I'm going to be honest, I didn't do much of the independent reading this week, so I decided to make a post about some of the history of Alexandre Dumas and the Three Musketeers.
Alexandre Dumas lived in the 1800s, 1802-1870 to be exact, and the stories written by him were usually based on historical content. Dumas used historical facts, usually from the 1600s, and created stories that didn't necessarily follow the actual facts. Many characters in his books were actual people. Dumas' novels are very fast paced, and includes romance, action, adventure, comedy, suspense and drama. These characteristics are very important in a story when speaking of heroism, because when people think of heroes they think of action, and Dumas does a great job incorporating those characteristics to show the heroism in The Three Musketeers.
According to the website www.dictionary.com, a musketeer is a soldier armed with a musket. The French musketeers were the royal bodyguards through the 17th and 18th centuries. In the book, the three musketeers are not once referred to as using a musket at any time in the book. I believe that Dumas kept the muskets out of the story to emphasize the heroic values of the characters. It is much more heroic to fight someone with a sword with the concept of "survivor of the fittest" or "may the best man win" than to go into a duel and blow the opponent's head off with a musket.
Friday, December 7
The History Behind Dumas and The Musketeers
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2 comments:
I like how you use the writer’s technique and the type of genre that he writes to explain the effect on the portrayal of heroism. It might have been better if there was another example of how the writer tries to develop heroism in the book. Also I was a little confused with the part where you said that his stories were based on historical content and that he used facts and then said that he didn’t necessarily follow the facts. It seemed like you were saying that Dumas’ novels have two contradictory characteristics.
I liked how you made a mention why Dumas called the people the three musketeers when they did not use guns. Swords are long considered symbols of honor which I think the three musketeers and D’ Artagnan are all striving for. That might be what Dumas is trying to show by replacing the guns with swords.
Nice job, Vitor. Just make sure not to rely too heavily on summary for the bulk of your posting. You are thoughtful, as usual, however, which is a quality i appreciate in you.
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