General Question

punkrockworld's avatar

Who is most guilty in the play "Cyrano De Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand?

Asked by punkrockworld (960points) May 31st, 2010
19 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

who is most culpable?

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Answers

Jeruba's avatar

<sniff sniff> Homework?

gailcalled's avatar

Guilty of what?

dpworkin's avatar

Between which characters over which incident? Have you read it yet?

gailcalled's avatar

And you need to ask that question with more panache.

Jeruba's avatar

And then, as you end the refrain, thrust home.

Nullo's avatar

Your question indicates that there are multiple miscreants embroiled in varying degrees of misbehavior. My advice is to find the one that you think is the least culpable (or perhaps the most amusingly culpable), and build a case for why that person ought to bear the bulk of the guilt in the story. If you’re really good at BSing, try making the case that nobody is guilty of anything. For added challenge, do it without resorting to relativism.

Do it right, and your teacher will heap laud upon your humility’s back so that it breaks.

There are ways of sculpting a homework question so that its odor does not offend @jeruba’s delicate nose. Like not mentioning that it’s a play, or that it’s by Edmond Rostand. In this way, you will more likely come across as someone who knows the material and is looking for others who also enjoy Rostand’s work.

MissA's avatar

@Nullo
Now, how will the adults weed out the homework assignments?

No fair, no fair.

Nullo's avatar

@MissA My apologies. The artlessness of the OP’s ploy was too annoying to leave unaddressed. Perhaps future inquiries will at least not stick out quite so much.

Jeruba's avatar

I think the only person who isn’t guilty of something is Ragueneau. Cyrano is guilty of deception and vanity, Christian of deception and shallowness, Roxane of shallowness and vanity, De Guiche of pomposity and vindictiveness, Le Bret of… hmm. Maybe Le Bret isn’t guilty either.

Good play. Worth reading at least a dozen times.

@Nullo, I’ll smell ‘em anyway.

dpworkin's avatar

Don’t forget: Rostand is guilty of mawkishness toward the end of the play.

gailcalled's avatar

And Gerard Dépardieu is guilty of being much more attractive than whoever played that twit, Christian, in the 1990 movie.

janbb's avatar

Oh, Cyrano is the guiltiest – he’s way too nosey!

dpworkin's avatar

A cape? A crag? Nay! Say rather a peninsula!

janbb's avatar

What is that receptacle – a razor case or a portfolio?

Jeruba's avatar

No Cyrano will ever best José Ferrer, with that thrilling voice: “Along my veins…Roxane…”

The scene.

janbb's avatar

Not even Steve Martin? ~

Jeruba's avatar

hmph

gailcalled's avatar

Any play originally written in French must be anglicized only by actors from the UK who trained at the Royal Shakespeare. I found the Steve Martin movie annoying. It might have been better had he the arrow sticking through his head.

Jeruba's avatar

But the Brian Hooker translation is superb, a work of literature in itself and better than Anthony Burgess’s, and the 1950 film with Ferrer follows it so closely that the differences are immaterial.

I have walked out on bad performances of Cyrano, a drama that captivated my heart when I was about 14 (identifying romantically as I did with the heroic noble misunderstood outsider) and which I still love for sentimental reasons, mawkishness notwithstanding.

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