Critical Analysis Of Cyrano De Bergerac

It’s the little things that count. This saying rings true for anything that comes on the path of life. From birth, to graduation, to the first paycheck, to retirement, to death… Even through all of the huge milestones passed throughout our lives, the little things count the most and we feel the most gratitude for them. This is present in Edmond Rostand’s romantic and tragic play, Cyrano de Bergerac, where the main protagonist Cyrano, develops a strong lust for his cousin, Roxane, over the course of 15 years and hides his secret love from her every week he visits her. However, after unfortunately injured from a brutal attack, Cyrano begins to physically and mentally deteriorate as he reevaluates his life decisions. As Cyrano’s condition worsens

when he speaks to Roxane for the last time, Rostand skillfully expresses how Cyrano’s gradual death helps illuminate the human experience of the play as it teaches the audience that acceptance allows one to feel more gratitude and appreciation for both people in one’s life and within himself.
After choosing to close Cyrano’s tragic story in his death scene, Rostand portrays Cyrano as appreciative and grateful for his life and Roxane’s presence, communicating to the audience that accepting fate will only allow one’s gratitude for a person to bloom. When Cyrano arrives late to his meeting with Roxane at the nunnery, he says he was delayed because of “an untimely visit” with “an old acquaintance” who he has “met on the battlefield” before, personifying his impending death as his visitor (Rostand V,V). By comparing the sudden death’s arrival to a “visit,” Rostand conveys that Cyrano is protecting Roxane from pain, because the last thing he wants is for her to worry about him. The word “visit” connotes a welcoming and inviting feeling, which contrasts death completely, as death is commonly associated with isolation and misery. Rostand uses these complete opposites to express the length of Cyrano’s efforts to create a more positive atmosphere before he passes. He also utilizes this contrast to emphasize how much Cyrano cares for Roxane and how he wants to put on a fake face on the outside so as to not worry Roxane, meanwhile he is hurting immensely on the inside from the physical pain produced from the attack.

Furthermore, he compares death to an “old acquaintance” of his and almost makes the two terms synonymous, as an acquaintance is a person who is a slightly close friend and has an unknown and mysterious connotation, which is similar to the obscurity of death. When he tells Roxane who the “acquaintance” was, Cyrano describes how they “met on the battlefield,” meaning that he came close to dying while fighting, also expressing how both death and him would meet again––indirectly stating that moment. Rostand’s purpose for this extreme contrast in ideas reveals how much Cyrano truly cared for Roxane. Hurting on the inside with the true reality of his upcoming death, but hiding it well on the outside, Cyrano still continued to accept his death and chose to use the comparison with a more lively approach, while concealing his truth and not drawing Roxane’s attention. Also, Cyrano almost uses this personification to brush off the fact that he is dying; he respects their limited time together and wants to fulfill his last moments with Roxane without any pain or arguments. Once

Cyrano accepts his fate, the audience can distinguish that he shifts his focus from thinking about his death onto spending his last few hours in Roxane’s presence, indicating that he is already grateful for Roxane even if they are not together as a couple in love. In addition, Cyrano expresses respect and appreciation for Roxane’s presence when he says, “I’ve at least had a woman’s friendship, a gracious presence to soften the harsh loneliness of my life” (V,VI). When he says “at least,” Cyrano claims that the bare minimum he has received from women has only been from Roxane, as Cyrano has never grabbed the attention of a woman based on his physical appearance, not even his mother, thus, loneliness has become a major issue in his life. He felt so excluded and lonely from women that by solely Roxane’s “gracious” presence, he finally felt happiness and she relieved his “harsh loneliness” he had experienced. Moreover, just from Cyrano’s persistence and consistency of his weekly visits ultimately display his loyalty and devotion to Roxane. Although Cyrano did not receive much love and affection from women, Rostand emphasizes something so little like his appreciation for Roxane’s presence in order to convey the message that Cyrano is grateful and appreciative for the things he does have. Previously, he would not have been as grateful for something so small, but because of his physical state, he realizes that accepting that he is going to die will allow himself to appreciate everything he has in his life at the moment, no matter its size of importance. By protecting Roxane from pain and appreciating her presence, Cyrano’s imminent death teaches the audience that accepting fate will allow one to feel gratitude for another person.
During his death scene, as Cyrano grows thankful for Roxane’s presence in his life, he accepts death as his outcome and finds ways to be grateful and content within himself, sending the message that acceptance reveals appreciation within oneself.

This message is evident when Cyrano observes the beautiful autumn leaves falling and states, “Despite their terror of rotting on the ground, they give their fall the grace of flight” (V,V). When he says “terror,” Cyrano is relating the leaves’ terror to his own, as he is afraid of dying and leaving the earth; he can personally relate to the leaves as they act as a timer that coincides with Cyrano’s death clock, once the leaves all die, so will Cyrano as well. Furthermore, using such a strong word of “rotting,” a visual image comes to mind of something lifeless, inanimate, and shriveled up on the ground, obviously associating with death. However, Cyrano finds a positive out of the dead leaves when he says that “[the leaves gave] their fall the grace of flight,” explaining that he sees not just the end point of the dead leaves and instead he saw the journey getting there––when the leaves were still falling from the top of the tree. Additionally, he uses the word “grace,” to describe the journey because it carries a light, fluffy, and peaceful connotation, expressing the contentedness of Cyrano’s life at that moment with Roxane right before he dies, or “rots” away. This idea of the journey of the live leaves and destination of the

dead leaves relates to Cyrano’s acceptance of his fate, as he chooses to focus on the journey of the leaf, rather than the end of the journey, where the leaf already dies. He does not want to focus on the fears he has of death and suffering, so instead he wants to look at the world for the last time through a more positive lens to see and appreciate the journey. In another instance, Cyrano speaks to what he imagines as death and how it “robbed [him] of everything” except his “white plume” (V,VI). During this iconic speech, Cyrano battles it out, calling out the qualities of his that restricted himself from being the best person he could have been, however, near the end, he does not place all of his troubles onto himself and says that his “white plume” is still intact. Out of all the worst qualities that held him back and prevented him from reaching his glory he desired, he still managed to find some positivity out of it. This “white plume” represents the untarnished purity of his pride, as a plume is a feather on a military helmet which symbolizes honor and courage, and because white is a color of purity. By accepting the fact that he prevented himself from reaching his own goals, Cyrano gains a sense of self-independence because his plume is his own, which thus, is his honor and courage, and no one can ever take that away from him. Moments before his death, Cyrano blames his own qualities that restricted him from his desires, but still keeps a positives sense of pride within himself, thus, the audience can understand the message that acceptance reveals appreciation within oneself.
Overall, Edmond Rostand utilizes Cyrano’s gradual death scene in the play, Cyrano de Bergerac, to help illuminate the human experience of the play as he teaches readers that acceptance allows one to feel gratitude and appreciation for both people in one’s life and within himself. From comparisons to word choice and more in between, Rostand chose his language carefully, in order to convey the most meaningful message about appreciating the little things in life. Gratitude is not only meant for yourself and your loved ones though, appreciate your friends, your waiters, the person who holds the door for you, because you never know if they are struggling with acceptance, grief, or denial.