Cyrano De Bergerac
Ever since birth, Cyrano De Bergerac has had an enormous, revolting nose. He has become more and more self conscious about it as time has progressed, and now as a grown man it has created a serious lack of self esteem. He is confident when he is in a situation in which he is able to defend himself physically against male attackers of both the physical and verbal nature, but when around women he becomes incredibly bashful and is wholly unable to communicate.
Cyrano has unknowingly created a sort of psychological trap in which women are kept on the outside and men are free to roam within. Lacking confidence around women, he is forced to pour his heart out on to letters and is deprived of any kind of physical contact with the opposite gender. Without confidence, a man's attempts at any kind of a relationship with a woman are almost always thwarted because in order for a woman to be attracted to a man, she must first see confidence in him. Since Cyrano has no confidence in his ability with women, he is stuck in a never-ending cycle of rejection and loneliness.
He is completely confident, almost arrogant, in his fighting and literary abilities, as demonstrated by his defeat and humiliation of Valvert in Act I. In a captivating display of intelligence and physical ability, he defeats Valvert in a swordfight while he composes a poem poking fun at him. Evidently Cyrano has the potential to be a great man, even a hero. The problem originates within his inability to act normally around a woman he is attracted to, much like the majority of modern adolescent boys. This lack of confidence in one area of his life quickly spreads and begins to affect his everyday life, as shown in Act IV when his desperation for a female partner leads him to risk his life on a daily basis by delivering love letters across enemy lines on foot.
Given that Roxane only really knows her "lover" through his letters, she builds an image of him in her mind that corresponds with the level of passion incorporated in to the letters. The image she has envisioned is of a young, healthy, good-looking, strong man whom she finds in Christian. Thinking that Roxane would never love him because of his appearance, Cyrano lets her think she is in love with Christian because he only wants the best for her. His love for her is so great that he will sacrifice even his own happiness in order to ensure hers. Unbeknownst to him, she would have loved him for his personality and kind soul regardless of his monstrous nose.
People don't see Cyrano for his nose. They see him for his bravery in battle, his mastery of the English language, his beautiful poetry and his natural leadership skills. The conflict is created when he begins to believe they see only his nose and not his more admirable aspects. He forces himself to become very self conscious about his appearance. In the real world this would cause him to lose confidence on the battlefield and in normal everyday life but in the book he seems to retain all of his positive characteristics. In the end of the book when Christian dies and Roxane stays in mourning for fifteen years, Cyrano is still not able to confess his love for her for fear of rejection because of his looks. At this point he knows in his mind she wouldn't do something like that but the fear is still there because it is all he has ever known. The only cure for his fear is Roxane confessing her love for him, and in the end she does so only because she knows she won't have to live with him for the rest of her life. So, in the end no one is happy. The main lesson one should learn from Cyrano de Bergerac is that there are no possible positive outcomes of teasing someone for the way they look, and even one off-color remark can send their entire life into a downward spiral of loneliness, depression and self doubt.
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