In other words, she has some tenderness and is not completely hardened and calculating. She does befriend an old duke, apparently without any of the relations that the other men pay her for, because she resembles a daughter of his who has died. Most of her clients are noblemen or wealthy businessmen. Virtually the entire story is a flashback told by Armand to our narrator.Īrmand is clearly a naïf and out of his league when he tries to gain Marguerite’s attention and win her love. Eventually, Armand tracks our narrator down because he is looking for the book he gave Marguerite. He notes that someone has placed fresh camellias on it. Our narrator hears about Marguerite, and out of curiosity he visits her grave. Clearly the book was given to demonstrate how Armand felt about Marguerite, that he knew about her occupation but loved her anyhow.

Because of the story frame of the estate sale, we know right from the beginning that Marguerite has died.

La Dame aux Camélias is similar to Manon Lescaut except that Armand is from a prosperous middle-class family, and it appears that Marguerite is the one who has to give up more. He has to renounce his title and leave France. The man, the noble Chevalier des Grieux, naturally scandalizes his family. Manon Lescaut is an eighteenth-century French novel about a courtesan who gives up her occupation and even France for the man she loves. He hears some things about her and, being a writer, is drawn to a copy of Manon Lescaut which is inscribed to her by someone named Armand. Our narrator does not really know much about her until he attends her estate sale.

She normally carries a bouquet or corsage of camellias, hence her name. She appears in the various Parisian theaters in the evening to make her assignations.

She lives a luxurious life in mid-nineteenth-century Paris. The main character of the novel is named Marguerite. The stage adaptation is sometimes called Camille, which is a word play on the title. Like Les Miserables, the title normally keeps its French name even in English. Dumas, fils, mostly wrote plays, including an adaptation of this novel. All three men had the same first and last name. He was the son of the famous novelist ( The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, etc.) and the grandson of the Napoleonic general. The author is Alexandre Dumas, fils, that is Alexandre Dumas, Jr. The author and title require a bit of explanation.

La dame aux camelias la traviata