Critical Overview Of The Count Of Monte Cristo
Critical Overview Of The Count Of Monte Cristo
1. Analysis of Protagonist: Edmond Dantès
Three characteristics:
a. Happy: “Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death, Maximilien, in order to know how good life is to live”(441).
b. Religious: “I maintain my pride in the face of men, but I abandon it before God, who drew me out of nothingness to make me what I am”(177).
c. Vengeful: “I taught my arm to kill, my eyes to watch suffering and my lips to smile at the most terrible sights; from the kind, trusting and forgiving man I had once been, I made myself vindictive, crafty and cruel, or, rather, impassive like dead and blind Fate itself”(411).
2. Analysis of Antagonist: Society
Three characteristics:
a. Uncaring: (prison guards)“No, further on, further on! You know the last one got smashed on the rocks and the next day the governor called us a couple of lazy rascals…One! Two! Three!”(66).
b. Lying: (Villefort)“If anyone asks you about it, deny it. Deny it firmly and you’ll be saved”(24).
c. Greedy: (Bertuccio)“She was found the next morning, half burned but still breathing. The cupboard had been broken open and the money was gone…and Assunta was dead”(165).
3. Plot paradigm:
a. Inciting incident: Dantès is jailed against his will for something he did not do.
b. Climax: When he kills those responsible for him being put in jail
4. Setting:
a. “Preparations for the betrothal feast had been made in a large room on the second floor of La Reserve, with whose arbor we are already acquainted”(14).Betrothal Feast
b. “Into a room which seemed to be entirely underground, whose bare, oozing walls seemed to be impregnated with tears.”(27).Jail
c. “They could see two things rising above the heads of the people: the obelisk, surmounted by a cross, and the two tall wooden uprights of the guillotine, with the metal blade glistening between them.”(117).Execution
d. “Notice how strangely the bed is placed, look at those somber, blood-colored hangings; and those two faded portraits, with their livid lips and their frightened eyes, don’t they seem to be saying, ‘I saw!’”(216).Bedroom
e. “Nothing was heard except the rumbling of carriages taking the revelers home; nothing was seen except a few rare lights flickering windows”(123).Via dei Pontefici
5. Theme statement: Only God can be truly just
a. Dumas: “Monte Cristo paled at the horrible sight. He realized that he had gone beyond the limits of rightful vengeance and that he could no longer say, ‘God is for me and with me’”(403).
b. Dantès: “And now, farewell to...