Character Analysis
Roxane
The character of Roxane is difficult to accept at first. She is a romantic idealist, but seemingly not of the depth of character or intelligence of Cyrano. She is, rather, a précieuse. Her attention is on the surface of things, just as Cyrano's is on the roots. She seems as shallow as he is deep.
The character of Cyrano and that of Roxane offer many parallels. She, too, loves the beau geste. She goes to the battlefield with food, and to see her husband. She, too, is faithful until death. She, too, turns her back on the world, to retire to the convent to mourn her lost husband.
Cyrano and Roxane have many of the same ideals, though Roxane seems to see only the surface. She is attracted to Christian in the first place by his physical qualities, but she then attributes to him all the qualities that Cyrano has in such abundance, and she mourns Christian for these very qualities. When Cyrano dies and she learns the truth, she says that she has lost her love twice. One can only assume that she was blind to Cyrano's true character because of her memory of Christian as she thought he was; she still sees Cyrano as the friend and companion of her childhood. Nevertheless her years of mourning are for the nobility of soul that she believed she had lost when Christian died, and not for the surface values of the précieuse she once was.
Both Roxane and Cyrano, then, are consistent, faithful, uncompromising characters, and both are dedicated to their ideals rather than worldly rewards. Both live in a dream world by choice.