Literary Devices in The Three Musketeers
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Since The Three Musketeers is a work of historical fiction, its setting is pretty much center stage, 100% of the time. Dumas uses history for his own literary ends. For instance, in real life the D...
Narrator Point of View
This reflects the action-packed, plot-driven nature of the Three Musketeers. Although most of the action focuses on D’Artagnan, there are quite a few chapters that concern other characters. While...
Genre
Sword fighting + damsels in distress + narrow escapes from death = an adventure story. In The Three Musketeers, all the elements of a proper adventure story are present. But that would be way too e...
Tone
Lots of nightmarish events happen in The Three Musketeers. Several people are killed, including our hero’s true love. The people of La Rochelle are starving to death. The Queen is stuck in a love...
Writing Style
Dumas frequently manages to condense a lot of information into a small space. Masters are calling for their lackeys, notes are being sent all over town, and plots are being hatched while the conspi...
What’s Up With the Title?
First of all, the Musketeers were an elite French military unit charged with protecting the King. They were kind of like the Secret Service, except they could also go to war. The three Musketeers o...
What’s Up With the Ending?
In the conclusion, the brave friends slay an evil dragon (in this case, an evil-yet-hot woman named Milady) and settle down to enjoy the fruits of their success. It’s your basic happy ending. Yay...
Plot Analysis
D’Artagnan arrives in Paris with almost no money, hoping to become a Musketeer.A penniless youth arrives in the city who has a lot of pride and mad sword fighting skills, so let’s see how he m...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
Chapter One—Chapter Twenty-One This stage takes up just about the first half of the novel. We are distracted by other adversaries—the Man from Meung, Cardinal Richelieu. In Chapter One, our f...
Three Act Plot Analysis
D’Artagnan arrives in Paris with not much more than the big dreams of becoming a Musketeer.D’Artagnan becomes best friends with three Musketeers, and together the four of them have all sorts o...
Trivia
Alexandre Dumas wrote over 277 volumes in his lifetime. He didn’t write them alone, however—he collaborated. Chief among his collaborators was a history teacher named Auguste Maquet.Dumas fathe...
Steaminess Rating
Very James Bond, now that we think about it. Sex one night, fights to the death on the next. D’Artagnan seduces Milady’s maid, then sleeps with Milady pretending to be someone else, and then sl...
Allusions
Don Quixote, (1.3, 1.10), Rosinante (Don Quixote’s horse), (1.4)Achilles, Ajax, Joseph, (7.29) The Bible (9.7) Circe (36.26) If you want a good description of who Circe is, check out Shmoop's cov...