Revenge, freedom & happiness in 'The Count of Monte Cristo'

This Week’s Winner

Ramona Joy C. David, 26, is a food technologist from UP-Los Baños. She has a six-month-old baby. “Books are my passion and I love reading them over and over again. I absolutely love reading and collecting books by Jessica Zafra.”

When I asked some of my friends who have read the book The Count of Monte Cristo how they would sum up the story, one of them said, “Revenge, but in a positive light.” Others said, “retribution,” “knowing your true friends and enemies,” and “dusting yourself off and finding peace.” 

While I would agree with most of them, I would have to add that the story is about a person’s triumph over his past. 

Edmond Dantes is a man living a fairly simple life, with equally simple dreams — to marry his beloved Mercedes and have his father provided for. It seems like fate is allowing him to be happy for a while because everything that a man in his time wanted to possess belonged to him. Well, almost. It seemed, too, that fate had other plans for him. In one swoop, everything is taken from him — everything that he holds dear, including his freedom. Years of sorrow and pain have taught him well and when the opportunity of freedom comes knocking at his door, he rises above all that caused him such anguish. In the end Edmond proves that he still possesses the heart of a man who loved and believed in man’s goodness.

They say that for you to fully appreciate a book, you either have to like the author or his style of writing or be able to relate to the story. In my case, it’s the latter. While I have not experienced what Edmond did, I admire him — not for his brilliance in planning his revenge on all the people who wronged him, but for his unending faith and determination to push himself beyond what is laid before him. 

I share something similar with him — a hurtful past and a future waiting to be fulfilled. When you go through something painful, you take this book on a personal level. I’d say my past has not been so cheerful and I don’t have the ability of others who can brush off their past easily.

Trusting other people has been second nature to me because I believe in man’s inherent goodness. This belief has taught me over the years that man can show his wicked side, too, when given the chance. True, it hurts when you trust someone and that person does not value you and throws that trust in your face, but hey, that’s life and you just have to go and get going because life does not wait for anyone. 

I have read this book countless times and each time I see Edmond Dantes as a very brave soul. In the earlier part of the story he is a trusting person and because of this he shows his weakness. I find myself admonishing him silently as he puts his fate completely in the magistrate’s hands. How foolish of him! Yet, in the end I could not blame him — it’s his nature to be trusting. 

Why do I think he is a brave soul? Simply because he faces his past. He carefully plans his comeback and makes his enemies pay. While I fully agree that the end does not justify the means, it is still admirable how he shows to all that justice truly prevails. It is with this thought that I also live my present and face my future. It takes so much courage and self-will to get over your past, but it is possible.

The other thing that struck me about Edmond is his line, “What is marvelous? That which we do not comprehend. What is truly desirable? That which we cannot have.” 

This is so true for most of us. People have the tendency to be discontented with their lives because they believe that they do not possess the things that will truly make them happy. Ask people what will make them happy and you will get different answers, depending on the things that they want to achieve. For someone who lacks money, it’s wealth. For someone who lacks a special someone, it’s love. For someone who lacks achievement, it’s success. The list just goes on and on. 

I read once that happiness is a state of freedom: freedom from secret angers and anxieties that we tell no one about and sometimes even do not admit to ourselves, freedom from fear of being unappreciated and ignored by the person we truly value in life, freedom from painful cravings that drive us into thinking that the attainment of that thing or person or being in that circumstance will make everything right. 

Happiness is actually liberty from everything that makes us unhappy.