Danton’s Death (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Georg Büchner
- First Published: 1835
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: Spring, 1794
- Setting: Paris, France
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: Politics, Revolutionaries, France or French people, Revolutions, Antiheroes, Paris, Eighteenth century, Politicians, French Revolution
- Locales: Paris, France
Characters Discussed
Georges Danton (zhohrzh dan- TOH[N]), the first passive protagonist in German drama. The author makes it amply clear that Danton might have avoided imprisonment and subsequent death by escaping the Jacobins in time. In contrast to the traditional tragic hero, who comes to see the world as ominous only when he realizes that his own doom is inevitable, Danton has no illusions about the world from the play’s beginning and quietly wills his doom. Tantalizingly and ambiguously, the author never clarifies whether Danton’s failure to save his life is a...
[The entire page is 718 words long]
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