Romanticism and Reality in the Count of Monte-Cristo

Abstract

From which perspectives does The Count of Monte-Cristo offer a socio-critical reading which questions what is social, historical and political in the text? Within the context of this question this article argues that the novelist interrogates the society through the character of Edmond Dante (Monte-Cristo), the romantic and Christ-like protagonist of the novel, and his relation to the society where he becomes both the victim and the victimizer. This relation is based on a conflict, and it questions and criticizes the society during "La Restauration" and "La Monarchie de Juillet" when money become the instrument of ultimate power and pleasure. In addition to this, through Edmond Dante's fragmented character, Dumas offers a critique of the social order thus rejecting the traditional idea of capital. The Count of Monte-Cristo which can be considered, in a historical context as a romantic novel, reconstructs the idea of romanticism with its prèsentation of reality that projects the actual and the ideal.