Review of The Lady of the Camellias

By: Alexander Dumas Jr.

            This is the novel that inspired the movie musical Moulin Rouge. Our narrator is told the story of man who falls in love with a “kepted” woman, and the tragedy of their doomed love.

            The Lady of the Camellias is a tragedy that looks at the lifestyle of a “kepted” women and how it was impossible for her to have real love, though she tried to.  Marguerite is someone who has to sell herself to have a decent life, but she meets a man, Armand who does love her for her. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have enough money to provide for her and she still has to be with Dukes and Counts. This creates jealously and paranoia with Armand making their love unstable.  A relationship like this is shown as messy and realistic and couple struggle to fight against the consequences of this. They’re judged and trust is lacking between them.   It felt realistic at first until they got to the romance, which felt unbelievable.  Armand kept saying he loved her even before he started spending time with Marguerite and got jealous too easily. It didn’t feel subtle, but over dramatic on his part.  I do believe men shouldn’t be afraid to cry, but he cried too much.  I felt sympathy for Marguerite as she never knew love until Armand and her being a kepted woman is for survival.  Prudence was my favorite character, because she is honest and blunt as she tries to help the couple, but neither will listen to her.  She is also a funny character.  I think if the story had someone who was an actual threat to their relationship as an antagonist than it would have been more exciting, but her other lovers were passive and the father came off as a reasonable person.  Any “threats’ were reasonable and valid to keeping them apart and I wasn’t inspired to root for them.  I can see how this book influenced Moulin Rouge’s plot, but I like Moulin Rouge better, though this wasn’t a bad story.