![Book Cover of Camille](/image/book/camille.webp)
Camille
'Camille' Summary
Alexandre Dumas fils when he was 23 years old, and first published in 1848, La Dame aux Camélias is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's brief love affair with a courtesan, Marie Duplessis. Set in mid-19th-century France, the novel tells the tragic love story between fictional characters Marguerite Gautier, a demimondaine or courtesan suffering from consumption, and Armand Duval, a young bourgeois.[6] Marguerite is nicknamed la dame aux camélias (French for ''the lady of the camellias'') because she wears a red camellia when she is menstruating and unavailable for making love and a white camelia when she is available to her lovers.
Armand falls in love with Marguerite and ultimately becomes her lover. He convinces her to leave her life as a courtesan and to live with him in the countryside. This idyllic existence is interrupted by Armand's father, who, concerned with the scandal created by the illicit relationship, and fearful that it will destroy Armand's sister's chances of marriage, convinces Marguerite to leave. Until Marguerite's death, Armand believes that she left him for another man. Marguerite's death is described as an unending agony, during which Marguerite, abandoned by everyone, regrets what might have been.
The story is narrated after Marguerite's death by two men, Armand and an unnamed frame narrator. Some scholars believe that both the fictional Marguerite's illness and real life Duplessis's publicized cause of death, "consumption", was a 19th-century euphemism for syphilis, as opposed to the more common meaning of tuberculosis. Dumas fils is careful to paint a favourable portrait of Marguerite, who despite her past is rendered virtuous by her love for Armand, and the suffering of the two lovers, whose love is shattered by the need to conform to the morals of the times, is rendered touchingly. In contrast to the Chevalier des Grieux's love for Manon in Manon Lescaut (1731), a novel by Abbé Prévost referenced at the beginning of La Dame aux Camélias, Armand's love is for a woman who is ready to sacrifice her riches and her lifestyle for him, but who is thwarted by the arrival of Armand's father. The novel is also marked by the description of Parisian life during the 19th century and the fragile world of the courtesan.
Book Details
Author
![Alexandre Dumas fils image](/thumbs/image/author/alexandre-dumas-fils.webp)
Alexandre Dumas fils
France
In the realm of French literature, Alexandre Dumas fils stands as a towering figure, renowned for his captivating novels and plays that explored themes of love, morality, and social commentary. Born i...
More on Alexandre Dumas filsDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
![A Florentine Tragedy and La Sainte Courtisane Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/a-florentine-tragedy-and-la-sainte-courtisane.webp)
A Florentine Tragedy and La Sainte Courtisane by Oscar Wilde
Two short fragments: an unfinished and a lost play. A Florentine Tragedy, left in a taxi (not a handbag), is Wilde’s most successful attempt at traged...
![The Gamester Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-gamester.webp)
The Gamester by Edward Moore
"Gambling can be a dangerous addiction, and it can destroy lives." The Gamester by Edward Moore is a play about the dangers of gambling. The play tel...
![Bajazet Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/bajazet.webp)
Bajazet by Jean Racine
"The time to which this tragedy relates is much later than that of any other of Racine's historical plays. The capture of Babylon (or rather Bagdad) f...
![The Seats of The Mighty Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-seats-of-the-mighty.webp)
The Seats of The Mighty by Gilbert Parker
The Seats of the Mighty is a novel published in 1896 by Gilbert Parker. It was first published in serial form in The Atlantic starting in March 1895,...
![When We Dead Awaken Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/when-we-dead-awaken.webp)
When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen
The first act takes place outside a spa overlooking a fjord. Sculptor Arnold Rubek and his wife Maia have just enjoyed breakfast and are reading newsp...
![A Yorkshire Tragedy Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/a-yorkshire-tragedy.webp)
A Yorkshire Tragedy by Thomas Middleton
A Yorkshire Tragedy is an early Jacobean era stage play, a domestic tragedy . The play was originally assigned to William Shakespeare, though the mode...
![The Clandestine Marriage Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-clandestine-marriage.webp)
The Clandestine Marriage by David Garrick
It tells the story of a young woman named Miss Fanny Sterling, who is caught between her love for a poor but charming suitor and the pressures of her...
![Orra Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/orra.webp)
Orra by Joanna Baillie
"Orra is a young woman who is cursed with the power of second sight. She can see into the future, but her visions are often dark and disturbing. Orra...
![Athaliah Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/athaliah.webp)
Athaliah by Jean Racine
In the ancient kingdom of Judah, a relentless battle for power ensues, shrouded in a web of ambition, loyalty, and divine intervention. Jean Racine's...
Reviews for Camille
No reviews posted or approved, yet...