Cyrano de Bergerac: Essay Topics
Choose a significant passage from Cyrano de Bergerac
and analyze its meaning in the context of the play as a whole. Analyze
the passage specifically and then step to discuss its importance to the
play as a whole.
1. Analyze the final passage of the play
(124-126). Use the following questions to help you focus your essay.
What does Cyrano’s final speech reveal about his character? Why won’t
Cyrano give up and die peacefully? What is the symbolism of the white
plume? What does the final line of the play signify? What has Cyrano
achieved by the end of the play? Has his life been in vain? Why does
Rostand end his play with this passage? Use specific lines from the
passage to support your points and be sure to analyze the passage in
the context of the play as a whole.
2. Analyze a passage
from the balcony scene (64-72). Use the following questions to help
you focus your essay. What does this passage reveal about Cyrano’s
character? Christian’s character? Roxane’s character? How does Cyrano
tell the Roxane the truth and why doesn’t she see it? Analyze the
figurative language and the style of the language of the passage. What
does this language reveal about the relationship between the three
characters? Why do you think this is such a famous scene? Use specific
lines from the passage to support your points and be sure to analyze
the passage in the context of the play as a whole.
3.Analyze the
poem-duel scene (21-22). What is happening in this scene? What are the
characters thinking (in contrast to what they are saying)? What marks
the passage as remarkable? How is it important to the play as a whole?
What symbolism is found in the passage? How is irony or metaphor used
in the passage? What does it show about a Cyrano, Valvert, human
nature, life, or death? What themes does it develop? Why does Rostand
put this scene in the first act? Use specific lines from the passage to
support your points and be sure to analyze the passage in the context
of the play as a whole.