The ingenious plot involves Concealment and revelation, use of poisonous herbs, and all manner of other things. Beyond the exciting narrative, Dumas focused on the corrupt financial, political and judicial world of France at the time of the Bourbon Restoration as well as on the marginal figures, such as convicts, who inhabited it. Unfolding gradually, The Count of Monte Cristo offers an unusual reflection on happiness and Justice omnipotence and the sometimes fatal haunting return of the past. Set between 1815 and1838 - a time when Napoleon was abdicated and exiled before ultimately returning to power - the backdrop is the basis for much of the political tensions that lies within the novel. The tale is an epic one; populated with villians, aristocrats and Innocents, the lives of the characters are in the hands of dantes and as the plot unfolds so too do the fate of their fortunes.
Summary
The story begins on the eve of napoleon's return from his first exile on the island of Elba. Into the poet of Marseille, in the south of France, sails a young merchant captain named Edmond Dante's. Promoted to command by the death of his skipper, Edmond is loved by his crew, by the merchant ship owner, by his old father, and by the fair Mercedes, a Spanish maiden who has agreed to be his wife. Alas, he is not so well loved by the Spaniard Mondego who loves Mercedes, nor by ship's purser Danglars who envies his rise to command. These two devise a plot to frame Edmond for treasonously conspiring with the exiled Emperor, aided by the cowardly silence of Edmonds morally weak friend Caderousse and the ruthless ambition of a deputy prosecutor named Villefort, who keen to secure his rise in career and society would make the innocent Dante's vanish rather than see his own father exposed as a Bonapartist. So, begins Edmonds fourteen-year burial in the Chateau, If an island prison in which life is a living death, and from which death is the only escape. At least, so it is until Edmond profitting by the death of the Abbe Faria, his next dungeon neighbour, teacher, and friend sews himself up inside the Abbe's body bag and gets tossed into the Mediterranean. By one lucky chance after another, Edmond makes it to land, finds out who done him wrong, dogs up the Abbe's insanely vast treasure, and begins to pass himself off as the Count of Monte Cristo(which is an uninhabited island in the Mediterranean, well suited to the needs of pirates, smugglers, and escaped prisoner's hatching revenge. From there, the Count gradually re-enters society, Insinuating himself into the confidences of the younger generation, including the sons and daughters of Danglars, Mondego and Villefort. Then he unleashes an interlocking set of devilishly subtle schemes to destroy all three men in detail. During the intervening years, Mondego has married Mercedes fathered a son (who not with standing the above mentioned movie, is not even the tiniest bit Edmond's son), and mounted the ladder of political power based on his supposedley heroic military exploits. Long story short Mondego blows his brains out after being exposed as a vile traitor whose daring deeds at tissue of fiction. Danglers meanwhile, has shrewdly invested the money he embezzled from Edmonds former employer (whose suicide, and that of his son the count pays dearly to prevent). Now flithy rich, and unhappily married, and father to daughter whose probable lesbianism only troubles him to the extent that it frustrates his plans to marry her off at great advantage, Danglers enjoys a reputation as one of the leading bankers in Paris… until L. S. S. the count meddles with the market in just such a way as to bring his old Nemesis to total ruin. (After many sorrows, Danglars eventually repents.) And finally Villefort has become one of the most respected judges in the Parisian courts, married twice, and fathered a child by each wife. His Angelic elder daughter Valentine takes care of villefort's paralytic father, that embarassing old Bonapartist; but his youthful second wife, anything but Angelic wants her bratty son to inherit the fortunes destined for Valentine. Taking a hint from the enigmatic Count, Mrs. Villefort embarks on a career as a prisoner, exposing her husband to one scandal on top of another and almost crushing the hopes of a pair of ardent young lovers. Beside engineering all these disasters- the Last of which degenerate into a bloodbath that sickens even himself- The Count of Monte Cristo, considering himself the agent of divine Retribution, leads the cunning Caderousse into temptation, with Macbre results, finally becoming a witness to the man's murder by another accomplices in his program of Revenge. And so, after an enormous, multi-layered study of assassination in all its flavors and forms, the count turns aside from his gruesome mission and sails off into the sunset with a devoted Greek beauty name Haydee. And you sigh with relief because all the bad old men (and a few younger bad people) are done in, and the promising youngsters are safe from the duels and suicide and poisonings that had threatened them and though there is no bringing back what Edmond Dantes has lost by George he's got a cave full of treasure to finance whatever he goes for next…
Can't you see what generations of boys and probably quite a few girl see in this Romance? They say revenge is a dish best served cold. It doesn't get much colder than being chilled for 14 years in an island Dungeon, years spent acquiring culture and a fortune and a richly detailed plan to make one's Enemies with interest for what they have done. But here Romance crosses The Invisible line into fantasy and folklore, with a dark Hero straight out of comic books, emerging like a Phantom out of thin air, knowing everything about everyone, being everywhere at once, and seeming capable of Superhuman feats, thanks to the combination of unlimited time to develop them, money to buy them, and cold burning anger that can only be quenched in the end by the tears and prayers of a devoted mother and a grieving lover.
It is a perfect piece of entertainment, except perhaps for the count final caper in which we keeps young maximilian in cruel suspense until the poor kid is all about begging to be allowed to die and this Guy mind you is one of his friends.
