Rebecca Hall's The Scarlet Pimpernel: Female Characters

In regards to many works of classic literature, actress Rebecca Hall once said “It's not often you get female characters who don't fit into a box." Hall is saying in this quote that all women in classic literature are boring, stereotypical, and all fit into the same “box”; however, in the novel The Scarlet Pimpernel, the female characters are but the opposite. Marguerite and the Comtesse are interesting because they are never forced into a box.

The Comtesse de Tournay, is an amazing mother and wife. Her top concern when she finally escapes war ridden France and makes it safely to England is to get her husband M. le Comte Tournay de Basserive safe to England as well; however, she knows that her children need her more. She left her husband behind because her children refused to leave the terror that is France without her. The men in the league of the Scarlet Pimpernel assure her that they will bring the Compt to England safely and the comtesse is overjoyed to

You can obviously see this in the way she addresses her husband Sir Percy Blakeney. She uses some obvious sarcasm when describing her husband’s “...witty sallies that would disarm even the Comtesse herself.” (Orczy 11), and she even describes her husband as a “dull englishman”, a “demmed idiot”, and a “fool” (Orzy 12). Others may think that she is kind because she bought a meal for a poor homeless man; however, this is the only nice deed we see her do throughout the first few chapters of the book. She is rude to the Comtesse and mimics her after she forbids her daughter Suzanne from speaking to her. Sir Percy Blakeney loves her, so much so the he literally kisses the ground she walks on, yet she still treats him bad. She, also angry of her brothers rejection to the family, bad mouthed Marquis de St. Cyr, a friend of the Comtesse, so badly that the whole family was sent to the