Marie Antoinette antonia fraser book review
Hufsa Naveed
History
Book Review Marie Antoinette: The Hapless Icon When hearing the words “Marie Antoinette”, the first thing that may come to one’s mind is “France’s last queen” or “The cause of the French Revolution”. However, this illustrious eighteenth-century queen, as described by Antonia Fraser, was much more than just another monarch. Her external as well as internal struggles proved to be iconic, and her personality is very misunderstood in modern times. This biography on Marie Antoinette’s journey proved to be very enlightening in terms of what life was like in eighteenth-century Europe. Nevertheless, the book gave much insight on her personality as well as how misunderstood she was. The book starts off explaining the size and depths of Marie Antoinette’s family in Austria. The fifteenth child out of a grand total of sixteen, Marie Antoinette was sent away from her homeland to Versailles so she could marry the French Dauphin, the future King Louis XVI. Despite having possessed remarkable talents and interests, her French subjects eventually grew to hate her by false accusations and such. Locked in various prisons, Marie Antoinette then had to bear with the deaths of her friends as well as the death of her husband, the King himself. Eventually, she herself had to fall victim to the famous guillotine due to false accusations aimed towards her by the bloodthirsty citizens of France. Personally, I believed that this biography proved to have both positive and negative qualities. As for the positives, the book gave very good insight as to who Marie Antoinette really was. I ceased to view her as an extravagant money-spender and selfish queen but rather as another human being who loved children and rebelling for the sake of the greater good. I realized that Marie Antoinette was not all the bad person she is commonly portrayed as. Furthermore, this book also possessed negative qualities. I believe the author elaborated on detail much too often.
History
Book Review Marie Antoinette: The Hapless Icon When hearing the words “Marie Antoinette”, the first thing that may come to one’s mind is “France’s last queen” or “The cause of the French Revolution”. However, this illustrious eighteenth-century queen, as described by Antonia Fraser, was much more than just another monarch. Her external as well as internal struggles proved to be iconic, and her personality is very misunderstood in modern times. This biography on Marie Antoinette’s journey proved to be very enlightening in terms of what life was like in eighteenth-century Europe. Nevertheless, the book gave much insight on her personality as well as how misunderstood she was. The book starts off explaining the size and depths of Marie Antoinette’s family in Austria. The fifteenth child out of a grand total of sixteen, Marie Antoinette was sent away from her homeland to Versailles so she could marry the French Dauphin, the future King Louis XVI. Despite having possessed remarkable talents and interests, her French subjects eventually grew to hate her by false accusations and such. Locked in various prisons, Marie Antoinette then had to bear with the deaths of her friends as well as the death of her husband, the King himself. Eventually, she herself had to fall victim to the famous guillotine due to false accusations aimed towards her by the bloodthirsty citizens of France. Personally, I believed that this biography proved to have both positive and negative qualities. As for the positives, the book gave very good insight as to who Marie Antoinette really was. I ceased to view her as an extravagant money-spender and selfish queen but rather as another human being who loved children and rebelling for the sake of the greater good. I realized that Marie Antoinette was not all the bad person she is commonly portrayed as. Furthermore, this book also possessed negative qualities. I believe the author elaborated on detail much too often.