“The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas is a tale of betrayal and revenge. Published as a serial novel between 1844 and 1866, it features Edmond Dantes, wrongly imprisoned and then escapes, who crafts and executes intricate revenge schemes against those who wronged him.
The story introduces Edmond Dantes, a young sailor who pilots the merchant ship Pharaon back to Marseille at the sudden death of the ship’s captain on the voyage. The impressed ship owner, Mr. Morrel, makes him the ship captain. Dantes is set to marry his fiancee, Mercedes Herrera. He also sets to deliver the last messages the dying captain asks of him. Life looked quite rosy for Dantes.
However, a fellow mate, Danglars, is displeased at Dantes’ promotion. Ferdinand Mondego, Mercedes’s cousin, also competes with Dantes for Mercedes’s love and attention. They conspire and falsely accuse Dantes of being a Bonapartist in the presence of Gaspard Caderousse. Caderousse backs out of the plot at the last moment but does nothing to prevent it.
Dantes is arrested, and his case is brought before the assistant crown prosecutor, Gerrard de Villefort. Villefort recognizes that while the letter found with Dantes forgives him, it incriminates his father to whom it was addressed. He burns the letters and sends Dantes to Chateau d’If, an island fortress prison, where he was to spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. This action sets up the novel’s main conflict.
The premise of this novel raises questions about justice in society. How often do innocent people suffer at the hands of conspirators? The law is blind, suggesting impartiality but revealing something darker: it cares only about what is presented as truth rather than the truth itself.
After six years in this prison, Dantes is close to losing his mind in despair and contemplates committing suicide. In an attempt to escape, a fellow prisoner tunnels into his cell. The prisoner, Abbe Faria, is an Italian priest who befriends Dantes, setting up the story’s rising action. Abbe Faria deduces from his stories the role of Danglars, Mondego, and Villefort in Dantes’ misfortune. He also resolves to educate Dantes in science, history, and other knowledge necessary as a sophisticated man to fill their passing time. Eight years later, terminally ill Abbe Faria reveals to Dantes the location of a hidden treasure on the island of Monte Cristo.
At the death of Abbe Faria, Dantes escapes by switching places with Faria’s dead body in a funeral bag. He is thrown into the sea in place of the dead priest. He cuts the bag open and swims to a nearby island. From here, he is rescued by smugglers and makes his way to the island of Monte Cristo. He retrieves the treasure, and with his newly found wealth, he buys the island of Monte Cristo and the title of the Count of Monte Cristo. This marks the book’s turning point.
For the misery of the last fourteen years he spent in jail, Dantes resolves to exact revenge on those who sent him to Chateau d’If. He returns to Marseiles disguised as an Italian priest, Abbe Busoni, and finds Caderousse struggling financially. From Caderousse, he learns that a lot has changed: his former benefactor, Mr. Morrel, is facing bankruptcy; his father has died from starvation; his fiancee has married Mondego, who has had a successful military career and has become wealthy and influential; and Danglars has become a wealthy speculator and married a rich widow. Feeling that Caderousse regrets not attempting to save Dantes from his predicament at the time, Dantes is moved to pity him and gifts him a diamond.
By the time Dantes, as the Count of Monte Cristo, was ready to exact revenge on his enemies, Mondego had become Count Moncerf, Danglars, a baron, and Villefort, a royal prosecutor. Dantes meets and befriends Albert, son of Mondego and Mercedes, in Rome. The Count arranges to kidnap Albert and saves Albert to gain his trust. Albert introduces the Count of Monte Cristo to high society in Paris, where he would meet his targets. Of all those who had known him, only Mercedes recognized him.
It is quite the stroke of luck that those who conspired against Dantes all found great fortune, and those who did nothing against him, like Morrel, fell on hard times. Realism has never been the forte of romantic literature, anyway.
The story’s climax unfolds as the culmination of a series of meticulous schemes the Count had carefully planned for a long time.
The Count of Monte Cristo instructs Villefort’s wife Heloise on how to use various poisons, knowing her villainous instinct and desire to make her son Edouard the sole heir of the Villefort fortune. She manages to kill off members of the household, and only Villefort’s father’s covert administration of an antidote saves the life of Villefort’s daughter, Valentine. Mr Morrel’s son Maximilian, who is also Valentine’s lover, appeals to the Count to save her, and the Count of Monte Cristo fakes her death.
Villefort suspects Heloise of the murder and offers her the option of committing suicide to avoid the scandal on a public trial and execution, and leaves her to attend a public hearing. However, at the hearing, it is disclosed that Villefort had attempted to kill an illegitimate child borne to him by Danglar’s wife, and he is stricken by remorse. When he races home to stop his wife from carrying out the suicide, he finds that he is too late: she killed both herself and her son, Edouard. The Count of Monte Cristo reveals himself to Villefort as Dantes. Villefort goes insane, torn apart by despair at having lost every member of his family.
The Count of Monte Cristo finds out from Haydee, a young woman he bought as a slave, that she is the daughter of Ali Pasha, a former ally of Mondego in the Greek wars, who Mondego betrayed to the Turks and had him killed. In addition, Mondego sold Ali’s wife and daughter into slavery and took his assets. The Count leaks this information to the newspapers and brings Haydee to a public hearing to testify against Mondego.
Dumas’s vast knowledge of world affairs is a marvel, bringing richness to his storytelling. Imagine tying in the French involvement in the Ottoman empire as the background of a subplot in his rambling novel. He also uses this technique in other works.
Albert sees an enemy in the Count of Monte Cristo and recognizes him as the hand behind his father’s misfortune. Albert challenges him to a duel, but Mercedes’ timely intervention averts this. She tells Dantes to spare her son and tells her son the truth of the whole matter. Mercedes and Albert denounce and abandon Mondego. Seeing his life and reputation ruined, Mondego shoots himself.
The illegitimate son of Villefort, Benedetto, disguises himself as an Italian nobleman, Cavalcanti, and expresses interest in Danglar’s daughter Eugenie. Danglars breaks off her engagement to Albert in favor of Benedetto. Caderousse threatens to expose Benedetto’s secret past if he does not give him money. When Caderousse is caught by the Count in the Abbe Busoni disguise while trying to rob the Count, he is forced to write to Danglars, exposing Benedetto. Benedetto murders Caderousse, who discloses his killer on his deathbed. Before he dies, Dantes reveals his true identity to him.
The Count’s revenge against Danglars targets his finances. Using forged telegrams, he manipulates the financial market and causes Danglars to lose money. Ruined financially and reputation-wise, Danglars embezzles hospital funds and flees to Italy. The Count of Monte Cristo arranges that Danglars is kidnapped, and in captivity, the kidnappers force him to pay outrageous prices for his upkeep. Dantes finally spares Danglars after he repents, and Dantes replaces the embezzled hospital funds.
The book’s falling action shows many loose strings tied up: Albert joins the army, and Mercedes installs herself in Dantes’ late father’s house. Also, Danglar’s daughter Eugenie elopes with her female lover, and Dantes restores Valentine to Maximilian Morrel.
Revenge is often a vicious cycle because it affects those uninvolved in their original sins. Thus, they receive a mandate of vengeance by the same right the first avenger carried out his revenge. Dantes’ is even more guilty than some of those who conspired against him because he indirectly takes lives in his revenge. This makes it hard for me to accept this story as a wrong-made-right tale.
In the story’s resolution, we find Dantes tired of his revenge, reckoning how costly the venture was in terms of human misery. He leaves part of his fortune and the island of Monte Cristo to Maximilian and Valentine and sails to the East with Haydee as his lover.
