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THE
COUNT
OF
MONTE
CRISTO
Analysis & Commentary based on
the Consciousness Approach to Life |
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NOTE: The
following instance of a consciousness approach to literature is based on
a profound understanding of the subtle and hidden
Character of Life.
(To understand our comments below, we recommend you review this link.)
Edmund Dantes Good, Yet Unsuspecting,
Naive Nature that Needed Inner Strength
Edmund Dantes was a shipmate. He was 19. His captain, who was ill,
gave Dantes a letter to deliver to Napoleon on Elba and then died. To a
shipmate, the captain’s word is an order, especially when it is a dying
wish.
It never struck Dantes that in France of that day to visit the Emperor
in exile would warrant the anger of the government. He visited Napoleon
on Elba, gave him the letter, received a letter for someone in France
from him.
Nor did he take care to hide the possession of that letter. On landing
in France, the owner of his ship elevated him to the captaincy,
overlooking Danglars, who was much elder to him.
Dantes went immediately to see his father and fiancé Mercedes. Soon
their wedding was arranged. On the eve of the wedding, the police came
to his reception and arrested him for possessing the letter. It never
struck Dantes what his crime was.
Danglars was smarting under the wound of having been overlooked. Dantes
was not aware of it nor was it possible for him to conceive that someone
could be jealous of him.
Mercedes was the prettiest Catalan girl in Marseilles. She was 17 and an
orphan. Her cousin Fernand was courting her for a long time, but she had
given her love to Edmund.
Dantes knew of Fernand and his love for Mercedes, but it never entered
his head that Fernand could be a rival to his personality. Dantes’s
neighbour was a tailor who was innately vicious.
Danglars and Fernand met under a tree outside a hotel and compared notes
about Dantes. The tailor was an interested accomplice. Danglars knew of
Dantes’s visit to Napoleon and the letter from Napoleon to someone in
France.
Fernand, bitterly disappointed in love, came up with the idea that
Dantes could be arrested and imprisoned.
Danglars offered to write an anonymous letter by his left hand to the
Magistrate and the venomous three together executed their pet project of
treachery. The letter informed the government about Napoleon’s letter in
Dantes’s possession.
Dantes was arrested and shut up in prison. Fernand carried a false news
of Dantes’s death to Mercedes and gently persuaded her to marry him. In
prison, Dantes was resisting the warders and turned violent. He was then
put in solitary confinement.
He tore his hair in despair. He did not know what he was accused of. It
was a mystery to him how he, who had been on the eve of marrying the
girl he deeply loved and who had received the promotion to captaincy,
could land in jail.
His nature was open and unsuspecting. It was noble. To live in this
world of human affairs, one should be worldly-wise.
It is not enough to be GOOD, magnanimous and unsuspecting. An
unsuspecting nature is one of generosity. But it has an element
When
we are making a progress beyond the level of our present endowment we
attract that which is necessary to complete that progress, which is very
often the opposite of that which we are or possess. E.g. Mercedes [in
Count
of Monte
Cristo] marries a treacherous, unscrupulous man incapable of the
psychological feelings she is trying to evolve in herself. (MSS)
We can
take an individual, such as the character of the Count in the Count of
Monte Cristo, and evaluate the person in terms of strength at these
three levels. (MSS:) He had physical strength due to his life as a
sailor and enduring hardship in prison. He had vital strength negatively
born of suffering and the urge for revenge, positively due to the
enormous wealth he acquired and the social position it gave him, and he
had mental strength derived from the wonderful education given by Abbe
Faria.
The Character of Life
vs the Character of the Divine
Life has a
character of its own which simple-minded folk ignore. Meeting with
misfortune, we exclaim, “I have not done any wrong, why the punishment?”
To succeed in life, it is not enough one has not done any wrong. It is
also necessary to be strong enough to handle the forces of life. Edmond
Dantes had not wronged anyone. He was incapable of it. Still, he was
jailed. When Dantes became a captain at 19 and won the love of the
prettiest girl there, Life demanded he be strong to enjoy them. He did
not have the capacity to suspect his friend and therefore could not
defend himself against betrayal. This is the stamp of Life which I call
character of life. You will be punished for no fault of yours if you are
not resourceful, alert, awake and aware of all that might arise in the
minds of your enemies. It is not enough to be GOOD. One must be
fortified against life by strength as well as cunning. Dantes is a fine
example of this.
What life has not, God has - benevolence. Life could not reward Dantes
for his goodness, but when he was about to die, God gave him Faria, the
priest, and through him knowledge, wealth and prosperity. God in him
gave all this, not Life. (MSS)
Mercedes
Mercedes was the fiancée of Edmund Dantes,
the hero of The Count of Monte Cristo. She was an orphaned
Catalan girl of Marseilles. Dantes was falsely imprisoned. Fernand,
Mercedes’ cousin, persisted in courting her who had given her heart to
Dantes. After about a year, Fernand lied to her, saying that Dantes had
died in prison.
She married Fernand. The fisherman Fernand rose to become a Cabinet
Minister in Paris. They had a son, Albert. After 14 years, Dantes
escaped from prison, acquired wealth and culture, and came back to
France. He looked for her.
Finding out that she had married his very rival who had heinously
betrayed him, Dantes was in extreme despair. In Paris he was the
foremost citizen. Inadvertently, Albert challenged Dantes to a duel.
That brought Mercedes to Dantes to plead for the life of her son. He
agreed. Fernand later came to Dantes and found out that the ’Count’ was
none other than Dantes of his village. Fernand’s old betrayals came to
light and he killed himself.
Mercedes, who has by now learned of her husband’s seamy side, left her
place without taking any of Fernand’s wealth and went to live in Dantes’
childhood house in Marseilles.
She was brave, bold, idealistic and pure to give up that wealth and
status in favour of her loyalty to Dantes. Though she was pure, she was
a disappointment to Dantes.
He would have expected her to pine for him all her life and live a
lonely life cherishing his loving memory. She had persevered for a year
but not longer. Her pretty face and loneliness made her vulnerable and
she accepted the security of marriage with her cousin who loved her.
In her situation, it was not only understandable and pardonable, but
noble and magnificent to give up her husband’s wealth. Look at Mercedes
from Dantes’ point of view. His heart was totally after her.
He was engaged to marry her. On the eve of his marriage with her, he was
treacherously betrayed and sent to prison. He starved and tried to kill
himself. One year later she forgot him, and married Fernand.
Just then Faria entered Dantes’ life, solved the riddle of his
imprisonment, gave him knowledge of the highest level and added great
wealth.
Dantes lived for Mercedes, he lived in her. She left him, accepting the
false information of his death. His love for her brought him betrayal,
prison and suicide. She gave him up and he got mental freedom, knowledge
and wealth.
Till the end, the one thing he wanted was her. She was the source of
great misfortune for him. All the good in life came to him after she
moved away. Mercedes was a good girl. She was human.
His strength and goodness was almost divine. The one thing he longed for
was Mercedes who was his utter ruin. It is unbelievable and baffling. A
Princess of Greece whom he had discovered enslaved by an enemy was
bought and raised by him like a daughter.
Before the duel, he wrote his will in her favour. She tore it up and
said she loved him as a man. Mercedes moving away from him brought to
him, a ship’s mate, a born Queen with a golden heart of devotion. He
longed for Mercedes and our sympathies are with her.
Mother says Dumas had life knowledge. It is subtle knowledge of life at
its deeper foundations. Man is utterly attracted to that which will
utterly ruin him. (MSS)
Danglars
I have been repeatedly writing about Edmond Dantes
and The Count of Monte Cristo. One becomes a great writer and his works
come to stay because he has life knowledge. Man likes to think that life
is moral, vindictive, wicked, evil. Maybe to his perception it is so,
because life has all these capacities.
To perceptive, sensitive souls, Life tries to reveal God at each step.
When life returns evil to good, one is furious. He does not SEE that
life is teaching him that in the eyes of God, good as well as evil are
equal. Mother says you can reach God either through heaven or hell. The
choice is yours. If for any reason you like hell, life is a hell to you.
Mother offers the sunlit path to us.
Danglars was a storekeeper on Dantes’ ship. He was jealous by nature,
stole, carried tales, collected every possible information about
everyone so that it could be used against them in time if necessary. He
expected to be made captain based on seniority, not on capacity. The
owner naturally made Edmond captain.
Danglars was burning with rage. To one who has no talents, everyone who
is talented is an enemy. Danglars knew of Dantes’ meeting Napoleon and
his letter. He suggested to Fernand, the other rival of Dantes, that
Dantes could be arrested and Fernand could marry Mercedes, a scheme dear
to Fernand. With his left hand, Danglars wrote a letter to the
magistrate anonymously.
Experts say all left-handed writing is the same in appearance. Edmond
was arrested. Danglars moved to Spain. There he had occasion to cheat a
banker and come by a huge sum of money. He came back to Paris, married a
rich widow, became a banker of renown. When Dantes came to Paris as the
Count, he banked with Danglars, planning his revenge on his old
colleague, Danglars.
Dantes went to a telegraph post, bribed the man there, sent a false
telegram to Danglars with news that would cause some railway stocks to
rise. Believing the false news, Danglars invested in the company and
lost his all. Dantes propped up an ex-convict as a Prince and Danglars —
again falling a prey to Dantes — arranged the marriage of his daughter
to that fake Prince. The bubble burst and the Prince exposed Danglars’
wife in the court saying he was her illegitimate son whom she had
believed killed by her lover.
Danglars fled Paris with whatever money he could get and went to Rome.
Dantes arranged with bandits that Danglars be kidnapped. He was starved
and charged 1000 francs for each piece of bread and 10,000 francs for a
bottle of wine. At last, Dantes revealed to Danglars all that he had
done. He released Danglars with 50,000 francs.
Alexander Dumas knew every secret of life and reveals LIFE to us through
Dantes. Here a moral aspect of life is portrayed. We Indians will call
it karma. To see beyond morality and karma is philosophy. To live that
is yoga. Fernand and Danglars rose very high, just as Dantes did. This
is one secret of life. It is the first half traced by this novel. Yoga
traces the second half. When Dantes reaches heaven, the others too reach
heaven. Life has no evil. (MSS)
In Dumas' The Count of
Monte Cristo the hero, a good man, is falsely accused of things he
has not done, and lands in prison. There he meets a wise man who says
there is gold buried somewhere. The young man tunnels his way to
freedom, finds the treasure, and becomes fabulously wealthy. With his
wealth and power he not only brings down the jealous few men who falsely
accused him, but connects them to an entire level of corrupt officials
in French society, whom he unmasks before the nation.
When we learn to calmly
accept and learn from the positive and negative circumstances of life,
we reach a new level of personal growth that can help us toward
unlimited happiness and success. Also, if we observe life from a
distance we can see how negative circumstances often have the effect of
bringing about a positive good for people.
The Count of Monte
Cristo
by Alexander Dumas
-- An Analysis --
by Mother's
Service Society
A. General
1. Captain Le Clerc develops brain fever while arranging to deliver
the letter to Napoleon and dies soon after. It indicates the dangerous
intensity connected with the mission which results in Dante’s imprisonment.
Dantes is overjoyed at the good fortune issuing from Le Clerc’s death – his
joy is premature and unwise and later frustrated.
2. Napoleon was a giant and an enemy of the state imprisoned on Elba.
The moment Dantes lends himself to aid the Emperor he lands in prison, as
Napoleon was. When he emerges, he too like the Emperor is a man whose power
and stature are larger than life.
3. On board Dantes quarrels with Danglers and proposes they stop at
the isle of Monte Cristo to settle their differences, but Danglers
refuses. It forebodes the importance of this isle in their later life and
the greater quarrel to ensue.
4. Morrel’s main concern on the
arrival of his ship is for his cargo, only secondarily for the dead Le Clerc.
Years later when the same ship is sunk, his concern is for the crew rather
than the ship, though its loss means his certain ruin. His years of crises
have brought out his goodness, while Caderousse’s years of suffering brought
out his evil. (A man who is more concerned with his cargo than with his
crew is one who will lose cargo. Fourteen years later when Morrel comes to
think of the crew first and cargo only after, immediately his fortune is
restored to him.)
5. Danglars, Caderousse and
Fernand are overtly and explicitly jealous of Dantes and resentful of his
happiness and prosperity. This atmosphere around him, unwilling to support
his joy, brings him misery instead. Dantes clearly feels Caderousse’s
hostility behind his dissimulating friendship.
6. Although Caderousse tries to dissuade Danglars and Fernand from
their plot against Dantes, in fact he is the one who brings them together
and feels an intense jealousy because Dantes is rising in life. His inner
feeling is as evil as theirs, though his outer action is apparently
positive. Caderousse loses his first wife and he ends up marrying a devil as
Villefort does.
7. Mercedes was a Catalan and an orphan. By custom the Catalans did
not intermarry with the population of Marseille. Fernand calls it a sacred
law. Being an orphan, Mercedes’ need for physical companionship and
security is far greater than normal. That need attracts Fernand despite her
mental purity to Edmund. Fernand reminds Mercedes that his love of her had
Mercedes’ mothers’ sanction. They are cousins. Mercedes’ mother died a year
ago when she was sixteen, leaving a small inheritance of a hut.
8. Mercedes and Edmund disapproved of being called Madame and Captain
Dantes by their evil wishers, since to be called by a title before it is
attained is an evil omen.
9. Villefort has not just
sacrificed Dantes to protect his father, Noirtier. He could have simply
burned the letter and cautioned Dantes to silence for that. He has
sacrificed Dantes to his ambition for the king’s attention.
10.
The betrothal party for Edmund and Mercedes occurs the very same night as
the betrothal party for Villefort and Renee. Edmund loses his bride to his
enemy, Villefort loses his wife to an early death and ends up marrying a
devil. Renee’s mother, the Marquise, urges Villefort to prosecute and punish
without mercy any Bonapartist. Her instinctive response to Dante’s arrest
is negative, whereas her daughter regards the news as a bad omen for their
marriage (which it is since she dies within ten years) and pleads for
mercy. The marquise is poisoned by Madame Villefort; Renee’s daughter
Valentine is spared. Because Rene pleads mercy for Dantes without even
knowing him, 20 years later Dantes saves Renee’s daughter Valentine from
poisoning by her stepmother.
11. Caderousse’s outer behaviour is
one of goodwill and friendship for Dantes but conceals envy and ill-will.
Therefore, though Dantes outwardly helps him by giving the jewel, the result
is Caderousse’s downfall.
12. Dantes invites Caderousse,
Danglars and Fernand to his betrothal despite their ill-will. He sits
Danglers on his left. Mercedes sits Fernand on hers. Their ill will
destroys the occasion.
13.
Edmund had smuggled a small chest of coffee and tobacco on the ship for his
father. A small illegal act on his part is sanction for legal action
against him.
14.
Like Othello, Edmund achieves a peak of joy, which becomes unbearable and
unsustainable and calls into play the other side of his nature. In
Othello’s case it is the impure vital depths that rise in jealousy. In
Edmund the inner content is pure and good (Eg: he first seeks his father,
only then Mercedes), but the outer nature is naïve and unsuspecting. He
lacks the wisdom and alertness to protect himself, his woman, his position
from attack. The years in prison impart that mental capacity which he
lacked as a youth.
15.
Mercedes is beautiful, but not capable of true loyalty while Edmund is
essentially loyal; therefore their marriage was broken. Mercedes who
betrayed her oath never to marry any man but Edmund, is married to Fernand
who betrays his oath of loyalty to Napoleon (deserting to England during the
100 days) and Ali Pacha.
16. Morrel and his son both undergo
prolonged suffering before Dantes restores good fortune to them (Morrel 90
days till the pronotes expire and Maximillian 30 days during which he
believes Valentine dead) – this indicates their goodness was not an inherent
natural possession, but something acquired. Therefore life’s response is
not immediate.
17.
At the age of 20, Edmund who was good, honest and noble, lacked the
knowledge of human nature, alertness, sagacity, and cunning necessary to
marry a beautiful woman and assume a captaincy, both coveted by others with
less scruples than himself. His arrest and imprisonment are a direct result
of this weakness in his character.
18. Dantes is charged with conspiring
for Napoleon’s return. In fact it is true that he did serve that purpose.
The letter he delivered to the Emperor helped Napoleon gain freedom from his
island prison for a hundred days. The price Dantes paid was years of
imprisonment on an island like Napoleon.
19.
The death of Captain Le Clerc before he could deliver the letter to Napoleon
reflected the weight of that mission. Le Clerc was not strong enough to
accomplish it, Dantes was. Le Clerc paid with his life; Dantes retained his
life but lost everything else – his job, his love, his name.
20.
Napoleon’s letter to Noirtier never reached its destination. It
foreshadowed the failure of Napoleon’s return. For a few moments in his
life a sailor named Dantes came face to face with Napoleon. Dantes’s later
life – the knowledge and wealth he attained – were reminiscent of a gift
from the Emperor who possessed both in great measure.
21. Dantes could not suppress his joy
at Le Clerc’s death which made his promotion to Captain certain. His joy
brought Le Clerc’s misfortune on Dantes in a different form. His premature
joy evokes a hostile reaction that deprives him of even what he had.
22. Dantes, like Othello, was
overwhelmed by the ecstatic good fortune that greeted his return to France –
captaincy at the age of twenty and marriage to a beautiful girl. He too
could not support that peak of joy and swiftly turned into an equal
intensity of despair.
23.
There was a close parallel between Dantes and Villefort. Both were at the
beginning of a bright career. Both met on their betrothal days. What
should have ended Villefort’s career and marriage plans he used to fulfill
his highest ambitions by simultaneously destroying Dantes’ life and
marriage. The letter Dantes received from the hands of the Emperor brought
Villefort into the presence and graces of King Louis XVIII. One man’s
fortune was another’s disaster.
24.
What brought about Dantes’s fall? The negative atmosphere around his life,
the jealousy of Danglars for his job and Fernand for his would-be wife (and
perhaps Caderousse for his wealth). Dantes’s father nearly starved for want
of money during Dantes last voyage. It was an omen of things to come, for
his father did starve to death. Edmund failed to see the danger.
25.
When Napoleon returns to power, Morrel tries to assert his power as a
Bonapartist over Villefort in order to aid Dantes. But Villefort is more
clever than Morrel and matches his social assertion with a social bluff.
26.
From the moment of his arrest until his decision to starve to death in
prison several years after his arrival, Dantes life was in a steep decline.
Suddenly when he was near his very last breath, virtually dead, the pendulum
began its upward swing beginning with the sound of the Abbe’s digging. From
then on the climb was steady – the meeting with the Abbe, friendship,
acquisition of knowledge, the hope of the treasure, his escape to the
island, the wreck of the ship providing him wood to float on, the arrival of
the smugglers’ ship just before the discovery of his escape, his acceptance
and survival with the smugglers, the smugglers’ plan to land at Monte
Cristo, the discovery of the treasure.
27. Jacobo is the one who pulls the
drowning Dantes out of the water, saving his life, and lends him some
clothes. When Dantes is wounded by a customs officer’s bullet while trading
smuggled goods, Jacobo leaps to attend on him with greatest concern. Dantes
tests him by offering to give half his prize money from the raid, but Jacobo
refuses it. He is attracted to Dantes as a superior man and natural leader.
When Dantes is apparently injured on Monte Cristo, Jacobo offers to
relinquish his share in the smuggling venture to remain and care for him.
Dantes is struck by the loyalty and affection of the smugglers for him.
Later Jacobo becomes captain of Dantes boat.
28.
When Dantes is wounded, he feels the joy of strength and says “Pain, thou
art not evil.” Pain has been the teacher that gave him knowledge, strength
and wealth. Therefore, in trying to help others—Morrel and Maximillian,
Dantes resorts to the only teacher he knows—pain.
29.
The treasure belonged to Cardinal Spada who dies of poisoning. It serves
Dantes and Haydee primarily as an instrument for vengeance.
30.
After escaping from prison, Dantes in disguise as the Abbe Busoni meets
Caderousse and tries to reward the outer action by presenting Caderousse
with the diamond. It brings out the evil in Caderousse and his wife and he
responds directly by murdering the jeweler. Caderousse ends up in prison and
lives the rest of his life as a criminal. For trying to give Caderousse what
he did not deserve, Caderousse tries to take his life when he stabs Abbe
Busoni during his attempted robbery of the Count’s house in Paris.
31.
When Dantes escapes and returns 20 years later, Morrel loses the Pharaon
which Dantes had sailed on and becomes bankrupt. This time he is able to
express genuine concern for his crew rather than his cargo and his wealth
comes back to him. He has acquired real goodness.
32. Mercedes’s son Albert had an
aristocratic Parisian friend, Franz, who stumbled on Monte Cristo’s island
while in search of adventure and was entertained by the Count in his grotto
paradise. Later one night in the Coliseum, Franz overheard the Count
arranging with the outlaw Vampa for the release of a peasant who was
sentenced for execution in Rome. A day later Franz recognized the Count in
a box at the opera and learned that the Count was living on the same floor
of the same hotel as he and Albert in Rome. Still later, Albert is kidnapped
by Vampa. By what mechanism of life was Albert, Fernand’s son, put in
intimate contact with his father’s bitter enemy? The link was always a
smuggler or outlaw. Franz’s adventure on the Isle of Monte Cristo was after
warnings that it was a smuggler’s haven and with the intention of dining
with the smugglers on the shore to share their roast goat. He dined with
the Count instead, who befriended smugglers and thieves. The night he
overhead the Count and Vampa at the Coliseum, it was after he and Albert had
been expressly warned of the danger of Vampa by their hotel patron and they
chose to ignore it. Franz had been further warned of the Count’s links by
the patron’s story of the Count’s initial encounter with Vampa within hours
befire Vampa became chief of the bandits. Meeting the Count and exchanging
gifts with him propelled Vampa from mere shepherd to the top of the criminal
profession!
33.
The Countess G’s prescient fear of the Count and warning to Franz and
Franz’s own anxiety and discomfort with the Count did not prevent he and
Albert from availing of the Count’s hospitality. Albert was finally
committed to return the Count’s kindness after the Count saved him from
Vampa and got him released. The Count had innumerable links with the
underworld including his rescue by the smugglers after his escape from
prison and the smuggler who employed as a steward. As an outcaste and
escaped criminal, Dantes felt a natural affinity with criminals. The young
men’s thirst for adventure brought them into touch with that world and
through it with the Count.
34.
From Edmund’s side his very deep and intense craving to avenge the evil done
to him by Albert’s father and the others was an all-powerful force that
attracted the proper circumstances for their fulfillment.
35.
Albert’s search for an illicit secret love affair led him into Vampa’s trap
– sex and crime are so closely linked.
36.
The Countess’ instinctive repulsion to the Count who she feels is a Vampire
is actually an unconscious attraction. In Paris she unknowingly supports
the Count’s entry in the horse race which wins the cup and is intrigued when
she finds the cup waiting for her at her home.
B. Edmund & Mercedes
1. Mercedes is a good girl socially. She acts out with a sense of
honesty, propriety and goodwill. She seeks to be honest and fair with her
cousin Fernand, she is caring and concerned about Edmund’s father, she is
affectionate with Edmund and longs and suffers for him as well as herself
when he is imprisoned. After hearing the report of his fall into the sea,
she dreams of his death every night for years and later has herself painted
as the Catalan girl in front of a dark hillside.
2. Why then does such a good, loyal girl end marrying a traitor like
Fernand who is capable of any betrayal? The principle is that when we
live on the surface we attract to ourselves that which is similar to our own
nature. Thus, a socially good Mercedes is attracted to Edmund who is
psychologically good. But her social goodness cannot fulfill his
psychological need. Both he and she need to evolve beyond their present
attainments and neither can be the source of that evolution for the other.
Mercedes must outgrow the social goodness of being a beautiful, happy loyal
girl to become a psychological person. That requires separation from that
which would fulfill her socially. A deeper principle is that when we are
making a progress beyond the level of our present endowment we attract that
which is necessary to complete that progress, which is very often the
opposite of that which we are or possess. Mercedes marries a
treacherous, unscrupulous man incapable of the psychological feelings she is
trying to evolve. She develops and expresses them in her relationship with
her son. Her progress is from social goodness to psychological depth through
a process of estrangement, a marriage of form that lacks inner substance,
the discovery of Fernand’s betrayal and her renunciation of the title,
wealth, property and security he had given her in favor of real
psychological right or goodness. The strength she confesses to Edmund that
she lacked at the time of his imprisonment she acquired through her life and
is now able to exercise to leave Fernand. Had she possessed that inner
goodness and strength at the outset, she would not have needed to undergo
that separation from Edmund.
3. On his part, Edmund also needed to make a psychological progress
from surface attachment to deeper emotions. He is separated from all that he
loves and cherishes, but later forges a relationship with a real
psychological personality, Heidi, a woman capable of mature, deep emotions
of loyalty and devotion. Edmund is forced to give up the social forms of
recognition, wife, career and become a true psychological individual. When
he makes that progress, he meets and is loved by another psychological
individual.
C. Vampa
1. Cucumetto , the bandit chief,
had raped Rita, the lover of his gang member, Carlina. Carlina then killed
Rita to save her the humiliation of further molestation by the gang. Rita’s
father came and learning the facts killed himself. A few days later
Cucumetto shot Carlina in the back anticipating Carlina’s plan for revenge.
Once when Cucumetto was escaping from the soldiers he was hidden by the
shepherd boy Luigi Vampa and his girlfriend Teresa. Luigi refused to turn
him in despite the offer of a big reward.
2. Luigi and Teresa are invited to their master’s, Comte de San Felice,
masquerade ball. For want of a fourth appropriate lady dancing partner,
Teresa is invited to fill in and a noblemen extends an amorous proposition
to her. Overcome with jealousy, that night Luigi steals the Countess’
precious gown and jewels for Teresa. When he gives the dress to Teresa, the
Count happens to arrive asking for directions. Luigi walks off to show him
the way and they exchange gifts of friendship. On his return Luigi sees
Teresa being carried off by Cucumetto and he kills Cucumetto with a bullet
in the back just as Cucumetto had killed Carlina. Luigi decides to become
an outlaw and is chosen as chief.
3. Carlina had learned that
resorting to force as a way of life also exposes what is dear to him to the
same force. He and his love die for it, since he is not strong enough for
revenge. His revenge is fulfilled by Vampa when Cucumetto tries to repeat
the act against Teresa. Vampa’s initial encounter with the Count has two
immediate results. He loses Teresa only to recover her by homicide and he
becomes chief of the bandits. Again the Count is linked to bandits.
Sometime later Vampa and ten of his gang try to capture the Count not
recognizing him, but the Count captures Luigi and his men, then lets them go
in a show of friendship. The Count is the only one who has defeated the
outlaw Vampa. Where does his power come from? It comes from being an outlaw
himself of greater energy and purpose; though like Luigi essentially not
evil in nature.
4. The Count cements their relationship when he arranges for the
release of Pepino, an innocent shepherd boy who helped feed Vampa’s gang and
was sentenced to death for complicity with the bandits.
5. In return Vampa becomes an unconscious aid to the Count’s scheme
for revenge when Vampa kidnaps Albert and gives the Count the opportunity to
save Albert’s life by asking Vampa to release him, which he does. The
Count’s life is in harmony with those of other underworld characters.
D.
Caderousse:
1. He felt and expressed strong jealousy of Dantes when he returns to
port and is likely to be made Captain.
2. He was not a conscious participant in Danglar’s plot against
Edmund. He was drunk while the scheming took place, but protested against
the very suggestion of implementing it. When he realized Danglars has
acted, he is restrained by Danglar’s warning that he too may be arrested
along with Dantes.
3. While Dantes was at sea, Caderousse demanded the return of his loan
to Edmund from Edmund’s father who by complying deprived himself of
sufficient money and nearly starved to death.
4. After Dantes’s imprisonment, his father did die of voluntary
starvation of which Caderousse was an innocent by-stander. Later
Caderousse’s business failed, he bought the Port de Gard tavern and became
bankrupt. After the death of his first wife, he remarried and his second
wife got marsh fever which made her a half crippled, constantly suffering
termagant.
5. At this moment when Caderousse had fallen to the very depths and
had nothing more to lose, Edmund returned disguised as the Abbe Busoni and
gave him the 50,000 franc jewel in return for the information about the
others which Caderousse rendered with honesty.
6. Instead of becoming a turning point in Caderousse’s life leading to
recovery and happiness as it did for Morrel’s family, the jewel evoked their
greed, and led to the jeweler’s murder, his wife’s death and Caderousse’s
conviction for life imprisonment. Later he meets Benedetto and escapes.
7. Why did Dantes’ gift have such a different affect on Caderousse and
Morrel? Because Morrel was essentially positive, Caderousse essentially
negative.
E. Morrel:
1. Like Caderousse, M. Morrel suffered a long downward spiral of
fortune after Edmund’s imprisonment. He made innumerable attempts to
discover Edmund’s fate and get him released, but to no avail. When Edmund’s
father was short of funds, Morrel left a purse of gold on his mantle.
2. Edmund returned fourteen years later when Morrel was on the verge
of bankruptcy. By purchasing Morrel’s pro-notes from his creditors, Edmund
saved him from the humiliation of dishonouring his debts. The very moment
that they met, news came that Morrel’s last ship, the Pharaon - Edmund’s
own – had sunk, and that Morrel was broke. Edmund gave him three month’s
extension, then canceled the notes, gave a 100,000 franc diamond to Morrel’s
daughter as dowry and replaced the lost Pharaon with its cargo.
3. Morrel’s goodness is amply
demonstrated not only by his concern for Edmund’ father, but at his great
joy on learning the crew of the Pharaon had been save at the very moment
he believe he was totally ruined.
4. Until his death Morrel constantly sought to discover the identity
of his benefactor and came to suspect it was none other than Edmund. So
great was his desire to discover and offer gratitude, that sure knowledge of
that it was Edmund came as an inspiration the moment before his death.
F. Bertuccio:
1. He was a Corsican smuggler whose brother, an officer in Bonaparte’s
army, was murdered by Royalists after the second restoration. When
Bertuccio applied to Villefort for legal action against the murders, he was
roughly rebuffed. Bertuccio swore revenge against Villefort. Three months
later Bertuccio tracked Villefort to his country house at Auteuil where
Villefort had gone for a rendezvous with Hermione de Nargonne (now Madame
Danglars after her first husband had died a few months earlier) who was
about to give birth to their illegitimate child. When the child was born,
Villefort thought it still-born or smothered it (?) and buried it in the
garden. Bertuccio stabbed him, dug up the box and escaped only to discover
he was carrying a nearly dead infant.
2. Bertuccio’s sister-in-law
(brother’s widow) raised the child, Benedetto, with deep affection, but when
the evil boy was in his late teens he and a few friends attacked the woman
who burned to death and they stole all Bertuccio’s money and disappeared.
Unknowingly she was raising the means of avenging her husband’s death.
3. Bertuccio, a lucky smuggler,
was one day nearly caught and narrowly escaped to the Pont De Gard tavern
run by Caderousse and concealed himself in a closet under the stairway just
in time to witness to arrival of Caderousse and the jeweler who offered to
buy the F50,000 diamond given Caderousse by the Abbe (Edmund). Bertuccio
overheard Caderousse’s story and the theft which resulted in the death of
Caderousse’s wife and the jeweler while Caderousse escaped. Bertuccio was
arrested by the customs officers who overheard the shot nearby, was
imprisoned for murder and released when the Abbe came to confirm his story,
then on the Abbe’s recommendation joined up with the Count.
4. Benedetto became a criminal,
joined the same prison as Caderousse and later escaped. Caderousse too
later escaped and found Benedetto at Auteuil playing the role of Andrea
Cavalcanti which the Count has established for him.
5. Interpretation:
a) Villefort
punished Edmund as a Bonapartist. He is nearly assassinated and his affair
with Hermione and infanticide are discovered when he allows the murder of
another Bonapartist to go free, thus evoking Bertuccio’s revenge.
b)
Bertuccio, suffering from a similar offense by Villefort, is a
willing and suitable instrument for Edmund’s revenge. Villefort’s
vulnerability arises from his own violation of law and morals by his affair
and attempted infanticide.
G. Life Events
1. Napoleon’s letter which Dantes was carrying was for Villefort’s
father, Noirtier, making it imperative for Villefort to somehow conceal the
fact and resulting in Edmund’s imprisonment.
2. Just as Edmund is about to die of self-imposed starvation, he hears
the sound of Abbe Faria’s excavations and therefore decides to live.
Knowledge, freedom and wealth follow.
3. Dantes is rescued from the sea
after his escape from prison by the sudden wreck of a fishing boat and the
passing of a smugglers’ ship.
4. Disguised as a representative of a Roman banker, Dantes meets
Morrel on the very day Morrel’s last ship, Pharaon, is lost and Morrel is
ruined. (Dantes’s desire to repay Morrel’s help, brings him just at the most
opportune moment.)
5. Bertuccio swears revenge
against Villefort, the same man Dantes seeks, and discovers Villefort’s
secret affair and infanticide
6. Bertuccio, trying to escape
the customs agent, witnesses the murder of the jeweler and Caderousse’s
wife’s death. The storm outside conspires to aid Caderousse in his plot.
7. The Count meets Bertuccio and learns Villefort’s secret through
Bertuccio’s chance encounter with Caderousse and Bertuccio,s arrest.
8. The child Bertuccio saved, Benedetto, killed Bertuccio’s
sister-in-law as Benedetto’s father, Villefort, had condoned the murder of
Bertuccio’s brother.
9. Bertuccio meets Caderousse in
prison.
10. Benedetto also meets Caderousse
in prison and later again in Paris.
11.
Franz arrives by chance at Monte Cristo isle and meets the Count – or is it
by the Count’s contrivance?
12.
Albert and Franz reside on the same floor of the same hotel in Rome as the
Count - again perhaps the Count’s contrivance?
13.
Franz overhears the Count’s discussion with Vampa in the coliseum.
14. Vampa’s meeting with the Count
the first time coincides with Cuccumetto’s kidnapping of Teresa and Vampa’s
turning bandit.
15. Vampa’s kidnapping of Albert and
Albert’s release by the Count may have been contrived by the Count, but if
so it is Albert who responds to the lure.
16.
The flight of Madame Danglar’s carriage with Madame Villefort and Edmund
inside which Ali halted – the Count’s contrivance surely since he returned
the same horses to Madame Danglars just hours before and he had Ali waiting
for them to pass by.
17.
In the early part of his life, Edmund is subject to the whims of life – his
captain’s death, Danglar’s plot, Villefort’s betrayal, Abbe’s excavation.
As the Count he learns to drive life and make it respond to his wishes –
Bertuccio, Albert, Franz, Benedetto all aid his plots.
18. Maximillian overhears the doctor
inform Villefort that his mother-in-law died of poisoning, (a poison given
to Villefort’s wife by the Count).
19.
Madame Villefort, Villefort’s second wife, poisoned Marquis Madame de Saint
Meran, the parents of Villefort’s first wife, with poison that Madame
Villefort obtained from the Count. The St. Meran’s were present at
Villefort’s betrothal to Renee St Meran at the time when Edmund was
arrested. The parents instinctively urged a severe punishment for the
unknown suspect, while the daughter who died after bearing Valentine,
pleaded for mercy. Even at her death, Madam St. Meran sided with Villefort,
urged Valentine’s immediate marriage to Franz which opposes Valentine’s and
Maximillian’s hopes.
20.
The news of Marquis de St. Meran’s death came at the Mercerf’s ball at the
moment that Edmund and Mercedes are talking privately for the first time.
Their meeting signals the beginning of calamity in Villefort’s house.
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