A Sense of Kinship Through Characters

Most stories, books or movies have a protagonist that drives the story forward with supporting characters who help the plot be interesting. There’s exceptions to this where the plot is driven through a supporting character instead of the protagonist. One such example of this is the play Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Cyrano De Bergerac is a play about a love triangle between a war hero named Cyrano, his love interest named Roxanne and his peer named Christian. Cyrano fell in love with Roxanne but he was often considered ugly by the general public.

So Roxanne fell in love with Christian, a handsome man with a low to none intellect. If Cyrano De Bergerac and Roxane were our only two main characters, the plot would be very linear; the addition of Christian primarily drives the plot forward and makes the play interesting, therefore Christian is the most significant character apart from the protagonist.

The first and most obvious factor that shows that Christian is a very significant character to the play is that without his presence the classic ‘love triangle’ in the play would not occur.

The audience/ readers are introduced to Christian through Ligniere in Scene 1 .II. In Christian’s first scene we learn a lot about him through people’s reaction to him. Quotes like “‘Tis a pretty fellow” and “He is not ill to look at…” clearly indicates that Christian is very handsome. In the same scene we also learn a key element about the plot, which is the affection Christian has for Roxanne.

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This is important because this is what drives the main plot forward by creating subtle tension. The tension occurs because we already know that Cyrano De Bergerac has feelings for Roxanne. Therefore, we had one of the most significant ‘love triangles’ in literary history.

Characters are built by authors to spark a sense of relatability in the audience, so that they can feel more deeply what the characters are going through. Christian is a part of the play many viewers/readers can relate with. Oftentimes people in relationships or in love have difficulty expressing love, this could be out of anxiety or just incapability of articulating their emotions. “No! For I am one of those men who are tongue-tied. I don’t know how to speak my love to a woman…Oh, to be able to express my thoughts with grace!…Roxane is so intelligent. I’m sure to prove a disappointment to her!” (Act II, Scene X). We see Christian’s struggle to express his love without help throughout the play. We know his feelings towards Roxanne are very real but his ability to form those emotions into words is very weak. This relates to many relationships where communications are one sided or not present at all, or could relate to people shying away from expressing their love for someone out of their insecurities.

One of the big reasons why Cyrano De Bergerac was a popular play was the comedic intelligence of Edmond Rostand. Christian’s significant to the plot because without him the story would be mild and linear, and would also lose a lot of its classic comedic elements or scenes. In Christian’s absence, the story would consist of Cyrano confessing his love to Roxanne, and her falling in love with his artistic/poetic beauty; with Christian’s presence, Cyrano has to overcome several different obstacles making the play interesting and fun to watch. One of the obstacles Cyrano had to face because of Christian was the famous scene 3. VI. In this scene we see Cyrano trying to help Christian after Christian thought he could have talked to Roxanne alone. Consequently, when he messed up, Cyrano came to help by saying “All can be repaired…Fronting the balcony! I’ll go beneath. And prompt you for the words. ” Scenes like these are what made this play so impactful, and Christian had a big part in that.

The love triangle between Christian, Cyrano and Roxanne has been engraved into literary history. It has become very prototypical and therefore has had many plays, stories or novels inspired by it. Edmond Rostand made this through his expert characterization. “ Christian: If only I had some eloquence!…Cyrano: I’ll lend you mine! If you’ll lend me your handsome face! Blended together, we’ll make one romantic hero!”(Act II, Scene X). He characterized every character with their pros and cons which go alongside each other and complement each other. Hence, without Christians impeccable looks, Cyrano’s big nose would not be as big of a deal. Christian’s addition to the play also makes the play a lot more relatable to people. It shows a part of love that many people deal with, which is what matters more: beauty or personality. Many at the time would have picked beauty, but the play wanted to portray otherwise. In act 4, scene 8 we see Roxane finally make a deicision between beauty and personality when she says “ It must be torture for any noble soul to be loved only for beauty. For beauty is a poor disguise that is soon worn threadbare by time. Your dear thoughts have outshined the handsome face that won me in the beginning. And now I see clearer. Now I no longer see your beauty at all!”. Christians outer beauty complements Cyrano’s artistic talent by teaching the audience that inner intelligence matters just as much, if not more, than outer beauty.

Another lesson the play subtly teaches the viewer is about insecurities, especially the insecurities that cannot be changed. As mentioned earlier, Christian is complementary to Cyrano in terms of assets to make the play more interesting by causing a dilemma for Roxanne but alongside that it also dives into the insecurities of our main protagonist. Cyrano De Bergerac famously has a big nose but it was only exploited when Christian came into the play. “

Roxane: His brow bears the stamp of genius. He’s proud, noble, young, fearless, handsome Cyrano: Handsome! Roxane: What is it? What’s the matter? Cyrano: Nothing. . . . It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s only a twinge of pain from this little scratch.” (Scene VI. II.). Cyrano’s vulnerability about his insecurity of his looks were shown when Christian (a man with blatantly better looks) was admired by someone he loved. In addition to that, Roxanne mainly admired Christian at the beginning of the play due to his looks which was the only aspect Cyrano lacked. This helped in many ways with the characterization of Cyrano, since the viewers saw his vulnerability. The viewers of the play saw a great warrior accept defeat without competing for Roxanne very easily as soon as one of his insecurities was exposed. This also showed the viewers the humanity of our tough protagonist. A character that can win a battle against a hundred men but also help Christian get the girl he wants just to see the girl happy. Alongside building Cyrano’s character, this also broke down one of literature’s classic tough-guy stereotypes. As a result of Christian’s presence, Cyrano is one of literature’s classic unorthodox tough-guys with soft hearts which lead to many characters in history being influenced by him.

Christian De Neuvillette from Cyrano De Bergerac does not only serve as a supporting character but instead is the most important role in the play by Edmond Rostand. Christian develops the characters around him, gives the play its admired features such as comedy and tension, helped the storyline become a benchmark for many works in the future and generated many topics and lessons that could relate back to the viewers’ lives. To conclude, this piece of classic literature would not hold its ‘classic’ status with the absence of Christian De Neuvillette, who I believe is the most significant character in the play.