1. Defining the play 1.1 Setting
17th century Paris.. 1.2 Theme
The primary friendship featured in The Three Musketeers is between four young gentlemen devoted to the King. Their friendship allows them to combine forces and defeat evil powers that might... 1.5 Genre Fiction
2. Structure 2.1 Exposition D’Artagnan arrives in Paris with almost no money, hoping to become a Musketeer. A penniless youth arrives in the city who has a lot of pride and mad sword fighting skills, so let’s see how he makes out in the sophisticated world of 17th century Paris.. 2.2 Rising action
D’Artagnan fights with the Musketeers against the Cardinal’s Guards, and makes friends with said Musketeers. D’Artagnan’s pride leads him to challenge three different Musketeers to a duel. He schedules them back-to-back, but before the first fight can commence, the Cardinal’s Guards ride up and attempt to arrest them. (Dueling is illegal, but everyone does it anyway). The four men decide to take a stand and resist arrest. It ends up being quite a good fight, with the Musketeers plus D’Artagnan victorious. A friendship is born. This is the Conflict stage because the conflict has been firmly established between the royalists and the cardinalists. Being on the side of the royalists, D’Artagnan gets to make friends with other royalists, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the greater conflict that frames the novel.
2.3 Climax
D’Artagnan’s trickery of Milady. D’Artagnan sleeps with Milady pretending to be the Comte de Wardes, then sleeps with her as himself. Milady pressures him to kill the Comte de Wardes. Believing that she loves him for himself and not his prowess with the sword, D’Artagnan confesses that he had pretended to be the Comte de Wardes.
Milady is furious and tries to kill D’Artagnanback to the Queen. (That person would be D’Artagnan.) Our penniless youth’s life has gotten complicated in a hurry.
2.4 Falling action
Our four