In The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantès goes from a happy, successful sailor to a dark vengeance seeking man. Though Dantès is advised many times not to seek out vengeance by his close friends like the Abbé, his emotions get the best of him and he attempts to carry out his wicked plan. Throughout the whole Bible, God instructs us to not repay evil with evil, and to leave revenge to him. Furthermore, in this story itself, Dumas drops hints about his perspective on the matter as well. Lastly, my view on vengeance is that it is for God to avenge and not man. However, in the end, everyone’s perspective on vengeance will become clear.
Many times when people decide to avenge their enemies they are often unjust in their punishments because they let emotions get in the way. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantès is driven by the desire to make all of his enemies suffer the way he did, and worse. However, the way the Count is planning to go about this is quite contrary to what the Bible instructs. In Romans 12:17-21 it says, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” As can be seen from this verse, the Lord clearly says that vengeance for him to take out only. Rather, he instructs us to repay evil with good, and to love our enemies. It even says that by loving our enemies you wil...
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...lical viewpoint, Dumas’ viewpoint and my viewpoint all seem to parallel. All the perspectives on this matter seem to point to the fact that taking vengeance on your enemies is a bad thing. The Lord wants us to leave the vengeance to him, Dumas is also is against vengeance as seen from his contextual points, and lastly I am against taking vengeance as well. Revenge is a can be extremely destructive and it is dangerous to carry out. When the Count wants to avenge his enemies for all the wrong things they had done to him, he can’t do it without accidentally harming his friends as well. His friends had become friends with his enemies and now attempting to carry out vengeance on his enemies would be quite the difficult job. Thus in the end you should not take avenge your enemies for whatever they have done to you. Myself, the Bible and Dumas all agree on this point.
“I wish to be Province myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, sublime thing in the world is to recompense and punish” (Dumas 213). In the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, there are many examples of vengeance from the main character, Edmond Dantes. Dantes started out as a young sailor with an encouraging career, a beautiful fiancee, and a loving father. However, those who were envious of his promising young life came together to take Dantes apart, as Dantes was wrongfully convicted and thrown in prison. What he learned about the men who wronged him ignited a fire in his heart to get his revenge on those three people, known as Fernand, Danglars, Villefort. Edmond Dantes started out as a young man with great ambitions
“In theory it may seem all right to some, but when it comes to being made the instrument of the Lord's vengeance, I myself don't like it,” is what Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the 54 Massachusetts Infantry, an all black regiment of soldiers in the American Civil War. Obviously, Edmond Dantes did not agree with this statement. This quote explains that although some people may see fit to serve vengeance on their own, others believe it is in the hands of God alone. Judgment Day comes to us all inevitably. We all pay for all evil and injustices of our life, yet sometimes there will be someone so viciously wronged, that he will return like a wrath of nature, with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Such a vendetta is the building block
God states that we treat each other with the love he gives to us as individuals; while us stating violent acts against love, fraud constituting a corruption and, greed becoming normal thing amongst people defines everything god had envisioned for mankind. Yet, while Inferno implies these moral arguments, it generally states very little about them. Dante discusses with each of the souls in the different circles of hell although it is not truly stated as to why they are specifically in that circle. Only because God justifies there sin belonged there. In the end, it declares that evil is evil, simply because it contradicts God’s will and justification, and since God is God, he thus does not need to be questioned about his morals. Dante’s journey of evil progressed as he winded down the depths of hell pitiless and was driven to make it to purgatory. Inferno is not the normal text that most people would read, then think about how it relates to todays morals; its intention is not to think about the evil discussed but, rather to emphasize the Christian beliefs that Dante followed through his journey.
There is no doubt that when bad things happen to people, they want to reflect their misery on others whom they think caused it, which is exactly what happened with Edmond Dantes, a once innocent man who became consumed by hatred.
Dumas uses the archetype of the byronic hero to demonstrate that one’s suffering doesn’t give the right to seek revenge. A byronic hero is a protagonist that isn’t virtuous, but rather possesses many negative qualities. He is passionate about a particular issue and has intellectual capabilities that far surpass the average man. Often, a byronic hero is arrogant and self-centred. (Marinetti) In the novel, the byronic hero is portrayed by the character of the Count of Monte Cristo. The Count undertakes a quest to take revenge on those who have betrayed him. “He vowed that same implacable oath of revenge […] against Danglars, Fernand and Villefort.” (Dumas 212) The Count’s drive is the fact that he’ll get vengeance. He is so determi...
On one hand we have Beowulf who gets all these riches and everything he ever wanted for killing Grendel and he’s mother. (Lee, Alvin A) While Dante gets awarded with more knowledge and a better understanding of how hell is, but also to be able to tell all these Christian’s of what they shouldn’t do in order to end up in any of these circles of hell. (Davis, Charles T.) Also while Dante does this for the sake of all the people on earth even do it is believed that Beowulf does it for the people we can see that he is only doing this for
While getting inspiration for Monte Cristo, he heard a story about a man, which inspired the plot for his novel. Picaud, the man whom inspired the story, gained vengeance in a much more gruesome way than Dantes does. Picaud takes vengeance whereas Dantes is avenged. Justice is achieved because good is stronger than evil, not because of the Count’s power (Stowe 125). Perhaps this is Dumas’s opinion on vengeance. If it is well earned, then it will fall into the man’s hands rightfully (Maurois). Dumas’s inspiration for the novel also came from his personal life. His father was heavily mistreated, and as he watched helplessly for his whole childhood, it became important to him to avenge his father. Although people in his own life may not have wronged him as they did his father, he believes in revenge, and sought revenge through his literature (Maurois). Through the character of Edmond Dantes, Dumas portrayed his own desire to justify his father’s oppressors. In Maurois’s article, he speaks about this, saying, “He must have been sorely tempted to find compensation in fiction for the iniquities of the real world.” Perhaps he was afraid to vocalize his opinion publicly, so he decided on a more subtle route, which was to create a story that everyone could identify with. Writing Monte Cristo must have been closure for Dumas at the expense of his father. He sought vengeance in the form of literature
Vengeance is the act of taking revenge for a past wrong. In the Crucible, Thomas Putnam and Abigail Williams both took advantage of circumstances to carry out vengeance against different people.
It is believed by many that it is human nature to deem themselves to be tantamount to God. Such is the case when one decides to take revenge against those who wrong him. Though vengeance seems like the perfect way to achieve justice, a sense of equity, in actuality it is merely an unsatisfactory hypocritical action. This is the definitive realization of the protagonist, Edmond Dantès, in Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo”. The protagonist comes to understand that after a lifetime of searching for justice, he really only yearns for justice from himself.
As seen through the documents and The Count of Monte Cristo, revenge is most often not the same as justice, but can take form in the idea of justice through the coined phrase “an eye for an eye.” Dumas’ excellent writing portrays the Count’s dealings with revenge, love, justice, and providence. He deals with each particular situation differently. Plato’s perfect and ideal revenge cannot be reached except through equal and fair punishment, as our idea of revenge and justice are just a shadow of the utopian revenge and justice. Revenge will most often never be the same as justice, as human nature and emotion get in the way of absolute justice.
In Dante’s Inferno, those who never repented for their sins are sent there after death. Like the old Latin proverb says, “The knowledge of sin is the beginning of salvation.” (“Latin Proverb Quotes” ThinkExist) The punishments in his Hell are decided by the law of retribution, which according to Webster’s Dictionary is the total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny. (“Retribution” Merriam-Webster) Therefore, Dante creates a variety of reprimands for the three different types of sins: incontinence, violence, and fraudulence. These penalties can also be referred to as allegories because of their hidden moral meaning. The three best allegories in Dante’s Inferno describe the flatterers, fortune tellers, and suicides.
The relationship between justice and punishment has been an essential fabric of society for centuries. It’s important to note the significance of justice in this equation. Justice to Dante is whatever you do in this life will haunt you in the next one. Whatever sins you commit will be your punishment. The circles of hell Dante creates is a just punishment for sinners. Those who commit incontinent crimes, violent crimes, fraudulent crimes, and worse crime against the perfect city deserve to be in the inferno. This punishment is just and supports the claim that Dante presents an image of a just God.
Revenge is such an enormous part of a being human. It is something that no matter how much you try to avoid part of you will persistently lust for it. When you are hurt in any way your natural instinct will always tell you to make the one who hurt you feel just as bad if not worse as how you felt. It is such a natural and powerful feeling, that when revenge is incorporated into a story it makes it so much stronger. Revenge will make you see so many more sides of characters and make them seem much more complex. Revenge can give fictional characters a more human quality. That is why so many writers use it as their theme.
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
Seeing as this work was written by Dante, and the journey is taken by Dante, he has a unique opportunity to judge his fellow man and decide how they will be punished. He also gets to place his enemies in hell, forever besmirching their names for generations to remember. Perhaps unknowing to Dante, that is worse than any of the punishments that he placed his enemies in. The reality of The Inferno is unlikely and therefore these punishments are nothing but a fictiona...