The Scarlet Pimpernel

Pimpernel, the subject of love is ever present in the tough love relationship of

Marguerite and Percy and the relationship of Marguerite and Armand. Baroness

Orczy expresses the theme that love struggles, overcomes, and conquers by using

descriptive language, characterization, and irony.

First, Orczy uses the writing device of descriptive language quite a bit.

Love struggles when Marguerite, in her “secret orchard”, contemplates her

husband’s love for her. “Then suddenly that love, that devotion, which throughout

his (Percy’s) courtship she had looked upon as the slavish fidelity of a dog, seemed

to completely vanish” (60). This quote of Percy’s loving actions also exemplifies

He was but a man madly, blindly, passionately in love, and as soon

as her light footsteps had died away within the house, he knelt down

Marguerite. Meditating on matters of the heart, Marguerite thinks to herself

The Scarlet Pimpernel illustrates many examples of all three literary devices.

Another device Ms. Orczy uses is characterization. The sisterly/brotherly

mysterious Jew and Chauvelin, the antagonist are on the trail of the Scarlet

the terrace steps, and in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one

Some topics in this essay:
Baroness Orczy, Armand Armand, Scarlet Pimpernel, Marguerite Meditating, Pimpernel Marguerite, Marguerite Blakeney, Baroness Orczy’s, Ms Orczy, , scarlet pimpernel, Marguerite Armand, descriptive language, love struggles, struggles overcomes conquers, characterization irony, overcomes conquers, marguerite armand, expresses theme, language characterization, relationship marguerite, love struggles overcomes, descriptive language characterization, language characterization irony, struggles overcomes,