The Play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

The book, Cyrano de Bergerac and the movie, Roxanne have many similarities and differences. This includes the plot, characterization, setting, conflict, and irony.

One characteristic that they most obviously share is their quality of being complete and hopeless romantics. “Her smile sees pearled perfection. She can knit grace from a twine of air. The heavens sit in every gesture. Of divinities she’s most divine” (Rostand 29). Cyrano is describing Roxane, the woman with whom he is in love, as if she is an angel, a goddess, some sort of immortal perfection. He describes her to his friend, placing her on the highest pedestal, and worrying that he may not be good enough for her. Earlier, he explains that he kicked Montfleury off the stage not only

Cyrano sacrifices his life, "Risk your life every morning before breakfast to send a letter,” when sending his letters to Roxane (Rostand 130). Cyrano puts himself in danger multiple times a day just to contact Roxane. He risks his life for Roxane, who isn’t even in love with him. This action portrays Cyrano as a character who is willing to do anything for someone he loves dearly. In another instance, Cyrano sacrifices his life knowingly, so he can see his love, Roxane, one last time by, “[he] has killed himself, Madame, coming here” (190). This action reveals that Cyrano cares more about Roxane than the wellbeing of himself. He wants to make Roxane happy, so he gives up his life for her. This example of selfless sacrifice characterizes Cyrano as being courageous and honorable. Cyrano’s selfless sacrifices demonstrates that he is willing to give up something sacred for something he believes is greater than

In the essay “Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination” by Deborah L. Rhode, she portrays the stereotypes hardships which are faced by certain people. She wants the audience to know how the stereotypes can cause suffering. The way certain people appear can cause people to have certain view point towards them due to their look. Discrimination is generated in people’s minds due to the physical appearance of a person. She wants the people to know that discriminating others because of their race, religion, color, and gender should be stopped. She gives an example in her essay about an obese lady, where the lady is called she not fit for job and

A focal point in today’s society is the judgement of attractiveness. As pawns in the media industry, people flock to whatever is set on the highest stool and that’s how societal standards are positioned. This is what immediately opens the door to discrimination solely based on the looks of a person. As a society, people make the evident mistake of accepting someone based on what one sees rather than who one gets to know. Readers are reminded of this immense and recurrent mistake in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, where the play teaches the true message behind what this kind of delusion plays in people’s everyday relationships with the fictional character, Christian.

While many works of fiction portray love through a utopian perspective where true love is easy to achieve, the story of Cyrano follows a failed quest for intimacy, where Cyrano’s own tragic flaws stop him from achieving the romance he dreams of. It is these same tragic flaws that help to define Cyrano as a tragic hero in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, and it is these same flaws that eventually lead to Cyrano’s tragic fall. However, some of these flaws are also the admirable traits of the large-nosed hero’s character that also help to define him as hero. Due to this fact, Cyrano is able to gain respect from others, but never truly reaches his ultimate goal of having Roxane’s love. While Cyrano never truly experiences Roxane’s

In Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano De Bergerac, characters discuss about poetry, writings, eloquence, war, bravery and love. The main character, Cyrano is a noble man. People love him because he fearlessly shows his eloquence at the Hotel de Bourgogne Theatre one day. Since that day, everyone loves to hear his poetry and words he has to say. He is excellent in words and admired by many people. Throughout the play, Cyrano struggles with his large nose that became a stumbling block to embrace true love. Although he is homely, he should have taken the risk in telling Roxane about his love so she will not fall in love with Christian.

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.

Appearance does not portend everything, but in most cases, is the quality that is judged predominately. Cyrano is an astonishingly intelligent, and well-spoken man, but has unappealing looks. His appearance affects his self-confidence considering that he believes everyone looks at him as being an ugly individual. When Roxanne is explaining the man, she is in love with, Cyrano assumes she is explaining his characteristics, until she says “his face shines with wit and intelligence, he’s proud, noble, young, fearless, handsome…” (Cyrano de Bergerac, Rostand, pg. 77). Cyrano hears that the man is handsome and loses all hope, because to himself he is not considered handsome. Having been judged about his physical features, his self-confidence is poor. Although, he believes his outer beauty decides on how people envision him, he is a very intelligent individual and has marvelous inside qualities, which many people recognize and respect. If only he could realize that his outer beauty is not nearly important as his inner beauty, maybe then he could see how important his strongest qualities are.

First and foremost is the appeal to emotions. All of the other facets of romanticism can be related to the emotional appeal in Cyrano de Bergerac. Because strong emotional appeal is perhaps the most important method used by the author to create identity with the reader, especially in romantic works, the actions which elicit the emotional responses must, then, show a great deal about the character. The character's motives and philosophies can be determined

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.

The relationship between self and object is completely opposite. The object is in service of the self. Self is also known as the subject, good, white, light, and with god. Object is known as the other, bad, black, dark, and with the devil. This idea appeared in Heinz Kohut’s work for those with narcissistic personality disorders, as noted in encyclopedia.com. In the movie, “Cyrano de Bergerac,” the character Roxanne is an object and a subject.

In Cyrano de Bergerac, the complexity of love is displayed through Roxane, Christian, and Cyrano’s characters. Cyrano loves Roxane more than anyone else in the world, but he’s too shy to tell her, due to feeling so ugly because of his very large, very long nose. At first, Cyrano has Eros for Roxane, or sexual attraction.

Throughout the play Cyrano de Bergerac written by Edmond Rostand, the audience comes to hold dearly the heart of the protagonist, Cyrano a strong man with a rather gargantuan nose. It is through discussions and insults concerning his physical attributes that the audience discovers he is in fact in love with the woman he has held close to his heart for many friendly years, his cousin Roxane. Completely unbeknownst to Roxane, Cyrano’s love and admiration for her is not simply on a relative scale as she perceives it to be, but rather the much more drastic level of physical, emotional, and intellectual attraction. As the play is centered on the life of Cyrano, the audience comes to understand the sincerity of the love he feels and devotion he has for his relative and ultimately concludes that he is in fact worthy of the affection from the woman he truly adores. However, is Roxane truly worthy of such a man’s adulation, when in fact her unattainability ever steadily nibbles at Cyrano’s heart making him ultimately feel undeserving of her?