Perspective

To the Scaffold is a historical biography written in a creative and descriptive style. It is written in the past tense and in the third person, but maintains a perspective that is primarily aligned with the main subject, Marie Antoinette. Erickson interprets the known events of Antoinette's life as she might have experienced them given her background and apparent character, and frequently relies on Antoinette's own letters and journal entries to allow her to speak in her own voice.

Erickson also adopts the perspective of some of the main figures in Antoinette's life. She provides a good deal of information about Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, Antoinette's mother, in the opening chapters that examines her attitude toward her pretty daughter and her sense of duty as a ruling monarch. Louis XVI, Antoinette's husband, is a primary figure to whom Antoinette's fate is tied. Erickson tries to interpret the...