Mallory Lee 2 Essay

Mallory Lee
Block 4
11/01/14

The Count of Monte Cristo Byronic Hero

We often associate a hero as being the good, trustworthy protagonist in a story. However, in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, the protagonist is most definitely not your average hero. Edmond Dantes is rather a Byronic hero. Throughout the story, Dantes’s goal is to take revenge on all of the people who have done him wrong. Certain situations take place to make us believe that Dantes is a Byronic hero. Throughout the book, Dantes could be described as cynical, mysterious, and highly intelligent. Dantes could be classified as a very mysterious person for various reasons. He took the identity of many different people to help out with his master plan of getting revenge. When he gets back from the Isle of Monte Cristo, he then calls himself The Count Of Monte Cristo. “Just a moment,” said Albert, “we’ve strayed pretty far from our subject. We were about to discuss finding a suitable house for the Count of Monte Cristo.” ( Dumas 171 )Albert was fooled by Dantes’s disguise as The Count of Monte Cristo. They were trying to find him a new house to live in as the new Count. Dantes is also mysterious in the ways he gets revenge on people. He sets up scenarios to make the victims somewhat harm themselves. They either end up dead or have some form of mental craziness. The count basically never does the dirty work because the victims do it to each other. Not only is Dantes mysterious, he is also very cynical. Since everyone has betrayed him by getting him put in jail, Dantes doesn’t trust anything they have to say. All he cares about is getting his sweet revenge. At the beginning, Dantes had full trust in Villefort. “No sir, I don’t recognize this handwriting. Its disguised, but its quite olain. Im lucky to be dealing with a man like you, because this is the work of a real enemy. ( Dumas 26 ) he believes that Villefort is a good man who is willing to help him but then he later finds out that all villefort cares about is saving himself. “I no longer have the power, as I thought at first, to set you free immediately. You know I have tried to help you, but I must continue to hold you prisoner for a while as short a time as possible.” ( Dumas 29 ) Villefort finds out that Dantes knows that Villefort is Nortier’s father. No one is supposed to know that so Villefort turns on helping dantes and lies to him about only being in prision for a short time. Villefort wants him locked up in there forever so the secret doesn’t get out. That was just the beginning to why Dantes is very cynical. In addition to being cynical, Dantes also has a high level of intelligence. While he was in jail, he met a good friend, the

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