Marat/Sade (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter Weiss
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Work: Play
- Type of Plot: Social morality
- Time of Work: July 13, 1808, and July 13, 1793
- Setting: Charenton asylum, near Paris
- Genres: Drama, Problem play, Absurdist literature
- Subjects: Values, Philosophy or philosophers, Power, personal or social, Socialism, Sex or sexuality, Nineteenth century, Paris, Mental illness, Violence, Eighteenth century, Assassination, Cruelty, French Revolution
- Locales: Paris, France
Characters Discussed
Marquis de Sade (mahr-KEE deh sahd), a French writer and libertine. While Sade, at the age of sixty-eight, is confined at Charenton asylum for his nontraditional views on sex and violence, he stages a play about Marat’s death, which took place on the same date fifteen years earlier. He both directs the actors—the asylum’s inmates, who are either mentally disturbed or confined for political reasons—and participates in the action. In his conversations with Marat, Sade expresses a certain amount of sympathy for the goals of the French Revolution, but...
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