st
             I've been your friend till now as you well know;
             I tell you flatly that our ways must part.
             I wish no place in a dishonest heart."
             The following lines also express Alceste's his scorn of society in general
             Alceste: "Meanwhile; betrayed and wronged in everything,
             I'll flee this bitter world where vice is king,
             And seek some spot unpeopled and apart
             Where I'll be free to have an honest heart."
             . (Act V, sc viii, ln 335 – 339)
             However this attitude sets up a series of situations and conflicts in the play. This can be seen for example in a central paradox in the play between Alceste's disgust at the lies and pretensions that he sees everywhere is society and his love for women who represents the values of the society. Bermel (1990) expresses this paradox as follows:
             Alceste tells Philinte of his disgust at the stratum of society in which he lives; he perceives it as corrupted by its insincere manners and made up of people who are shallow, purposeless, polite backstabbers. But he loves the woman who most successfully embodies that society.
             On the one hand the play is intended to expose and satirize the upper class society of the time. This is the society of the titled and privileged people in Seventeenth-Century Paris. Their lives mainly consist of
             ... devoting their waking hours to dress and toilet, to penning and receiving letters, love poems, and libelous prose, they kill time. They hang out on the fringes of the court
             ...