Romantic Love Vs. Physical Attraction: Beyond Exteriors in 'Cyrano de Bergerac' Anonymous 11th Grade

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

In this quote by Helen Keller, she states a timeless fact that the beautiful feeling of love is most strongly felt with the heart. The play, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand shows the significant contrast between physical attraction versus romantic love. The character of Cyrano de Bergerac represents inner beauty, how it outranks any physical appearance and people end up loving one’s soul, not how attractive they are. Christian de Neuvillette portrays physical attraction and the fact that one is only impressed and attracted by appearance for so long. Eventually, a person must be able to love the heart and mind of another person to really be in love with them.

Roxanne represents the typical woman, the idea that one is attracted to physical appearance at first, but cannot truly love another if there is nothing deeper to love. Physical appearance is captured in the first part of the play between Christian and Roxanne but soon wears off in order to show the romantic love portrayed by Cyrano in the second part of the play. Being beautiful on the inside, creating an attractive soul and mind, is more valuable and...