Three Musketeers

At this point I have already finished 2 books, and I'm almost done with the 3rd one. I decided to switch out the 2nd book with a Jane Austen novel. I'll talk about that one tomorrow with my interpretation of the 3rd book.

For right now, I'll give you my table of post-its as promised and an interpretation of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I would give a summary, but it's unnecessary since I explain basically everything that happens within the interpretation.

There could've been a lot more post-its, but this book dragged a lot of times. Anyways, on with my interpretation. So, to understand what I thought of the book let's reference real facts and have a lesson in literature today. I would talk about it's history, but I believe that sometimes the history of the period the book was written in overshawdows the "awesomeness" of the book by itself. I will say this: keep in mind that the book was written in the late 18th century and that Alexandre Dumas was a French writer. Remember the religious turmoil and how women were viewed back then. And especially remember the rivalry between England and France. Alright, on with the....literary interpretation.

This book falls under the Romantic Genre. What is romanticism you may ask? You've probably heard it before, but describing the era or music. It's a little different for literature. The romantic novels has several characteristics, which I will go over and relate how it's apparent in The Three Musketeers.

Romantic Characteristics:

 1. Imagination and emotion are more important over anything else. This is important in the sense that D'Artagnan is ruled by his emotions. Even though his Father at the beginning of the story tells him to keep his head straight, he continues to get into fights because he feels insulted and for the 2nd half of the book in falls into worse love triangles than the Bermuda Triangle.

2. Intuition is more valued than rules and regulations. This is seen with M. de Treville. He has no reason to hire or take D'Artagnan as a potential musketeer. But he feels as if it is necessary and he has a good feel about D'Artagnan.

3. Rebellion and Revolution are key.  This is very obvious with the whole Cardinal ordeal. How the musketeers are against him and don't listen to him even though relgious figures (especially Cardinals) have greater authority than the King sometimes.

4. There's an emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy, and sadness. Athos, one of the most important of the three musketeers, is the exemplefication of this characteristic. He is intellectual and highly intuitive. Yet, he holds this great melencholy for which no one knows until towards the end of the story where the whole feel of the book changes to match Athos melancholy.

5. Freedom from rules. This is the book's story. Yes, the Musketeers work on M. de Treville, but they have a lot of freedom to do what they want and how they want it.

 Romanticism's key elements

1. Quest: This is the mission of the musketeers. The musketeers quest changes 3 times in the story. The first quest was to save the queen from her humiliation. The second quest was to save D'Artagnan's love interest Madame Bonacieux. When she died, the last quest was to kill Milady or Lady de Winter.

2. Love: This is obviously apparent with Aramis and his secret lover and the reason why he wanted to join the Church. D'Artagnan is somewhat of a casanova in this book. And Porthos has an affair with his attronye's rich wife. Whom he ends up marrying after the mysterious death of the mentioned attorney. Can you guess what happened?

3. Immorality: This is a tricky subject within romantic literature because a lot of people want to deny this quality within novels. However, it is apparent and I agree with it being a key element. The heroes of the novel are supposed to be chikvarious and morally correct, right? Well, some of the their actions are questionable. For example, towards the end of the novel they capture Lady de Winter and put her on trial. There are 10 men giving trial to one women. All of them accuse of her several things, and Porthos and one other man are acting as judge. Is this a fair trial? Later, they sentence her to death, so the headsmen cuts her head off despite her writhing and pleas of forgiveness. Don't you think this is wrong despite what she did? What did she do, you want to know...well, she was originally a nun who convinced the main priest to runaway with her and steal the Churh's communion plate. She told him she loved him, but never meant it. For in the next town they espcaped to she "fell in love" with Athos (this explains is mysterious sadness). She leaves Athos and made him believe he killed her. He did try to hang her because she was a fraud, but she faked her own death. She then marred Lord de Winter, and killed his brother. Later she makes love to D'Artagnan and then wants him dead when he didn't want to kill someone for her. When she couldn't kill him, she kills Madame Bonacieux, D'Artagnan's love. Even with all these love tirnagles, she somehow managed to ignite the Cardinalistic war and kill the Duke of Buckingham.

Do you still think she deserved what she got? Maybe, but are you going to tell me the heroes of this story; D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, acted morally?

4. Chivalry: Of course the 4 main men are chivalrous and 2 out of the three quests were to save women.

5. Narrative eventfulness: This is the dramatic portion of the novel. With the above descrfiption of Lady de Winter it's obvious how much drama this book contained. Can you believe that Lady de Winter's transgressions is only about 7 chapters out of the entire book?

6. stock characters: Stock characters are the one without real names. The inkeeper, mistress, etc. They're just there to show some familiar qualities that way the reader doesn't feel like the book is purely fantasy-like.

7. relgions: Dumas makes this VERY obvious with the Cardinal's involvement and how he's the number one antagonist. And the Protestant war and all that.

So, there you go. My first book on my reading adventure. Sorry, this one's a little lame, but the book was super long, and it reminded me more of an epic novel than a romantic one.