Symbolism In The Scarlet Pipnel

Ava Cook

Edwards

English 1

5 May 2023

A Hidden Hero A mysterious hero is helping aristocrats escape France, but who is this hero? Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s mystery novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel, takes place in France during the Reign of Terror. The era of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Sir Percy Blakeney, the wealthiest man in Europe, and his new wife Lady Marguerite Blakeney who is artistic and fashionable. Sir Andrew Foulkes is a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The Comtesse de Tournay and her daughter Suzanne de Tournay just escaped France with the help of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Allusions and flashbacks amplify that the person behind the mask is not who they are, and some people modify their identity to complete their

Throughout the story, different allusions are used. The character who is the Scarlet Pimpernel, hides behind a mask to help others. The main antagonist Chauvelin is trying to figure out the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity in the forms of blackmail and torture. In an attempt to find out the true identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Chauvelin laughed just like “Dante [told] us that the devils laugh at the sight of [the] torture” (Orczy 198). Since Chauvelin is the main antagonist, he is going to have an allusion to the devil because he is using violence to get an answer out of people. With an allusion to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, it provides more context to the story and

While Sir Percy Blakeney is the wealthiest man in all of Europe he is seen as an imbecile just like his mother who died during childbirth. He lived most of his childhood abroad because his father married a young woman. So during his childhood, his parents were absent for most of his life. Since he lived abroad, and was wealthy he was “educated and [he] grew up” (43). Because his mother was an imbecile and his father was distracted he never got a real childhood experience with his parents. After the death of his parents, he traveled abroad and found his wife, Marguerite. She was a smart woman and it is ironic because Sir Percy Blakeney was seen as stupid. The Scarlet Pimpernel is smart and clever and is helping French aristocrats escape France before they were executed. Many victims had done little violence and Sir Percy Blakeney was helping the aristocrats escape because “Thousands of aristocrats were [being] executed” (Moss). Since they were hardly violent, he had helped them escape because they had not done anything wrong to be a traitor and executed. When the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is revealed, it is a shock because it was Sir Percy. His wife was astonished because he was seen as stupid when the Scarlet Pimpernel was