Online discussion: Morality

The Three Musketeers is a book in which the reader sees how young men constantly throw themselves in danger. When someone dies, everyone is upset and feeling remorse, but that doesn’t stop them from going out there and almost dieing again. This willingness to go out and get away with near death time and time again give the reader a sense that they are invincible when they really are not. If they have ideals, they are worth giving their lives up to follow these ideas.


http://www.shmoop.com/theme/literature/alexandre-dumas/the-three-musketeers/mortality.html

Allusions:

Ø The candy bar called Three Musketeers
Ø Disney adapted a movie with the same title
Ø Cyrano de Bergenac is full of allusions that revolve around what was going on in the Three Musketeers

Character Growth

D’artagan was the character to grow most in The Three Musketeers. He came into the novel as a young man who knew what he wanted, but had no personal way of obtaining it, only a recommendation from his father. Over time he grew in to one of the most reputable swordsmen in France and in doing so gained his admittance into the musketeers through personal means and showed everybody that he could actually make it there and wasn’t a fruit cake.

Classic…. Why?

This book is a classic on many levels. It is a great novel in itself, with a story line of fictional characters thrown in with actual historical truth. It took place in the late 1600’s. This creates an exciting storyline throughout the whole book, which is masterfully written by Dumas. This story was the prototype for the genre it was from; it laid the foundation for the rest of the swashbuckling, sword fighting type of books. This book was the first famous work by Dumas, and he went on to make a series out of it, then several other famous works. The book excites us and makes us want to believe that people are as trustworthy as D’artagan and could come over danger as well as the friends just walked over it.

Summary:

We meet D’artangan making his way to the city of Paris. There he plans to join the musketeers via a letter that he has in his pocket from his father. This plan gets shot down when he is assaulted in the town of meug by a man. D’artagan gets the crap beat out of him and in the next morning wakes up to find his letter gone and his way into the musketeers gone also. When he finally gets to Paris, he runs into 3 musketeers; Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. These three are friends and he proposes a dual with each of them 15 minutes later than the last. When they finally get around to dueling, each of the friends brings the other as a backup. When this is realized, they get into a fight with the cardinals guards. This makes them friends and the cardinal hates them. As the story progresses, D’artagan falls in love with a beautiful young lady. Her husband betrays her to the cardinal for money and D’artagan searches for her throughout the book. Historically this book is actually very accurate. The queen of England is having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke is laying siege to the kingdom of France. The Cardinal uses his most prolific spy, a Lady Winter to expose this by taking two diamond studs off a necklace that the queen gave to the Duke. Realizing this, the Queen sends the four friends on a mission to get the studs back, and all but D’artagan are left on the road from fights that they picked while D’artagan ran on with the letter. This plan foils the plot of the Cardinal, and the queen is saved. Shortly afterward D’artagan’s mistress is kidnapped out of a hotel that they were going to share for the night. While doing this he attempts to seduce the Lady Winter, but falls in love with her instead and almost bones her until he sees that she had a brand on her shoulder, which signifies adultery and crime. Then he runs away while she tries to kill him with a knife, which is followed by several other attempts on his life. By this time Athos has found out that Milady Winter is really his ex-wife that he thought had died when he hung her. Milady Winter is then sent to England to kill the duke, but her Brother-in-law catches her before she gets to shore and takes her back to his mansion where she will be imprisoned for fourteen days, then sent to Africa to live in exile. She seduces a guard, sends him to go kill the Duke, and runs away back to France. There she meets D’artagan’s lover who was stolen from the Cardinal by the Queen. Lady Winter becomes good friends with her through trickery and deception. They know that D’artagan and the friends are coming there within a day because they received a letter from them and Milady Winter gets scared because she knows that D’artagan, Athos, and Lord Winter will kill her without a doubt. When she married Lord Winter’s brother in law, it took about two days for him to die of poison. The friends storm the house, and Lady Winter rushes out, but not before poisoning Mrs. Beanux, D’artagan’s lover. She dies in his arms and the Lord Winter rushes in right after the friends get there. They chase Lady Winter down, and on the way they pick up and executioner. They see the Lady through a lighted window and surround the house. Athos approaches the window and she freaks out, but when she opens the door to leave D’artagan is there. They take her out and forgive her for her crimes against them, then chop her head off.

Online discussion: The Author

The Author
Alexander Dumas, the writer of The Three Musketeers, led a very interesting and complicated life. The son of a major general in Napoleon’s army, he lost his dad when he was the age of four. At first Alexander tried to become a lawyer in the house of Duc d’Orleans. While he was there he kept writing plays and drama, and eventually got himself trapped into a liaison with the dressmaker Marie Catherine Labay, with whom they had the next Alexander Dumas. In the 1840’s Dumas produced with which his fame rests. He did this by having some of his co-workers go find information on the subject and write the outline of the story and then he would finish writing the play. He wrote many famous books, but the best one in my opinion would be The Three Musketeers. This book is a classic sword in hand novel that emphasizes all the good things about French people. His other famous novels were: Count of Monte Cristo, and a series about the last Valios Kings. He eventually built a home and a theater for his own use. The theater was failing and so was his means, but as the French revolution was coming he had to leave, and therefore got time to get his financial needs in order. He dies in his son’s house on December 5, 1870.


Masterplots cyclopedia of world authors, fifteen hundred and ten, 1958, pg:321