The History Behind Dumas and The Musketeers

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Alexandre Dumas lived in the 1800s, 1802-1870 to be exact, and the stories written by him were usually based on historical content.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.