The Count Of Monte Cristo Analysis

Have you ever been wrongly accused of something? Perhaps a dear friend blames you for taking a hairbrush that they merely misplaced, or a family member yells at you for letting the house pet out, even though you were in another room completely. Usually we get upset with this person, and should the charge have large enough consequences, we begin to harbor a desire for revenge. This is what became of the lead character in the film The Count of Monte Cristo. The Count of Monte Cristo, released in 2002, was a film adaptation of a novel by the same name, written by author Alexandre Dumas. Within the span of the two hour long film, the audience views the tragic betrayal and false imprisonment of a young French sailor, by the name of Edmond Dantes,
his thirteen year sentence, in which he meets a priest that teaches him anything his heart wishes, his dig to freedom, and his unstoppable thirst for vengeance. This film touched my life in many ways, teaching me that knowledge is of great importance, also what can become of mankind’s attachment to greed, lust, and other such ill desires and what it does to others, and that God, is in everything, even when you’ve chosen not to believe in him. Mankind has always had an insatiable thirst for learning; no matter the topic humans have gone to great lengths in the name of expanding our comprehension even when it seems out of reach.
Being a student in present day America, one tends to forget that the opportunity to go to school and learn something new every day is a blessing that not everyone has. According to Humanium.org, for example, thirty-two million children of appropriate age in the lower half of Africa alone, do not receive the schooling that they need. The number of adults without a proper education are most likely twice that, or more. Even here in America, “only twelve percent of U.S. adults age 16 to 65 performed at the highest proficiency level ( on a scale of Below level 1 to Level 4/5) on the PIAAC literacy scale,” says the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). So it is of no surprise that in the early nineteenth century, when The Count of Monte Cristo takes place, a lowly sailor such as Edmond Dantes is incapable of reading or writing. Once Edmond meets the priest however, he begins his journey of knowledge and grows significantly, just as a child grows with each passing day of school. Dantes’ prison sentence is filled with learning things like calculus, writing, and even sword-fighting. With each scene, you see Dantes grow from a mild mannered ignorant sailor, to a slightly conceited yet intelligent and skilled count. As the time passes, Edmond grows increasingly aware of what his greatly educated “friends” had done to him. With math and laws of science under his metaphorical belt, Edmond could see just how these skills not only applied to material things, such as rocks or paper or money, but to people as well. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The priest quotes Newton’s third law of motion and in doing so helps Dantes to see that everything done to him until now were chain reactions, hardening the desire for retribution within him. It was here that I first
began to realize just what people were capable of.