English / Comparative Analysis Of The Three Musketeers And The Count Of Monte Christo

Comparative Analysis Of The Three Musketeers And The Count Of Monte Christo

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Autor:  anton  25 December 2010
Tags:  Comparative,  Analysis,  Musketeers
Words: 1144   |   Pages: 5
Views: 264

Alexandre Dumas has always had a reputation for writing swashbuckling and fast-paced adventure tales that blend together fact and fiction. He wrote many historical fiction novels where would severely stretch the truth to achieve a great novel, but never claimed that the novels tell the same story as history. One common subject of Dumasâ€™ novels is the element of betrayal and what leads to the revenge of that betrayal.

The Three Musketeers (1844) tells the story of a man named Dâ€™Artagnan, a young Gascon gentleman who dreams of becoming a Musketeer. On the way from his home in Gascoigne to Paris to meet Monsieur de Treville, the leader of the Kingâ€™s Musketeers and a fellow Gascon, Dâ€™Artagnan stops in the city of Meung. There, Dâ€™Artagnan gets into a quarrel with a man who steals his letter of recommendation to Monsieur de Treville and gives it to a beautiful woman referred to as Milady.

Dâ€™Artagnan never stops wanting revenge. Dâ€™Artagnan soon finds out that the man from Meung is Comte de Rochefort and that Rochefort and Milady are both agents for the Cardinal Richelieu and that Milady has committed many crimes in her life. In fact, lots of other people want her dead too. Athos, especially, wants her dead because she lied to him when she married him because she has a Fleur-de-Lis branded on her shoulder. A Fleur-de-Lis a French National Symbol and you may know it as the New Orleans Saintsâ€™ Logo. To have it branded on you means that you have committed one or more crimes in your life.

The Three Musketeers refers to Dâ€™Artagnanâ€™s friends, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, so there are actually four of them. Another example of revenge used in the story is when Athos tracks down his thought-to-be-dead wife, Milady, who tried to kill him and kills her. Dâ€™Artagnan also gets vengeance on her when she is killed because she poisoned Dâ€™Artagnanâ€™s love, Constance Bonacieux. Lord de Winter, Miladyâ€™s brother-in-law wants revenge on her because she killed his brother and her husband to gain his fortune, and the Executioner of Lille, the person who actually kills Milady, wants revenge on her for having to brand his own brother after Milady seduced him and they stole items and Milady escapes.

In The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) Dumas tells the story of a French Sailor, Edmond Dantes. He has a great life, a beautiful fiancÐ¹, and just became Captain of his ship. The only problem is that his friends want these things. A very unlucky chain of events beginning with Edmond meeting Napoleon on the island of Elba while he is in exile and ending with him being wrongly imprisoned by his best friend, who wants his fiancÐ¹, Mercedes, his First Mate, who wants to be Captain, and the Deputy Prosecutor of the King, who doesnâ€™t want anyone to know that his father is one of Napoleonâ€™s agents.

Dantes is sent to the Chateau Dâ€™If where he learns of the treasure of Monte Cristo. After he escapes he is obsessed with the revenge of the people who betrayed him and wonâ€™t stop until every ounce of revenge is exacted. First he finds the treasure and buys a house in Paris and other locations. He amasses a huge fortune and becomes a very well known and powerful Count. He slowly gets to know his subjects and studies them carefully so he can fulfill his mission.

After he gets to know his oblivious betrayers, he begins to set traps for them. First, he begins with the former First Mate. The Count knows he is greedy and tricks into trying to steal a treasure where in an effort to escape arrest, the Count kills him right after admitting to him that he is Edmond Dantes. He then sets a trap for Villefort, the deputy prosecutor, now chief prosecutor of France. The Count tricks him into confessing Conspiracy to Murder and he is arrested.

The final revenge goes to the Countâ€™s former best friend, Count de Morcerf, the husband of Mercedes. In the climax at the end, Edmond is about to kill Count de Morcerf when his son, Albert, arrives and keeps Edmond away from Morcerf. Soon, Mercedes shows up and tells everyone that Albert is really the son of Edmond Dantes, or the Count of Monte Cristo and not Morcerf. Dantes and Morcerf then duel and the Count wins and goes off to live happily ever after with his true love and wife, Mercedes, his son, Albert, and his enormous fortune of Monte Cristo.

In both these stories there is the appearance of sins of the bible. Either the characters will commit a sin or break one of the Ten Commandments or commit one of the seven deadly sins. This suggests that Dumas may not have been a highly religious man but had a clear knowledge of the Christian religion. In The Three Musketeers Milady commits many acts that the bible claims to be forbidden and she is called a demon for her actions. Thou shall not kill. This states the simple aspect of life and humanity. Do not kill others. Thou shall not envy anotherâ€™s possessions. Milady, the First Mate, and Mondego all commit this crime and leads them to other crimes. Milady kills her enemies. Thou shall not speak falsely of others. This says donâ€™t lie. Lying is what happens when Dantes is framed in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Of course, we cannot look at the crimes of the antagonists without looking at the crimes of the protagonist. When the musketeers, Lord de Winter, and the executioner execute Milady they too are disobeying the sixth commandment. On the other hand, Dantes too kills two of his three enemies thus committing the fourth deadly sin by having anger and seeking revenge. As said in the bible, Jesus says that revenge is a sin and when someone commits a hostile action towards you to just turn the other cheek and to seek forgiveness for those who did you wrong.

All in all, Dumas makes the crimes of betrayal and revenge very aware in his novels and is a definitive factor in a lot of his most popular writings. In both stories the protagonist is a young, intelligent, and innocent man. They are that way until the antagonist betrays them and they become fueled by rage to get even with their enemies. Dumas seamlessly blends these two great elements into his novels and made two of the greatest stories ever written. I believe that if there had been Nobel or Pulitzer Prizes back then that Dumas was a shoo-in to win .Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more manâ€™s nature runs to, the more the law should weed it out. Dumas creates a world of betrayal and revenge in his stories and is one of the greatest authors of all time.

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