Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782. Set in pre-revolutionary France, the story revolves around the manipulative and immoral behavior of two aristocrats, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, who engage in a series of complex schemes to ruin the lives of others for their own amusement and personal gain.
Character Analysis
La Marquise de Merteuil
She appears trustworthy and sociable. It seems she shares a kinship with Mme. De Volanges, thus earning profound trust from both Mme. De Volanges and Cécile Volanges. La Marquise de Merteuil bore a grudge against Cécile's fiancé, The Comte de Gercourt, prompting her to plan with Le Vicomte de Valmont to seduce Cécile with the intention of humiliating The Comte de Gercourt. A master of relationships, she garners affection and trust from most characters, who are inclined to heed her plan of gaming the love, including Le Vicomte de Valmont. She serves as the linchpin connecting the entire story network within Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Eventually, her sinister intentions are unveiled, leading to her social downfall.
Madame de Volanges
Mme. De Volanges is a moralist at the beginning of the play. She was strict with Cécile and constantly warned Le Présidente de Tourvel that Le Vicomte de Valmont was a romantic liar. But later we learn that she was also in a relationship with Le Vicomte de Valmont. This once again proves that the man is so carefree and immoral and illustrates the chaotic relationship between aristocratic men and women in the background of the script - no one in the entire script is pure, loyal and innocent in the traditional sense.
Madame de Rosemonde
The aunt of Le Vicomte de Valmont. Mme de Rosemonde is an older lady with a good reputation and prestige. Another linchpin of the social network who invites a lot of people to stay with her at her country estate including Le Présidente de Tourvel, and the Volanges. I almost feel she knows there were drama happening in her place, but she did not engage much in Les Liaision Dangereuses. When Le Présidente de Tourvel, is having difficulties with Valmont, she tried to offer confortness and warned the danger of being played by man.
Le Vicomte de Valmont
An immoral liar and playboy, relatively young and charming with bad reputation of playing with women. Similar to La Marquise de Merteuil, he likes to play with relationships—that’s how they become friends—takes women as trophies, and is proud of it. He targets Le Présidente de Tourvel as a challenge in the love game. Maybe in the process he was indeed attracted to Tourvel and had a hint of true love, but when he wanted to chase La Marquise de Merteuil, or win Merteuil's admiration for playing with people's hearts, he ruthlessly abandoned Le Présidente de Tourvel, breaking her heart. Valmont cares most about his pride and arrogance, not allowing Tourvel or Merteuil to challenge or resist, and must get the "rewards" he wants from them. He shows the epitome of men of that era, and perhaps weirdly continuing to this day, who took pride in toying with and "destroying" "innocent, good women" and objectifying them.
Cécile Volanges
A naive fifteen-year-old girl, her life in the convent was unremarkable before she came to the real society. She trusts La Marquise de Merteuil more than her mother and is willing to tell her secrets and worries. Under the malicious guidance of La Marquise de Merteuil, she became a pawn in revenge against The Comte de Gercourt - a man she did not even know or meet. I'm a little confused as to whether she and Danceny are actually in love, when they both have other lovers. But maybe this is the strange phenomenon that the script wants to depict: the seemingly beautiful love between a young man and a woman is also entangled in sexual relationships with other people. She was ignorantly pregnant and miscarried, which may have had an impact on her health, but of greater concern was her marriage. Since La Marquise de Merteuil's plan was successful, it is difficult to know whether her future husband would have felt humiliated and turned on the young lady.
Le Chevalier Danceny
Le Présidente de Tourvel
A 22-year-old young and beautiful lady. As Valmont said, she has strict morals, religious fervor; she is kind and sincere. She mistakenly believed in Le Vicomte de Valmont, who was pretending to be kind, and thought she had influenced him. In fact, she fell into a carefully planned trap. Contrary to the ignorant Cecil, she feels painful and guilty about her feelings for Valmont but sinks soberly. Cecil's understanding of relationships is distorted by La Marquise de Merteuil. Tourvel's sense of morality and awareness of emotions are destroyed while she is awake. So when she knows she is totally being played, she cannot put herself back together and died in illness.
Le Chevalier Danceny is a handsome young music teacher, invited by Mme. De Volanges to teach Cécile. Behind this, it was the evil-intentioned La Marquise de Merteuil who made the suggestions. She deliberately made the two young people meet each other and fall in love, then Danceny became her lover (I was not sure why) while Le Vicomte de Valmont toyed with Cécile. Danceny was told about what happened to Cécile and kill Valmont in the dual. Even both of them do not care that much about Cécile—they both have other lover—they fight for control over her, the goal is to show over their honor over other man. At the end, he decides to circulate the letters between La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont, tell everyone the truth about Merteuil. We don’t know if the letter mentioned Danceny himself, that would also harm his own reputation.
Design FOr
Les Liasions Dangereuses
