Bonjour everybody! Today I will take you to a trip to France; to Marseilles, Paris and Corsica. I am going to share my view on Dantès’s revenge.
For those who don’t know-
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas completed in 1844. It shows the life of Edmond Dantès, first mate of a ship called the Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d'If, a grim island fortress off Marseille. The book is considered a literary classic today.
It seems that by a miracle (I won’t tell the miracle because if you haven’t read the book, I won’t ruin the surprise), Dantès escapes prison and finds his fortune, both in life and money. Reappearing as the rich Count of Monte Cristo, Dantès begins his revenge on the three men responsible for his unjust imprisonment: Fernand, Danglers and Villefort.
The revenge. That’s what we will be talking about. Did Edmond Dantès go too far with his revenge on Fernand, Danglers and Villefort? Or not?
Here are my views on it.
Edmond Dantès, reappearing as the rich Count of Monte Cristo takes his place in the rich society of Paris, where he vows to take revenge on the three men who were to be blamed for his imprisonment. He is successful and the revenge is as follows-
Fernand’s commits suicide as he is abandoned by his wife Mèrcedes and son Albert, when they come to know of a blood-stained family secret that Fernand had been hiding, thanks to the count.
Danglers loses his money and becomes bankrupt and runs away taking the count’s receipt and 50 thousand francs. He is captured by roman bandits (allies of the count), who take the count’s receipt, which amounts to 5 million and let him go with the 50 thousand francs. Before Danglers ran away, his daughter Eugènie had eloped with her music teacher and friend after her marriage with Andrea Cavalcanti, a bogus prince who his actually Eugènie’s half-brother and Madame Danglars’s illegitimate son (in addition to being a counterfeiter, thief and murderer). After her husband fled, Madame Danglars also leaves Paris.
Villefort’s wife, Madame De Villefort hatches an evil scheme to kill her husband’s first wife’s parents, his father (which backfired and killed a servant) and her stepdaughter. This plan had come when she had talked with the count (disguised as a doctor) about poisons. The count also reveals that Cavalcanti is actually the illegitimate son of Villefort and Baroness Danglars.
After giving you a basic idea about the revenge, I will tell you what I think about.
Danglars was given his rightful punishment. He lost his money, was dishonoured and left by his daughter. He ran away leaving his poor wife. A leopard never changes his spots. Even after his punishment and becoming bankrupt, Danglars thinks about himself and takes the money and flees, without thinking about his wife and daughter.
Fernand was also given his rightful punishment. First, he forcefully takes someone else’s beloved. Then he ruins a family to make his fortune who has never done him wrong and has always helped him. After that, he has the nerve to use that fortune achieved in a bad way to pave his way to the high society of France!
Villefort…...I think that there might be have been other ways to punish him. Killing innocent people for revenge wasn’t exactly right. Many of you might be thinking that it wasn’t Dantès who had killed them but he was the one who planted the plan in Madame De Villefort’s mind. He was the one who told her about poisons and that formed the idea to kill her in-laws and stepdaughter to get the inherited money for her son. Maybe it was wrong to murder innocent people but you have to see from Mme Villefort’s point of view. She was an adoring mother who loved only her son in the whole world. She did this for him to have a good life. On the other hand, Villefort was oozing with crime. Mme Villefort could have caught it from him as one could catch contagious diseases, as said in the book. Villefort had tried to bury a living child, had imprisoned a man for his own freedom and had ordered his wife to kill herself when it wasn’t for herself she had become a murderess. It was also Dantès fault that Monsieur and Madame de Saint Méran, Barrois, Mme De Villefort and Edouard De Villefort died. Edouard, a small child of 9, who had no part in his mother’s crime or his father’s, and who had his whole life in front of him, became the innocent victim of this revenge. After his death, Dantès realized that he wasn’t God and he had gone too far.
So, here was my view on Dantès’s revenge. Hope you enjoyed reading it!
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