Moliere, France's comic dramatist, constructed a play called Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, which mocked the tension amongst the classes. However, while doing so, he managed to appeal to every class without them feeling offended. The main character, Jourdain, was an upper-middle classman, who like many Bourgeosie during the time, wanted to gain more knowledge and possibly more wealth, rather than excepting what he was. His wanting to change is what humored the aristocrats, believing all middle classmen that wanted to be like aristocrats were only imitators and can never succeed.
In Europe during the 1500's, The Bourgeosie were born. They were much different from any of the other classes: unstable, always in the need of improvement, and lacking culture. The Nobility scolded them for there lack of tradition. Believing you needed to be born into the upper class and only then could you receive a respectable title, the nobility would never accept the middle classmen who wanted to rise in the social scale. The play represents the Bourgeosie as Mr. Jourdain, who's a member of the upper class, but not very intelligent, so he hires many masters to teach him such skills as reading, writing, music, and dancing. In trying so, only disaster occurs, when all the masters detest each other, believing they"re better than everyone else, even though they"re in the same class, and of same importance. The physical fighting that they get involved with is Moliere's way of demonstrating the social contradictions amongst professions.
Both the Nobility and the Bourgeios may be very similar sometimes economically, but socially, they"re very distinguished. The nobility are born into their class, where they receive their own title and believe that can never be taken away from them. This stable class believes in no changes, that what you"re born into, you have to stay in, much unlike the Bourgeios, which has just formed during the 1500's.
