Dante's Quest Quotes

Dantes’s Quest
Italian philosopher Machiavelli Niccolò once said,“The ends justify the means.” This famous quote was debated and argued throughout history. The quote questions morals and how far someone would go to get what they want. In the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Edmond Dantes pushes all ethical and lawful barriers in order to get revenge on those who falsely imprisoned him on account of Bonapartism. After breaking out of The Châteaud’If, a prison he was held in for 14 years, Dantes is determined to get revenge on those who betrayed him in order to achieve justice. He runs into great wealth and goes undercover as the count of Monte Cristo. And although he punishes those who hurt him, innocent lives are ruined in the process. Dantes search for revenge proves that a all actions have their repercussions.
After finding out who wronged him, Dantes is determined to get justice, or in his case revenge. He believes that others must suffer as much as he did. In the novel, when Dantes is disguised as the count, he runs into

Albert, who is the son of Mercedés, Dantes’s fiancé before his arrest, and Fernand, the jealous man partly to blame for Dantes’s false imprisonment. Albert is with his companion Franz while they and the count have their rendezvous. The count states how death is not the best way to hurt someone. He points out that revenge must be slow and cause pain and suffering. When asked about his opinion on dueling for revenge he clearly expresses how it is only adequate for a small insult or lie. He states, “For slow, profound, infinite and eternal suffering I’d try to avenge myself by inflicting similar suffering. ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’” (Dumas 139). Dantes expresses his view on justice as going beyond what is lawful and ethically correct. By saying there must be “eternal suffering” provides evidence that Dantes does not wish to simply kill someone. His revenge must go farther than that, figuring out a way to ensure a hopeless and miserable demise that goes beyond what is ethically human. Dantes believes that justice will not be achieved until he makes all those who hurt him suffer.
Although Dantes achieves his version of justice, he realizes too late that what he does affects more than those involved in his imprisonment. When getting his revenge on Villefort, the public prosecutor in charge of Dantes's case, things didn't go as planned. Dantes’s revenge leads to Villefort’s wife killing herself and killing their own son. Seeing what his revenge has done to innocent lives, he becomes aware of how far he has gone. As said in the novel “He realized that he had gone beyond the limits of rightful vengeance and that he could no longer say ‘God is for me and with me’” (485). During his quest for justice, he disregarded morals and ethics, and blindly focused on the fact that others deserve to suffer. This is why contrary to what Dantes planned for, he is unsuccessful at punishing those who wronged him. Dantes seeks revenge rather than justice, wasting years of his freedom tormenting others. Only when he has hurt numerous lives and come toward the end of his vengeance does he realize he may have gone to far. He thinks to himself, “Can my goals have been senseless? Can I have been following a false path for 10 years?” (497). For all these years Dantes has been on a mission with such furious passion that he lost sight of what he was doing. His fury blinded him from reality. Dantes refers to his vengeance as his “goals,” meaning that the only thing he has worked for since he became free was punishing his enemies. Since all his energy and passion is being wasted on his adversaries, it proves how unsuccessful Edmond Dantes is at getting his justice.
Dantes search for justice teaches the readers that everything has consequences.

Throughout Dantes life, he dedicated every waking hour to his enemies’ demise. Only after making countless mistakes does he learn that making others suffer isn't justice, it is insanity. After fixing a relationship that he caused to crumble between Villefort’s daughter and her fiance Maximilian Morrel, he shares some of his new found knowledge learned on his quest for revenge. Dantes writes in a letter to them, “Pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God.” Referring to himself, Dantes warns the young couple not to make the same mistakes as he did. As readers, Dantes teaches a lesson of karma. His actions show that it is impossible to predict the future, which means it is impossible to control what outcome something might have. Thus showing that everything that happens has its

ramifications.
On Dantes's quest for justice after years of being falsely imprisoned, he turns to vengeance, and hurts many innocent lives while trying to get retribution. Even though punishing those responsible for his imprisonment, Dantes soon realizes that his revenge grows out of control, teaching the readers that all actions have unforeseen repercussions. Dantes causes all this pain to others because the law failed when framed by his enemies, and he could not turn to the law to get justice. In the end, his enemies were ruined without the help of the law, but did the ends really justify the means? Was it worth innocent individuals to suffering? Even though in the end Danglars, Villefort, and Fernand, were put to justice, the outcome was not worth the small satisfaction of their demise. Everything in this novel points to the fact that there are repercussions for everything.

This shows that the ends cannot justify the means because one must still hold on themselves while reaching their goal. To conclusion, It is unpredictable to know what will happen, and Dantes’ revenge is proof enough that