Gertrud von Le Fort's "The Song at the Scaffold". The Irony of Marquis' Sympathy for the French Revolution (PDF)

Essay from the year 2017 in the subject American Studies - Comparative Literature, grade: -, University of the West of England, Bristol, language: English, abstract: The three characters, Marie, Marquis and Blanche, have their lives in irony, revealing the surprising facts of the revolution, personal fears and the instances of martyrdom. Marie desires salvation and works for it. She sacrifices her whole life to have even the smallest level of religion dwell in her, but in the end, contrary to expectations, she gives in and admits that maybe her desires were not in God's plan. She resigns to fate. Blanche, on the other hand, is fearfully right from birth. Expectedly, she will live all her life in fear, not having the courage to outdo her drawbacks, and to the author's surprise, she overcomes her phobia to religion and is a Carmelite. Marquis is a liberal thinker who supports the abstract ideologies of the revolution, which he does so blindly. The challenge that he faces with that is that in theory, the revolution is a great deed, however, when it materialises, it is ironical. There is lots of death and breach of ideologies coupled with the double standard that hurt him deeply. The truth stands that he is not for such kind of deeds even though he supported the unsanctioned approaches to the revolution.