The Count of
Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo
• AUTHOR: Alexandre Dumas
• PUBLISHED: 1844
• SETTING: The story takes place in France, Italy
islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant
during the historical events of 1815–1838
(from just before the Hundred Days through to
the reign of Louis-Phillippe of France)
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
• ALEXANDRE DUMAS WAS BORN in 1802 in the village of Villers-Cotterêts,
fifty miles northeast of Paris. His father, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,
had been a general under Napoleon, and died in 1806 leaving the
family almost penniless.
• Dumas taught himself to read and as a child he was especially fond of
adventure stories and mythology. He was determined to become an
author himself and in 1820 made his way to Paris to do so.
• His first play, Henry III and His Court, thrust Dumas into the limelight
as one of the forerunners of the emergent French Romantic
movement, which emphasized excitement, adventure, and high
emotion in an attempt to rebel against the conservative climate of
the Restoration period that followed the French Revolution. Like his
Romantic colleagues, Dumas believed in the principles of social
equality and individual rights, and he tried to infuse his dramatic
works with these principles. Dumas went further than writing about
his beliefs, however. He took an active role in the Revolution of 1830.
As a result he was not popular with the new king, and left France in
exile.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
• When he returned to Paris, he continued to write frequently. In 1844,
the same year he published The Three Musketeers, Dumas began the
serialization of The Count of Monte Cristo. He continued writing
prolifically for most of his life, publishing his last novel, The Prussian
Terror, in 1867, three years before his death.
• Dumas also found the time to live like one of his dashing, dramatic,
reckless heroes. He was constantly engaged in love affairs, foreign
adventures, and exorbitant spending. He was also a generous man,
granting money and gifts to virtually anyone who asked. Dumas’s selfindulgent lifestyle and excessive generosity eventually took a toll on his
finances. By the time he suffered a stroke in 1870, he was far from a
rich man, despite the fact that he had earned millions of dollars in his
lifetime. He died in December 1870 at the home of his son, the
novelist Alexandre Dumas the younger. Dumas’s greatest gift was his
ability to grant epic proportion to existing stories
Historical Context
• The novel takes place during the years following the fall of Napoleon’s
empire. The story begins in 1815 and ends in 1844. Though most of the
action takes place in Paris, key scenes are also set in Marseilles, Rome,
Monte Cristo, Greece, and Constantinople.
• The Count of Monte Cristo is a novel set firmly in history, with many key
plot points based on external political events. The key figure in French
politics during the first quarter of the nineteenth century was Napoleon
Bonaparte, who, though he does not appear in the novel, plays such a
significant role that he can almost be counted as one of the major
characters.
• Napoleon was a general who rose to prominence during the French
Revolution, which occurred in 1789. He saved the revolutionary
government from an angry mob and led the French army to victories
over Austria, Italy, and Egypt, claiming all of these lands for France. In
1799, Napoleon led a coup against the existing government of France
and formed a consulate, installing himself as its dictatorial leader.
Major Characters
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Edmond Dantès - a young man who is wrongfully improsoned; later known as the Count of Monte
Cristo; sometimes called Abbe Busoni, Lord Wilmore, or Sinbad the Sailor
Danglars- an employee of Morrel; later a Parisian banker
Mercedes- Edmond’s beautiful and good fiancée
Abbé Faria - A priest and brilliant thinker whom Dantès meets in prison. Abbé Faria becomes
Dantès’s intellectual father: during their many years as prisoners, and bequeaths to Dantès his vast
hidden fortune.
Fernand Mondego - Dantès’s rival for Mercédès’s affections.
Baron Danglars - A greedy, envious cohort of Mondego.
Caderousse - A lazy, drunk, and greedy man who is somewhat involved in the plot against Dantès.
Gérard de Villefort - The blindly ambitious public prosecutor responsible for sentencing Dantès to
life in prison.
Monsieur Morrel - The kind, honest shipowner who was once Dantès’s boss. Morrel does
everything in his power to free Dantès from prison and tries to save Dantès’s father from death.
His one true friend.
Louis Dantès - Dantès’s father.
Maximilian Morrel - The son of Monsieur Morrel. Brave and honorable like his father, Maximilian
becomes Dantès’s primary beneficiary.
Albert de Morcerf - The son of Fernand Mondego and Mercédès. Unlike his father, Albert is brave,
honest, and kind.
Valentine Villefort - Villefort’s saintly and beautiful daughter.
Haydée - The daughter of Ali Pacha; Haydée is sold into slavery after her father is betrayed by
Mondego and murdered. Dantès purchases Haydée’s freedom.
The Age of Progress
The 19th Century
– A Steady Acceleration of Science
– The Belief that Material Progress would lead to universal
well-being and happiness
– Belief that they are about to become the greatest culture
the world has seen
• The Plight of the Poor
– As the century progressed, the evils caused by
industrialization increased and the gap between aristocrats
and the impoverished factory laborer and peasants
widened.
– Also, major gap between the rich and powerful nations of
Europe and their subjects in their colonial empires.
Romanticism:
Take Notes
Romanticism refers to a movement in art,
literature, and music during the 19th
century.
Romanticism is characterized by the 5 “I”s
Imagination
Intuition
Idealism
Inspiration
Individuality
Imagination
Imagination was emphasized over
“reason.”
This was a backlash against the
rationalism characterized by the
Neoclassical period or “Age of Reason.”
Imagination was considered necessary for
creating all art.
British writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge
called it “intellectual intuition.”
Intuition
Romantics placed value on “intuition,” or
feeling and instincts, over reason.
Emotions were important in Romantic art.
British Romantic William Wordsworth
described poetry as “the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.”
Idealism
Idealism is the concept that we can make
the world a better place.
Idealism refers to any theory that
emphasizes the spirit, the mind, or
language over matter – thought has a
crucial role in making the world the way it
is.
Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher,
held that the mind forces the world we
perceive to take the shape of space-andtime.
Inspiration
The Romantic artist, musician, or writer,
is an “inspired creator” rather than a
“technical master.”
What this means is “going with the
moment” or being spontaneous, rather
than “getting it precise.”
Individuality
Romantics celebrated the individual.
During this time period, Women’s Rights
and Abolitionism were taking root as
major movements.
Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer,
would write a poem entitled “Song of
Myself”: it begins, “I celebrate myself…”
Origins
Romanticism began to take root as a
movement following the French
Revolution.
The publication of Lyrical Ballads by
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge in 1792 is considered the
beginning of literary Romanticism.
The Arts
Romanticism was a movement across all
the arts: visual art, music, and literature.
All of the arts embraced themes prevalent
in the Middle Ages: chivalry, courtly love.
Literature and art from this time depicted
these themes. Music (ballets and operas)
illustrated these themes.
Shakespeare came back into vogue.
Visual Arts
Neoclassical art was
rigid, severe, and
unemotional; it
hearkened back to
ancient Greece and
Rome
Romantic art was
emotional, deeplyfelt, individualistic,
and exotic. It has
been described as a
reaction to
Neoclassicism, or
“anti-Classicism.”
Visual Arts: Examples
Romantic Art
Neoclassical Art
Music
“Classical” musicians
included composers
like Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart and
Franz Josef Haydn.
Romantic musicians
included composers
like Frederic Chopin,
Franz Lizst, Pyotr
Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Literature
In America, Romanticism most strongly
impacted literature.
Writers explored supernatural and gothic
themes.
Writers wrote about nature –
Transcendentalists believed G-d was in
nature, unlike “Age of Reason” writers like
Franklin and Jefferson, who saw G-d as a
“divine watchmaker,” who created the
universe and left it to run itself.
Romantic Writers
• Came to see themselves as rebels, passionately
devoted to personal freedom
• in reaction against their own times (becoming
uglier and more commercialized), they used as
background for their works a simpler, more
mysterious time of the past or some far away
place.
• Turned from Emphasis on rationalism to an
acceptance of importance of Human Feelings.
• Glorification of nature and ultimate truth of
individual experience.
Characteristics of Romanticism
Sentimentality
Nature
Emotional
Simplicity (Noble Savage)
Imaginative
Remote (Past, Far Away)
Common Man
Melancholy
Human Freedom
Death and Anticipation
Non-Conformity
Terror
Rural Life
Romantic Adventure Stories
• Sympathy for obvious hero/ dislike for obvious
villains
• Novel has great adventure
• Hero has most noble qualities
• Hero often put to test- survives well
• Narrative Plot is most important focus, not
character development
• Success depends on capturing readers’ interest