An Epic Play, Cyrano de Bergerac, Written by Edmond Rostand

From the play Cyrano de Bergerac, two of the main characters are at odds fighting to win the heart of the same girl. Cyrano and Christian play as competing romantic heroes in their story, both hopeless dreamers of love and lust, both bold in their own aspects as well as incredibly insecure all at once. They also share the quality of great loyalty, and willingness to drop anything to come to the rescue of a friend. Physically, they are opposites; Christian is beautiful, and Cyrano thinks himself an atrocity. Their intellectual capabilities are also at completely different ends of the spectrum; Christian is a bumbling fool, and Cyrano can become a master at whatever task he chooses. In the aspect of poetry and the art of words, Cyrano is a true Shakespeare, and Christian is the equivalent of a second grader at best. These characters seem to be foils and, at the same time, they are wildly alike.

Throughout literature, death scenes often portray a deeper meaning in relation to a theme or life lesson. This is especially visible in Cyrano de Bergerac, a play by Edmond Rostand. The play surrounds Cyrano, a man with a tragically large nose but excellent linguistic skills. He loves a woman named Roxane, but is unable to reveal his true feelings because he is so ashamed of his outward appearance. Roxane instead, loves a handsome man named Christian who is not as witty and skilled poetically like Cyrano. Cyrano uses his excellent writing skills to write to Roxane, pretending he is Christian. Roxane eventually loves Christian purely because of the love letters written to her, but she is unaware Cyrano is the one writing. As the play continues,

Society tends to misjudge people base on their appearances instead of their personality. This can be seen in the play Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. In which Roxane represents that vile aspect of society. Roxane is attracted to Christian based on his looks, and under minds Cyrano because of his appearance. Society misjudgment of people cause oppression on an individual and it is from oppression and misjudgment f character that causes self consciousness to be born. Cyrano exhibits this self consciousness by helping Christian. Such oppression or self conscious aids to form magnificent characteristics attributes such as the ones portrayed by Cyrano throughout the novel. After all of its societies misjudgment that causes Cyrano to be

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” (Confucius) Cyrano’s insecurity of his nose effects his relationship with Roxane. In Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano De Bergerac, Cyrano’s insecure and eloquent self-perception results in Cyrano’s companionship & loving in his relationship with both Christian & Roxane. Cyrano’s level of eloquence helps him combat the insults of his nose. Cyrano is a poetic, witty, & eloquent man who is insecure & has trouble showing his true feelings for Roxane .Cyrano and Christian work together to win Roxane’s heart, and at the end Cyrano allows love to kill him, even after Roxane discovers & reciprocates his feelings.

Appeal to emotions, individualism, and intellectual achievement were three important elements of Romanticism. This essay will explore the degree to which Cyrano de Bergerac exemplifies these elements of Romanticism.

There are not many movies that have been produced that consider the nature of beauty and inner self, while still having an emotive storyline, the film Cyrano de Bergerac is one of them. The tangled relationships of Roxane, Cyrano and Christian, along with many minor characters of the film, explore what is most important and what truly prevails in love. Even though at the end of the film you are left with a melancholy feeling brought up by the fact that the main characters quite literally lose everything, you still find that it has given the viewer a message. A message saying that you will not get what you want if you don’t try or if you stay quiet, even if you are rejected at least you tried.

Edmond Rostand 's Cyrano de Bergerac is considered to be a Chivalric Romance but it also contains humor throughout. The play uses comedy throughout all of the acts for a variety of reasons. Cyrano who is the main character of the play is also the largest comic influence. With Cyrano, we see him develop through comedy and learn more about his character with it, and it is not only used by Cyrano but also many other characters. Comedy is used in a variety of ways throughout Cyrano de Bergerac such as wordplay and sarcasm. The comedy is all used for different reasons, nevertheless, the humor in Cyrano plays an important role in the play.

He decides to take the easy way out by forcing Roxane to marry someone he could control at will, Viscount de Valvert. As said by Ligniere in Act one, " That my friend is Count de Guiche, He's in love with her but he's married to Cardinal Richelieus' niece. He wants to arrange a marriage between Roxane and Viscount de Valvert, a sad specimen of a man he can count on to be obliginy. She's opposed to it , but De Guiche is powerful: he can persecute an untitled girl like her." The way Ligniere describes De Guiche gives an inside to his personality. Cyrano on the other hand has a very different personality, his appearance's pushed him to become a better person. He has a different approach to the way he expresses his feelings towards Roxane. This can be seen in Act three Scene two when Cyrano is speaking to Roxane from under the balcony and he says," I love you, I'm overwhelmed, I love you to the point of madness! Your name is in my heart like a bell shaken by my constant trembling, ringing day and night: Roxane,Roxane, Roxane! Loving everything about you. I forgot nothing. I remember the day last year, the twelfth of May, when you wore your hair in a different style. Just as a man who has looked at the sun too long sees red circles everywhere, when , I've gazed on the bright glory of your hair my dazzled eyes see golden spots on everything. This shows how Cyrano's personality, has been greatly affected by his grotesque appearance. How his looks force him to

The distinction between social classes appears prominently in Shakespeare’s plays as the nobility contrasts greatly with characters of base rank in their language and demeanor. Although the outward appearances of the different classes remain consistent with stereotypes of Shakespeare’s time, he contradicts the expected behaviors of these groups. Through the portrayal of leaders of society, Shakespeare reveals that despite their significant power and privilege, the members of the upper class lack the sensibility to rule successfully, and they rarely act in an honorable manner, only using their power to benefit themselves while neglecting the people they preside over. This uniformity throughout all of the leaders suggests that Shakespeare believes

play has the perfect Aristotelian tragic plot consisting of peripateia, anagnorisis and catastrophe; it has the perfect tragic character that suffers from happiness to misery due to his hamartia (tragic flaw) and the play evokes pity and fear that produces the tragic effect, catharsis (a purging of emotion).

Close your eyes and imagine a town of lower class citizens that have been mistreated and are stuck where they are due to the class system of the time. There is a leader that abuses the power of his position and acts smug, arrogant and entitled to those of “lesser value” around him. This leader, the Commander, creates chaos or disorder in both the upper and lower classes. The only way to bring order back is to bring this commander down, or hope he recognizes the error of his ways. Open your eyes. Does this sound like 1475 Spain, or 2016 America? The fact of the matter is that it is both. In Lope de Vega’s play, Fuenteovejuna, this injustice is the exact subplot of his Spanish Golden Age Theatre production. This subplot’s subtext and contextual themes such as, questioning of loyalty, trust, honor, sovereign governing, economic status, and justice transcends time and location.

Social class is an aspect that has been covered by numerous novels, stories, articles and even plays. A major play that has covered the aspect of social class was “The Importance of Being Earnest”, by Oscar Wilde, published in 1899. Oscar Wilde used certain characters to depict the aspect of social class; like Lady Bracknell. Lady Bracknell played an important role in the play that conveyed the aspect of social class and various parts of it. Therefore, in this essay, I would discuss how social class is portrayed throughout the play by Lady Bracknell’s

In this paper we have assumed that in the play A Man for All Seasonsby Robert Bolt, he has drawn the problems sketch of thinking through common man character and William Shakespeare has also shown the same picture of that common man. In Julius Caesar through the speech of Brutus; he gives the message of rationality to that man. Both embodied in their work certain core issues of that time, like the issue of class struggle and nature versus civilization, the human emotions and feudal system of politics, struggle between individual judgment and established authority, emotional blindness and intellectual understanding. The subject and issues of these plays are so wide and profound that many people are engage in its analysis. Through textual analysis

Shakespearean plays are often known for their outstanding entertainment and classic comic conflict. In his masterwork, Hamlet, Shakespeare uses these aspects to serve his thematic purpose. He has used comedy throughout many of his historic plays, but in this play, comedy is the drawing point that makes it fun and entertaining, yet clear and intuitive. Generally, his tragedies are not seen as comical, but in reality, they are full of humor. However, these comic elements don’t simply serve to relieve tension; they have much significance to the play itself. The characters of Hamlet, Polonius, Osric, and the Gravediggers, prove to be very influential characters, and throughout the play, they are the individuals that

Doctor Manette’s prison account clearly demonstrates the class gap, “The speaker [the Marquis] seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature [the peasant] dying there, and that it would have been better if he died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind” (Dickens 329). Not only is there an extreme difference in lifestyle, but the upper class also treats the lower class with extreme disdain. The treatment of the people at the hands of their “betters” and the class gap catalyzes the French Revolution.