The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Alexandre Dumas, is a
classic novel about revenge, love and hate. A bitter and scarred tale, it
describes survival for the sole purpose of living for revenge, and show us what
happens to the souls of men who live as such.
When a rich young man is conspired against by three people whom he counted as
friends, he is stripped of everything that meant anything to him -- love, via
his fiancée, money, as his inheritance is taken from him, and freedom, as he is
imprisoned in a jail he is never expected to leave for the rest of his
life. However, instead of crumbling into pieces at this, he hardens into
a horrible machine, devoid of love and bent only on living for revenge on his
former friends. An old man in the cell next to him befriends him and they
together work on a possible escape, one that will take years to complete.
However, as the one thing they have is time, they work on it. And work,
and work, and work...
When the mysterious man shows up in the city the man had been taken from
calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo, people start falling over themselves
to befriend him -- for he is rich, and money means everything in this town
which is falling apart morally and economically. But little do they know
that this man has only come to destroy..and he has already picked his first
three targets. Money, freedom, love...what would they mean to the men who
he was out to destroy?
The Count of Monte Cristo shows men at their lowest state doing whatever it
takes to survive. Far from a happy fairy tale, this story brings revenge
to full light and demonstrates the crippling effect it has on both the targeted
victim and the one extracting revenge himself. Dumas once again works on
the human mind and shows us what it is truly capable of.