The Darkness Behind the Light

You know, one thing that is really interesting about The Three Musketeers is how dark the story is. Alexandre Dumas paints it as this tale of suave heroes of a past age. The parts that no one really mentions is how dark these heroes are. Right away in the story, D’Artagnan is ready to kill the three men that he offends in the streets of Paris. These “honorable” musketeers are in turn ready to do the same to him. The only thing that stops them from fighting is fighting the Cardinal’s guards. During the battle, D’Artagnan almost kills one of the Cardinal’s officers. Of course, the only thing the king would do in response to this is put D’Artagnan on the fast track to becoming a musketeer. The king doesn’t even meet with D’Artagnan. He makes no judge of D’Artagnan’s character. Later in the novel, D’Artagnan meets a married woman that he soon starts having an affair with. Then she gets sent to jail, and the three musketeers get sent to England to cover up an affair between the Queen of France and the Duke of Buckingham. The Cardinal is the one trying to bring it to light, but then he also tries to have the Duke of Buckingham killed by Milady. Another thing is the heroes themselves. None of them are particularly heroic. They perform heroic actions, but they all have ulterior motives. Athos used to be an honorable man fighting for France, but when they all join together he is a drunkard fighting out of rage because he was betrayed by his wife. Aramis doesn’t even want to be a musketeer he wants to be a priest. Even though he seems like a godly man, he also uses his knowledge of the Bible to seduce women. This does not seem very heroic at all. Finally, Porthos only wants money and fame. Nothing about that seems very noble or heroic.