The Persian Letters, which according to the author was not originally intended to be a novel so much as an interesting series of letters between fictional people, has all the major characteristics of a novel. It has a main character and major characters with distinct personalities and character traits. It has a plot containing a clear conflict, attempts to resolve the conflict, a climax, and a denouement. This analysis will present some of the most important literary aspects of the work.
Structure
The structure of The Persian Letters is important because it is the first known epistolary novel or "novel of letters", wherein the events of the plot are revealed through one or more narrators in letter form. The epistolary novel was subsequently used to excellent effect by Romantic authors such as Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley.
The epistolary structure is unique because the narrative point of view is limited to one character who "writes" from his or her own perspective. This allows for a great deal of dramatic irony and plot tension when the narrator is mistaken about an important fact, lacks key information, or receives important news too late to do anything about it. For example, after the Chief Eunuch has lost control of the seraglio and reports to Usbek a strange man has been seen there, the Chief Eunuch dies and is replaced by a relatively clueless man. Usbek's instructions come too late to prevent disaster.
Delays in letter transmission -- in the novel, it took about five months for a letter to travel from Ispahan to Paris -- also increase dramatic tension. An "urgent" appeal for help or information, such as by one of Usbek's slaves who was pleading to not be castrated in order to replace one of the eunuchs who died, cannot truly receive a timely response.
Setting
The novel itself does not have a setting, but the individual letters do. Each "letter writer" is communicating from his or her own location. This allows for lengthy descriptions of things the Persians consider odd or foreign (such as the customs of people in Leghorn or Paris), which in turn offers an opportunity for satire.
The epistolary novel structure has a serious flaw in terms of describing a setting familiar to the characters but unfamiliar to the reader. Characters must either reminisce about past events, as Zachi does when writing to Usbek, or take on a patronizing or almost scolding tone when telling other characters about something they know very well. Both are very unnatural forms of communication. Accordingly, the reader does not know what color the curtains are in the seraglio, or how Usbek's wives dress themselves when not veiled, or what the Eunuchs are accustomed to eat. The reader must furnish these details solely from his or her imagination.
Narrative Voice
In an epistolary novel, the letters do not necessarily have to be written by the same person. Montesquieu employs multiple "letter writers", each with a distinct point of view and set of priorities. Usbek, for example, is given to long, allegorical stories. Rica is a witty, sarcastic young man with a talent for pointing out obvious silliness or hypocrisy.
The changes in the narrative voice, and the contrast between what each of the characters know, create variety in the narrative and keep it fresh. The letters are not always written entirely in the first person singular: from time to time Usbek or another letter writer relate an old legend or parable, or describe events that happened to someone else.
Although the epistolary structure enjoyed a great deal of popularity during the Romantic era, it fell out of popularity with the rise of plot-driven novels written with a more episodic structure and divided into chapters that are generally assumed to be sequential. Currently, epistolary novels are rare. The Color Purple by Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983, yet due in part to changes in communication such that "snail mail" is increasingly obsolete, epistolary novels have become less of a natural choice for writers. A variation of the epistolary structure, the "diary novel", is still commercially successful as demonstrated by Bridget Jones' Diary by Carol Shields and Diary by Chuck Palahniuk.
One attribute of the epistolary novel is extremely successful in popular fiction: the practice of presenting each chapter from a particular character's point of view. Point-of-view characters have been made extremely popular by George R. R. Martin whose Song of Ice and Fire book series features one limited omniscient point-of-view character per chapter.
Because of the multiple narrators, the perspective of the novel overall can be regarded as limited omniscient, yet each letter is presented in the first person with no omniscience whatsoever. In each Letter the perspective is solely that of the author, who is frequently mistaken or badly informed. Very little objective material is presented, except perhaps for the death of the elderly Louis XIV. Everything else is filtered through the narrative voice of a letter writer. Many of the narrators are unreliable.
Plot
The Persian Letters is, at least superficially, a fish-out-of-water story. Usbek is initially fleeing his homeland for reasons that are never entirely explained; his story changes over time and there are blatant conflicts between his description of his own behavior and his actual conduct. He and his young friend Rica relate what they see and experience in Paris, and Usbek in particular carries on philosophical debates about religion, government, and morality. But Usbek's ongoing absence causes trouble at home, and his wives eventually rebel against his strict rules and the vicious punishments he instructs his Eunuchs to mete out in his name.
Allegory and Symbolism
The rebellion of Usbek's women against his rule parallels the contemporary rebellion of various states against the apathetic, absentee Sultan Husayn on Persia, whose alcoholism and devotion to the pleasures of his own seraglio caused him to delegate the management of Persia to others. The rebellion in the seraglio can also be interpreted as a proto-Humanist depiction of the natural consequences of oppressive rulership.
Characters
Usbek and Rica are the two most developed characters, and are both presented in a sympathetic way although Usbek has a tragic flaw: his self-absorbed inability to understand any other human being, including himself. From the very beginning he plays games, misrepresenting the reason for his departure from Isfahan. Presenting himself as a man fleeing unjust persecution due to his inability to flatter others, yet flattering various other men gratuitously, Usbek is an unreliable narrator whose behavior frequently contradicts his actions. Yet although he is enough of a man of action to flee Isfahan, he frequently blames others for his decisions.
Rica, a younger and more outgoing man, is the more cynical of the two. He is traveling to Paris for adventure, and does not feel the need to conceal his motivations from anyone. His trenchant wit presents the various foibles of Parisian society in a classically satirical way, not by exaggerating people's traits so much as by pointing out the contradictions in their characters.
