CoMC Notes-Hope this is long enough :/

Scott Pero
AP English Language
September 9, 2009
Notes-Dantès as God

Dantès as God

-Edmond takes on God’s role as the Punisher, punishing those he sees as ‘in need of punishment’, or those that harmed him.
-“Mercédès said these words with such infinite sadness and in such tones of despair that they wrung a sob from the Count’s throat. The lion was tamed, the avenger was overcome! ‘What do you ask of me?’ [Edmond] said, “Your son’s life? Well, then, he shall live!’” (Dumas, 472) Here, Edmond takes on the role of a merciful god, sparing Albert’s life.
-Edmond can be compared to God in the fact that both had paradises: God’s being Heaven, and Edmond’s being the Isle of Monte Cristo.
-Edmond tried to control everything around him, like an all-powerful God would be able to do.
-Edmond doubted whether God was with him: “Monte Cristo turned pale at the frightful sight. Realizing that he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance, he felt he could no longer say: ‘God is for me and with me’” (567) In this instance, Edmond acts like Jesus when he was on the cross, wondering whether God had forsaken him or not.
-Like God, Edmond’s guise as the Count of Monte Cristo is mysterious. When he first appears among Parisian aristocrats, they all want to know more about him. They didn’t know his background or even that there was a Count of Monte Cristo. The desire to learn more about a mysterious figure depicts Edmond as a God-like figure among Parisian high society.
-Edmond’s plans, like God’s, toy with others lives. Edward’s life is taken as a result of Edmond’s actions, like God smiting someone according to his own plan.
-“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness” (Chapter 117) –Here, in the letter Edmond writes to Maximilian, he reveals that he fooled him into believing Valentine was dead as a lesson, a lesson Edmond himself faced. Gods of many faiths have been known to put people through great stress and toil to learn a lesson, the most common being Jesus suffering on the cross.