The Scarlet Pimpernel 's Symbolism
In 1880, as the fifteen-year-old daughter of an extremely wealthy Hungarian family, the Baroness Emmuska Orczy moved to England. After her marriage to another wealthy land-owner, she and her husband visited Paris. This visit prompted a sense of horror of the French Revolution and a probable inspiration for her famous historical novel, The Scarlet Pimpernel. Peter Royston, in his biographical article, points out that she took her subjects from history, believed in valor and honor, and interestingly, always wanted to be the hero (www.portwashington.com). The main character of her famous novel, Sir Percy Blakeney, is an affluent Englishman who reveals gallantry and compassion in his escapades between England
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The scarlet pimpernel, as a pseudonym and as his icon, are a prime use of metaphor. and as a flower are symbolic of multiple elements that are crucial to the development of the novel. The flower, the scarlet pimpernel, grows in beautiful shades of red, blue, and yellow, with the predominant color being scarlet red. Originating in England, it naturally spread to Europe. Sir Percy, like the flower, grew up in England and migrated to France. The parallels between the Sir Percy and the flower do not stop there. Even though it is pleasing to the eyes, people most often view the flower as a bothersome weed in much the same way the revolutionaries view their arch enemy, Sir Percy - aka, the Scarlet Pimpernel. The flower itself, the seeds, and the roots are poisonous to animals as well as humans. Research has shown that the shoots contain toxic called saponins and the roots contain cyclamens. People can get negative reactions from merely touching the plant. In the same way people do not like the scarlet pimpernels for their toxicity, the revolutionaries and the President of the Committee of Public Safety, Chauvelin, dislike the audacious Scarlet Pimpernel. As the scarlet pimpernel grows so rapidly and deeply, so grows the Scarlet Pimpernel 's ego, fame, and