Summary and Analysis
The theme of the Lady of the Camellias is a love story between Marguerite Gautier, a "demi-mondaine" ("courtisane" in the original French, i.e., a woman "kept" by various lovers, frequently more than one at a time) suffering from tuberculosis ("phthisie" in the novel), and a young provincial bourgeois, Armand Duval. The narration of the love story is told by Duval himself to the (unnamed) narrator of the book.
Armand falls in love with Marguerite and ultimately becomes her lover, convincing her to turn her back on her life as a "courtisane" and live with him in the countryside. This idyllic existence is broken by Armand's father, who, concerned by the scandal created by the illicit relationship and fearful that it will destroy his daughter's (Armand's sister's) chances of marriage, convinces Marguerite to leave Armand, who believes, up until Marguerite's death, that she has left him for another man. Marguerite's death from "phthisie" is described as an unending agony, during which Marguerite, abandoned by everyone, can only regret what might have been.
Unlike the love of the Chevalier Des Grieux for Manon Lescaut (to which story Dumas himself makes reference at the beginning of The Lady of the Camellias), Armand's love is for a woman who is ready to sacrifice her riches and her lifestyle for him, but who is thwarted by the arrival of Armand's father.
Dumas is careful to paint a favourable portrait of Marguerite, who despite her past is rendered virtuous by her love for Armand, and the suffering of the two lovers, whose love is shattered by the need to conform to the morals of the times, is rendered touchingly.
The novel is also marked by the description of Parisian life during the 19th century and the fragile world of the "courtesanes".
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