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American
Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Samples 2015 2. Short Essay 2b. Choose a previously-read literary text |
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Lori Wheeler
My Romance with Edmond Dantès
Not having studied literary movements or styles
much as an undergraduate student, I happened upon one of the greatest romantic
novels all on my own. Like many
avid readers, I have always kept lists of books that I will eventually read:
classics, young adult, bestsellers, and “as seen on TV,” etc.
One of the novels on multiple lists was The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas; I read it one summer and loved it so much that now I read it
every time I travel to France.
Dumas’s legendary novel has remained popular
through the years because it is compelling and exemplifies the characteristics
of Romanticism. In my estimation,
there is no greater romantic hero than Edmond Dantès.
In this single character, the reader finds heroic individualism in his
ability to overcome, in various situations, his station or circumstance by sheer
force of desire and will. As a
young man, he compensates for his working class position by proving himself
valuable to his superiors, so much so that he gains the trust of his ship’s
owner and receives a well-earned promotion.
Despite help from the abbé imprisoned in the Chateau d’If with him,
Dantès is ultimately responsible for his own escape and resurrection, if you
will, after the abbé dies.
Throughout his harrowing quest, Dantès shows great personal determination and
individualism in the attainment of his goals: to prove to those who have wronged
him, and ultimately, to himself that he is worthy of the same dignity and regard
as anyone else, especially those who conspired to imprison him for life.
In this way, Dantès shows his desire for a type of utopian society in
which he is able to attain his desires.
Throughout The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond
Dantès is on a quest for revenge on those who have wronged him and to reclaim
the life he had before. Dantès
carries with him a longing for a past that can never be regained and a wrath
that does not weaken because the world with which he longs to reunite is
unattainable. While Dantès does
eventually find a life worth living and a love worth holding on to in Haydée,
his happiness in these things comes, in part, from a desire to recover what he
had lost. However, some could argue
that it is in finding this new life and love that he is able to transcend the
world in which he lives and the society he finds abhorrent.
Others would argue that it is the completion of his revenge that allows
him to transcend the confines of his past.
I think it is only when Dantès is able to move past revenge to begin a
new life with Haydée that he transcends his previous circumstances.
There is a recent movie version of Monte Cristo that allows Dantès
the reunion he desires upon the completion of his revenge: Mércèdes is still in
love with Dantès and her son Albert belongs to him and not to his enemy, her
husband, Mondego. This movie
version, while still adhering to romantic notions, denies Dantès the ability to
transcend the circumstances by which his life is bound because he does not move
beyond the choices he made in earlier years.
Many younger or leisurely readers miss the transcendent effects of
Dantès’s experiences and instead focus on his ability to exact revenge on his
enemies, but I believe it is his transcendence that makes his story beautiful
and heroic.
Perhaps more compelling than any other factors in
Dumas’s story is his ability to engage the reader’s imagination to overlook the
logic of Dantès’s circumstances and abilities to believe that divine providence
grants him help –in the form of the abbé, his fortune, and the connections –
which then enable him to forge along the path of revenge.
It is also Dantès who seems to manufacture these endowments out of his
sheer willingness to believe that they should be so, that God should provide the
help he needs. As much as his
ability to exact revenge, it is this attitude of Dantès’s and of Romanticism
that makes this story so appealing to readers: that righteous belief will pave
the way for successful endeavors.
Other aspects of romanticism found in Dumas’s novel
are the gothic and sublime, ; however, it is not a sublime found in nature.
Rather, it is the sublime element of personal feeling and achievement
usually recognized by the juxtaposition of pain and despair.
It is only because of the gothic atmosphere of the Chateau d’If and the
underbelly of Roman society in which Dantès builds his connections for revenge
that he experiences the sublime.
The sublime reunion with the natural world after his escape from prison is only
possible because he was locked away from it.
The height to which he rose in society is sublime because of the depths
from which he rose.
Much like the poem “A Blessing” that Cristen Lauck
described in 2010 as being representative of all aspects of Romanticism, The
Count of Monte Cristo fulfills most aspects of Romanticism, but it does so
at a much deeper level than Wright’s poem.
Dumas’s novel, however, does lack a compelling link to nature that the
American Romantics found so essential.
Although Dantès is characterized as experiencing the greatest freedom
when in nature, he is forced to operate within cities and contemporary society.
Even though he separates himself
emotionally from the masses, he is not able to physically do so and still
accomplish his goals; it is only in this way that Monte Cristo falls
short in comparison to other romantic works.
