displays immediate self enthusiasm to contradict his subject’s ways and how strongly opinionated he is on the matter concerning his master. Through use of names to refer to his master he displays a strongly opinionated tone which he is clearly frustrated about and feels the need to make his point, which may go un noticed usually. The tone then becomes, to some extent, sarcastic.
This is noticeable in “Tu me dis qu’il a épousé ta maîtresse:crois qu’il aurait plus fait pour sa passion, et qu’il aurait encore épousé toi, son chien et son chat” This enables him to portray the image he has of Don Juan with a comical edge and displays his attempt to be intelligent, experimenting with language, however this is very basic. The tone develops into a serious context, due to the talk of marriage as a concept which his master uses widely to “trap” his women. The use of the word marriage restores seriousness because as it is a concept referring to fidelity and commitment, of which he wishes to discuss the matter of the idea. The seriousness of the tone is also restored by method of addressing the person being spoken to.“tu ne me disqu’il a épousé..” This occurs about 5 times serving as an informal and slightly intrusive method of speech which calls upon the attention of the person being spoken to. This resores the attention of the audience and the person spoken to after long winded sentences.
The change from the repetition of “je..” to conditional tense “il faudrait...” “il me vaudrait..” and use of “il faut ..” “il me fait…”occurs and demonstrates a progression in tone, from fact to generalizations, from which it is possible to see how inadequate he is at manipulating language. The end of the speech adopts a completely different tone as it becomes very serious and almost threatening in his attempt to make sure what he has said is not told to his master. “… s’l fallait qu’il en vint quelque chose a ses oreilles, je dirais hautement que tu aurais menti” This transition in tone recaptures the audience’s attention especially if Sganarelle’s convoluted predictable humour has lost the audience.
Language manipulation in the passage is of a limited nature. They tend to be kept simple and basic. For example comparisons between words of extremities are used, with the play on the words of hot and cold again he attempts to experiment with language and raise the comic in the tone, and the level of speech.
The description of Dom Juan as a man where religious values are absent, references to the devil are made which coincide with other religious conceptions such as his lack of belief in the “skies and the heavens”. Images portraying “evilness” and sin, for example due to the use use of words belonging to similar semantic word groups such as “ciel” “diable” “saint” and “Dieu” are conjured up. This displays a religious interest and acts as a tool of showing the audience Sganarelles orthodox values, and underlining the absence of those of Don Juan.
Despite the lack of complexity to the language he uses, his use of Latin, for example “inter nos” need not be overlooked. This is a sign of pedantic behavior giving insight into the character’s persona, and the employment of a foreign language to the passage serves as a comical theatrical device, raising the interest of Sganarelles speech.
Another interesting feature of this speech is Sganarelles referral to “Epicure” who was a Greek philosopher associated with licentiousness, which relates to the idea of recklessness and dissolution. Sganarelle also speaks of “Sardanapale,” a legendery king related to corruption. The purpose of mentioning these is to help him describe his subject, Don Juan, to the audience and the other valet, Gusman.
The structure of the passage of this speech reflects the way in which Sganarelle speaks and gives an idea of his personality. The long sentences in prose with few full stops, few pauses and many comas functions to portray a pedantic and flustered person unable to get his point across and not extremely confident with language manipulation– showing the way in which Molière has structured this character as unsophisticated and with little power over language. This is also apparent in Sganarelles use of “lists” .For example “…. un enrage, un chien, un diable, un Ture, un hérétique..”
The deviation in his speech show his self-confusion and anxiety, and therefore serves the purpose of displaying his lack of intelligence and the way he mixes ideas ands concepts, not sticking to the point in hand. This brings comedy to the scene as well as demonstrating that his social and intellectual status is merely that of a valet. However this is not a traditional comedy as it is easily predicted, as he does this on more than one sole occasion. “Dame, damoiselle, bourgeoise, paysanne…” for example two sentences later.
The sentence structure is almost uniform throughout the passage. Sentences begin, become long winded and are broken down with comas, colons and semi-colons. This speeds up the way in which the sentence is spoken to give a fast further rushed speech. There are no metaphors, rhetorical questions, or exclamations present in his speech. This appears not to be a feature in the passage. The passage appears designed in such a system with the means of portraying Sganarelle as a simple speaker. Such complexes would appear as anomalies in this particular passage and would not suit the character to whom the passage is designed to come from.
The passage functions as a theatrical characterization device. The language and style of the speech gives the audience and Gustman insight into both Sganarelle’s and Don Juan’s character in the very first scene. The way in which the passage is structured displays elements of Sganarelle’s personality and the language used helps to portray the way in which he perceives his master, Don Juan, and his carefree actions.
