This scene reminds me a little of Hugo's theatre. All dialogue (with facial expressions, and intonations, and the clothes and attitudes described before, but no introspection) ; use of Public Domain Character as myths and symbols, and not real persons nor even real characters ; and a lot of killer one-liners.
I don't know enough to take every historical reference and explain what is true, what is not. But I should go to historian hell, because I know Robespierre, Danton and Marat are caricatures (or symbols, depending how you look at it), but I still love how they're written, how they're charismatic and frightening and funny in the discussion of trivialities all the same.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-05-15 06:14 pm (UTC)Also you could say, not very big respect of history (the dispute Vendée vs Germany is totally artificial and comes from nowhere but sure makes the exposition more lively, as dialogue is all we get for exposition) ; heavy foreshadowing ; mix of humor and tragedy (this chapter is the only one since the beginning which made me laugh at loud) ; but you could argue that Hugo regularly does this in his novels too.
I don't know enough to take every historical reference and explain what is true, what is not. But I should go to historian hell, because I know Robespierre, Danton and Marat are caricatures (or symbols, depending how you look at it), but I still love how they're written, how they're charismatic and frightening and funny in the discussion of trivialities all the same.