La Traviata

(A literary masterpiece created by French writer Alexandre Dumas)

"La Traviata" is the masterpiece of the famous French writer Alexandre Dumas. The story tells a tortuous and sad love story between a young man and a courtesan from Paris's upper class society. Through the love tragedy of a prostitute, the work reveals the corrupt life of the upper class of the French July Dynasty. A bloody and tearful indictment of the hypocritical morality of the aristocratic bourgeoisie. In the history of French literature, this is the first work in which a prostitute is the protagonist.

Summary of content

Margaret turned out to be a poor country girl. After coming to Paris, she began her career as a comedian. Because of her beautiful appearance, the aristocratic boys in Paris were chasing her, and she became a very popular "social star". She always carries a bouquet of camellias with her, and is known as the "La Traviata".

La Traviata suffered from lung disease. When she was receiving mineral water treatment, there was an aristocratic lady in the sanatorium. Her figure and appearance were similar to Margaret, but the lung disease had reached the third stage and she died soon after. The young lady's father, Duke Jurati, accidentally discovered that Margaret resembled his daughter, so he adopted her as his goddaughter. Margaret told her life story, and the Duke promised to cover all her daily expenses as long as she could change her past life. But Margaret couldn't do it completely, so the Duke reduced the money by half. Margaret couldn't make ends meet and now owes tens of thousands of francs in debt.

One night at around 10 o'clock, after Margaret returned, a group of guests came to visit. Neighbor Prudence brings two young men, one of whom is Armand, the son of Mr. Duval, the tax commissioner, who is madly in love with La Traviata. Even as early as a year ago, when Margaret was ill, Armand came every day to inquire about her condition, but refused to leave his name. Prudence told Margaret about Armand's infatuation, and she was very moved. While Margaret was dancing with her friends, her illness suddenly broke out. Armand advised her with great concern not to harm herself like this and to confess his love to Margaret. He told La Traviata that he still had the button she had thrown away six months ago. Margaret's already weak heart was moved by true love again, and she gave Armand a camellia as a token of her heart.

Armand’s sincere love inspired Margaret’s desire for life. She was determined to get rid of the boring life in Paris and live with Armand in the countryside for a while. She was going to plan a sum of money alone, so she asked Armand to leave her alone for one night. When Armand went out to find Margaret, he happened to meet Margaret's former lover and became jealous. He wrote a fierce letter to Margaret, saying that he did not want to be the object of ridicule and that he was leaving Paris. But he did not leave. Margaret was his whole hope and life. He knelt down and asked Margaret to forgive him. Margaret confided to Armand, "You are what I call in my troubled and lonely life." one person".

After hard work, Margaret and Armand rented a house in the suburbs of Paris. When the Duke found out, he cut off Margaret's financial resources. Behind Armand's back, she pawned her gold and silver jewelry, carriages and horses to pay for her living expenses. After Armand learned about it, he decided to transfer an inheritance left to him by his mother to pay off the debt owed by Margaret. The agent asked him to sign, and he left Marguerite for Paris.

The letter turned out to be written by Armand's father, Mr. Duval, who wanted to trick Armand into leaving and then looking for Margaret. He told Margaret that his daughter fell in love with a decent boy. After the family inquired about the relationship between Armand and Margaret, they said that if Armand did not sever the relationship with Margaret, they would break off the engagement. Marguerite begged Mr. Duval in pain that if she wanted to sever her relationship with Armand, it would be equivalent to killing her, but Mr. Duval would not give in. For Armand and his family, she had no choice but to make sacrifices and swore to break off all relations with Armand.

Margaret wrote a very sad letter to Armand to break off the relationship, then returned to Paris and started her absurd life again. She accepted the pursuit of Baron Varweiler, and he helped her pay off all her debts and redeem her jewelry and carriage. Armand also returned to his hometown with his father in a painful mood.

Armand still missed Margaret deeply, and he came to Paris in despair. He is determined to avenge Margaret's "betrayal". He found Margaret and embarrassed her at every turn. He scolded her as a heartless, heartless whore who sold love as a commodity. Faced with Armand's misunderstanding, Margaret sadly advised him to forget about herself and never meet again. Armand asked her to escape Paris with him, to a place where no one knew them, and to hold on to their love. Margaret said that she could not do that because she had already sworn an oath. Armand mistakenly thought that she and the baron had an oath of love, so he angrily wrote to Margaret to insult her and sent a stack of banknotes. Margaret was so stimulated that she became ill. As the New Year was coming, Margaret's condition became more serious, her face turned pale, no one came to visit her, and she felt particularly lonely. Mr. Duval wrote to tell her that he thanked Margaret for keeping her promise and had written to tell Armand the truth. Now Margaret's only hope is to see Armand again. Before she died, her creditors came with IOUs and forced her to repay her debts. The bailiff was ordered to carry out the judgment and all her property was seized, only to be auctioned after her death.

As she lay dying, she kept calling Armand's name, and "silent tears flowed from her eyes." She never saw her beloved again. After her death, only a kind-hearted neighbor Milly buried her. When Armand returned to Paris, she gave her one of Margaret's diaries. From the diary, Armand learned about her noble soul. "In addition to your insults being evidence that you have always loved me, I seem to feel that the more you torture me, the more noble I will appear in your eyes when you know the truth."

Armand, with infinite regret and melancholy, specially moved the grave for Margaret to be buried, and filled her grave with white camellias.

Character introduction

Editor

Marguerite, the protagonist of the novel, is Alman's lover. Beautiful and pure, kind and selfless, elegant and dignified, even though she has fallen into the dust. But he still maintains a pure heart and independent personality, yearning for real life and love.

Armand, the hero of the novel, is Margaret's most loyal and beloved lover. He is loyal to Margaret, but he is impulsive and jealous. Because he did not know the truth, he ridiculed Margaret in every possible way, and the ridicule caused a heavy physical and mental blow to Margaret.

Duval, Armand’s father, is selfish, hypocritical and full of prejudice. He used lies to force Margaret to leave Armand, completely shattering Margaret's life ideals, and was the direct cause of Margaret's tragedy.

Prudence, Margaret’s friend, is selfish, greedy and hypocritical. She received a reward for everything she did for Margaret, and when Margaret was dying, she left Margaret mercilessly.

Nanina, Margaret’s maid, is kind and simple. She entertained guests for Margaret, did housework and was extremely loyal to Margaret.

Olampe, a Parisian prostitute and another mistress of Armand, insulted Margaret in person many times.

Julie, Margaret’s good friend, is kind-hearted. She was by Margaret's side until she died.

About the author

Editor

Zhongma Xiao, French novelist and dramatist. The illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas. When he was 7 years old, Alexandre Dumas recognized him as his son, but he still refused to recognize his mother as his wife. As an illegitimate child, Dumas was ridiculed by the world during his childhood and adolescence. As an adult, he realized that the obscene trend of French capitalist society had caused many people like their mother and son to be insulted and harmed, and he determined to change social morality through literature. He once said: "Any literature that does not take the perfection of morality, ideals and benefit as its purpose is pathological and unsound literature." This is the basic guiding ideology of his literary creation. The exploration of bourgeois social moral issues is the central content throughout his literary creation.

La Traviata's classic quotations

1. "The mind is small, but he hides his thoughts. The eyes are just a small dot, but he can look around the vast world."—— "La Traviata"

2. "I am not rich enough to love you as I wish; I am not poor enough to be loved by you as you wish. Let us forget each other---- You are forgetting a name that is quite cold to you, and I am forgetting a happiness that I cannot afford." - "La Traviata"

3. "Get a heart that has not been attacked by others. The heart of experience is like seizing an unguarded city." - "La Traviata"

4. "The more these women's sophisticated lives caused trouble in the city, the more they will become troubled after their death. They are silent. They are like some stars, as dim when they fall as when they rise." - "La Traviata"

5. "The pain you want to cause me is just for you. Proof of my love." - "La Traviata"

6. "The farthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but when I stand in front of you but you don't know that I love you; The farthest distance is not that I am standing in front of you but you don’t know that I love you, but that we clearly know that we love each other but cannot be together; the furthest distance in the world is not that we know that we love each other but cannot be together, but that we clearly know that we love each other but cannot be together. I can't resist this breath of love but I can't help but continue." - "La Traviata"

7. "Aside from your insults being evidence that you always love me, I seem to feel that the more you torture me. Me, when the day you know the truth, I will appear even more noble in your eyes." - "La Traviata"

Wonderful comments on the good lines in "La Traviata"

"You, you don't want me to know your situation, you want me to retain my vanity to satisfy your vanity, you want to maintain my past luxurious life, you want to maintain the gap in our thoughts , you, in short, do not believe my selfless love for you, do not believe that I am willing to share the joys and sorrows with you. With your property, we could have lived happily together, but you would rather make yourself miserable. Ruining everything, your prejudice is so deep-rooted. Do you think I would regard vanity as happiness? A person can be satisfied with vanity when there is no love in his heart, but once he has love, vanity becomes vulgar." /p>

Before reading this novel, I always thought that it was Armand’s father who killed La Traviata’s love. After reading the whole book, I discovered that what really killed La Traviata’s love was Armand’s vanity and suspicion. .

After Armand, a twenty-four-year-old provincial youth, graduated from university in Paris and qualified as a lawyer, he did not immediately find a job. Instead, he "put the diploma in his pocket and let himself live." A few days of lazy life in Paris." With his ancestral income of eight thousand francs per year, he rented a house in Paris, hired a servant, and kept a mistress who was "little Jade, gentle and affectionate", while spending time with his friends. He goes to various romantic places all day long to have fun. It was under this circumstance that he met Miss Margaret, a famous Parisian prostitute nicknamed "La Traviata", and immediately began to pursue her.

As the book says, there are usually two ways to pursue a woman in a romantic court, one is with money and the other is with love. Although Armand was considered a "petty bourgeoisie" with a few dollars at the time, as another old prostitute teased him in the book, "Your allowance of seven to eight thousand francs is not enough for this girl to squander, even to repair her." There are not enough carriages. "Margaret spends more than 100,000 francs every year to maintain her appearance as a courtesan in Paris. So Armand can only use "love" to pursue Margaret. Sure enough, after two or three years of hard work, he got what he wanted. Not only did Margaret become his mistress, but he also made her believe that what she got was true love.

Prostitutes sell their bodies and feelings as a profession, but they also have a love that they are unwilling to sell. Perhaps it is because they have seen enough of the false love in the world, but they value and desire true love more. . So when Margaret regarded Armand's admiration for her as true love, she gave everything she had without hesitation.

Faced with Margaret's true love, Armand still refused to believe that prostitutes could have true love, so from the second day after possessing Margaret, he let suspicion take over. In his mind, on the third day he decided that Margaret had deceived him and sent a letter of renunciation humiliating and condemning her. However, when he heard his friend congratulate him on getting Margaret, "a beautiful mistress who can save him face and is not easy to get", he immediately regretted it under the influence of vanity and sent Margaret a message. A letter asking for forgiveness.

So we have reason to believe that in Armand's mind, the vanity of possessing a Paris courtesan weighs much more than his love for Margaret. In other words, what he really wants is the vanity of having a famous prostitute rather than the love of an ordinary woman. As Margaret said in the book when she angrily scolded Armand to his face.

People often say, "True love can often make people noble." However, after Armand got Margaret, instead of becoming noble at all, he became even more depraved. In addition to enjoying the vanity and happiness of owning a Parisian courtesan all day long, he went to underground casinos to gamble to increase some money for squandering, completely ignoring that Margaret's expenses for maintaining the Paris courtesan's appearance actually came from several other men. The fact that Margaret was supported by the family did not consider how to let Margaret live a normal life as soon as possible. From this we can see more clearly how insignificant Armand’s so-called love for Margaret is.

In sharp contrast, love truly made Margaret sublime. She was determined to abandon all the vanity and luxury she already owned, to wash away all the past and make a new start. Be human and live an ordinary life with Armand. She even entrusted others to sell all her property at the cost of a loss of more than 20,000 francs, bid farewell to everything in the past, rented a quiet cabin with Armand, and lived a secluded life away from the dust.

Unfortunately, Armand just passively obeyed all Margaret’s arrangements and did not consider the issue of marrying Margaret at all. Perhaps he never believed it in his heart. Margaret is truly willing to break away from her past life. Because of this, after Margaret wrote a breakup letter to Armand at the request of Armand's father, he immediately denied all the true feelings Margaret had paid for him and immediately abandoned her love for her. With all the love and trust, he didn't even think of asking why this change happened, even though he knew that his father was doing everything possible to oppose his continued relationship with Margaret.

What is even more tragic is that Armand, who graduated from law and should be good at analysis and research, not only did not study and delve into why she changed her heart, but instead crudely and simply concluded that she could not be willing to be poor and covet the vanity of the past. He had just left him, and even despicably carried out all kinds of shameless revenge on the woman he once loved. How could he be treating a woman he had loved? When I read this paragraph in the book, as a man, I couldn't help but feel ashamed of his shamelessness: once he gets a woman, he is as docile as a dog, and once he loses her, he is as fierce as a wolf. Such a person is really unworthy. Talk about love.

We cannot deny that Armand did love Margaret, but he never believed that Margaret really loved him. He always felt that his true love was blocked by Margaret. Teased and trampled. He doesn't understand at all what it means to love what I love without regrets. His heart was full of resentment and hatred, but he lacked a true love that was selfless and unrequited like Margaret. Why! How many suspicions in this world are not born under such circumstances? Thinking of "A Dream of Red Mansions", Jia Baoyu secretly talked to Jin Chuan'er at noon. After being discovered by Mrs. Wang, he also ran away, leaving Jin Chuan alone to take the blame.

Although Armand and Jia Baoyu work in different natures, in some ways, Armand and Jia Baoyu are completely afraid to take on the responsibilities of a man.

Of course, we have to admit that Armand still loves Margaret after all, although his way of expressing love may not be correct, and his understanding of love may not be comprehensive, so he After confirming Margaret's true love for him, he felt painful and regretful, so he wrote this touching confession of a man's love story "La Traviata" that has been passed down through the ages. However, this confession really came too late. .

I think if men and women in love could be more sincere and trusting and less vain and suspicious when they encounter twists and turns, many love tragedies in this world might be solved. Completely different ending.

La Traviata reveals the truth

The life of Margaret, the central character in "La Traviata", is a life of humiliation and damage. This has profound typical significance in capitalist society. The greed, cruelty, and shamelessness of the bourgeoisie, as well as the coldness and selfishness of relationships between people in capitalist society, are all clearly reflected in Margaret's tragic experience. Through her tragic fate, the author reveals the profound social roots that caused this tragedy.