Repeated emphasis in neoclassical comedy is placed upon "rational" perspective and behavior. As late as Voltaire's Candide the irrational acceptance of a popular philosophy is ridiculed. In England, earlier, Jonathan Swift was concerned with rationality in a similar fashion. In many of Molière's plays the characters, even when they are in error, maintain that they are acting from purely rational motives and in a most collected manner. They repeatedly express the exasperated wish that the rest of the world would act equally as rationally. A reader might be surprised at the number of times the word "reasonable" appears in this context in Molière's plays. It is often used by opposing characters to add strength to their own contradictory points of view.
Neoclassical comedy also calls for a degree of intellectual detachment from the audience which other types of plays do not. Tragedy demands sympathy for the protagonist; other kinds of comedy — like "Romantic comedy" — individualize characters and allow for a certain identification with them. This detachment forces us to see a fop as a fop (the type) and thus comic, rather than as an individual evoking pity. The more complex of Molière's characters verge on winning our sympathies for the moment — but more in the sense that we can see his point of view in ridiculing society than in feeling a deep pity for him as a suffering human being.
