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    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask"
    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask"
    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask"
    Ebook56 pages42 minutes

    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateMay 2, 2016
    ISBN9781535817790
    A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask"

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      A Study Guide for Alexandre Dumas' "The Man in the Iron Mask" - Gale

      12

      The Man in the Iron Mask

      Alexandre Dumas

      1847–1850

      Introduction

      Alexandre Dumas's The Man in the Iron Mask is the final story in the series that features the Musketeers Aramis, Athos, Pathos, and d'Artagnan. In The Three Musketeers, published in 1844, d'Artagnan joins the famous three, and together they diffuse a plot hatched by Cardinal Richelieu. In the next installment, Twenty Years After, published in 1845, the four heroes are caught up in the civil wars in France known as the Fronde and fail in an attempt to rescue King Charles I of England from death. The final work in Dumas's series, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or Ten Years After, was published in installments from 1847 through 1850 and includes three books often published individually: Bragelonne, or the Son of Athos; Louise de la Vallière; and The Man in the Iron Mask.

      In the final book, The Man in the Iron Mask, Dumas focuses on the struggle for power among the individuals surrounding King Louis XIV. Aramis, now a bishop, seeks to rise ever higher in the ranks of the Order of the Jesuits, a secret religious organization, and in the Roman Catholic Church, hoping one day to become pope. The king's financial ministers, Fouquet and Colbert, meanwhile, attempt to outmaneuver one another and ingratiate themselves further with the king. In addition to exploring these political power struggles, Dumas also examines the romances of key figures in the novel and studies the way love and passion often lead to turmoil and destruction. The key plot in the novel, however, centers on the existence of a twin brother to the king. The child, Philippe, was whisked away at birth, sequestered, and imprisoned, until Aramis rescues him with the hope of installing him in Louis XIV's place on the throne of France. The plot fails, with disastrous consequences, one of which is Philippe's return to prison. Now as ordered by his brother the king, he must wear a mask of iron to conceal his identity.

      Originally published as L'homme au masque de fer in serial form from 1847 through 1850 in the journal Le Siècle as the last part of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or Ten Years After, The Man in the Iron Mask is available in a 1998 Oxford University Press edition, introduced and annotated by David Coward.

      Author Biography

      Dumas was born on July 24, 1802, in the town of Villers-Cotterêts, near Paris. In 1806, Dumas's father, who served as a general in Napoleon's army, died, leaving the family in poverty. After briefly attending school between 1811 and 1813, Dumas began working as an attorney's clerk in 1816. He collaborated on several theatrical works in 1820 and 1821 with Adolphe de Leuven. In 1823, Dumas moved to Paris and secured a position as the secretary to the Duc d'Orleéans, who would later become king. A year later, a son was born to Dumas by his mistress Marie-Catherine Laure Labay. The son, Alexandre Dumas (fils), would later become a famous author as well. The year 1829 marked Dumas's first success as an author, when his play, Henri III et sa cour debuted. A revolution in 1830, in which Dumas participated, ousted King Charles X. The former Duc d'Orléans then became King Louis-Philippe.

      For the next several years, Dumas continued to write and to travel, recovering from cholera in Italy in 1832. He married Ida Ferrier in 1840 and published an eight-volume essay collection, Celebrated Crimes, in 1841. Two years later, the first installments of The Three Musketeers were

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