Essay Database

Cyrano de Bergerac - The play's protagonist, a poet, swordsman, philosopher, playwright, musician, and member of the Cadets of Gascoyne, a company of guards from Southern France. For all his prodigious talents, he is cursed with a ridiculously long nose, which keeps him from revealing his love for his cousin Roxane This is certainly the case with Cyrano de Bergerac. Edmond Rostand's historical romance is a masterpiece of heroic storytelling, larger-than-life characters, and impeccable comic …

…has become a symbol of both his nobility and a reminder of its consequences. Cyrano dies fighting unconquerable vices, but he dies knowing that Roxane loves him at last, despite his appearance. And he says he will take his unstained white plume with him to heaven--the white plume, the mark of a leader on the battlefield, the symbol of courage and of what Cyrano called in the Fourth Act "the privilege / Of being a target."