How far exactly are you willing to go to get justice from someone who has wronged you? Would your answer change if getting that justice meant losing your morals and values in the process? In the novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Alexandre Dumas, the protagonist, Edmond Dantes plans and then executes revenge on the people who threw him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Driven by blind rage and thirst for vengeance, Dantes abandons his naivety and innocence in pursuit for his revenge on Villefort, Danglars, and Fernand as he feels that justice is synonymous with revenge especially if God feels the same way. Edmond is fully successful in exacting his revenge, but not in the way it makes him feel because through his distorted search
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Edmond’s alter persona, the Count of Monte Cristo, damaged the lives of his enemies one by one until they were all either miserable or dead. He was ultimately successful, but he begins to wonder if losing a piece of who he was worth it. He looks back at his old self, “From the kind, trusting and forgiving man I had once been, I made myself vindictive, crafty and cruel, or rather impassive like deaf and blind Fate itself” (Dumas 495). It finally daunts on Dantes that in his search for vengeance, he lost his morality and what made him innocent along the way. He refers to himself as being “vindictive and cruel” he now knows that he went on a dark path that destroyed him along the way. He spent years plotting for revenge which not only took a piece of his youth away from him, but also a part of what made him a person with integrity. He went from being all trusting and seeing the good in people to being cruel and vicious all in the name of finding justice. Dantes takes a second to reflect on all that he had done, “having arrived at the summit of his vengeance after his slow and tortuous climb, he had looked down into the abyss of doubt” (497). The choice of words that Dumas uses here can be seen as having both literal and figurative meanings. The “tortuous climb” is referencing to the fact that Edmond spent years of his life plotting and planning the perfect revenge, but also of the tortures he had to endure along the way. He spent years suffering in a prison cell, yet he survived because he held on to the hope of someday getting his justice. It’s relevant to note that Edmond was literally standing up high looking at everything below him, so that’s the literal explanation behind him “look[ing] down on the
Edmond’s alter persona, the Count of Monte Cristo, damaged the lives of his enemies one by one until they were all either miserable or dead. He was ultimately successful, but he begins to wonder if losing a piece of who he was worth it. He looks back at his old self, “From the kind, trusting and forgiving man I had once been, I made myself vindictive, crafty and cruel, or rather impassive like deaf and blind Fate itself” (Dumas 495). It finally daunts on Dantes that in his search for vengeance, he lost his morality and what made him innocent along the way. He refers to himself as being “vindictive and cruel” he now knows that he went on a dark path that destroyed him along the way. He spent years plotting for revenge which not only took a piece of his youth away from him, but also a part of what made him a person with integrity. He went from being all trusting and seeing the good in people to being cruel and vicious all in the name of finding justice. Dantes takes a second to reflect on all that he had done, “having arrived at the summit of his vengeance after his slow and tortuous climb, he had looked down into the abyss of doubt” (497). The choice of words that Dumas uses here can be seen as having both literal and figurative meanings. The “tortuous climb” is referencing to the fact that Edmond spent years of his life plotting and planning the perfect revenge, but also of the tortures he had to endure along the way. He spent years suffering in a prison cell, yet he survived because he held on to the hope of someday getting his justice. It’s relevant to note that Edmond was literally standing up high looking at everything below him, so that’s the literal explanation behind him “look[ing] down on the