Edmond Dantès’s Inferno: The Makings of A Millionaire
There, on a table, surrounded at some distance by a large and luxurious divan, every species of tobacco known,—from the yellow tobacco of Petersburg to the black of Sinai, and so on along the scale from Maryland and Porto-Rico, to Latakia,—was exposed in pots of crackled earthenware of which the Dutch are so fond; beside them, in boxes of fragrant wood, were ranged, according to their size and quality, pueros, regalias, havanas, and manillas; and, in an open cabinet, a collection of German pipes, of chibouques, with their amber mouth-pieces ornamented with coral, and of narghiles, with their long tubes of morocco, awaiting the caprice or the sympathy of the smokers. Albert had himself presided at the arrangement, or, rather, the symmetrical derangement, which, after coffee, the guests at a breakfast of modern days love to contemplate through the vapor that escapes from their mouths, and ascends in long and fanciful wreaths to the ceiling. -The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas – 1844.
Imprisoned in the Chateau d’If – one of France’s most gruelling prisons of the time – on account of false treason, Edmond re-invents himself in a catharsis of faith, sacrifice and recklessness. He initially makes some foolish and amusing attempts at starvation and self-sacrifice, self-harm and solitude, only to be met with further contempt by the prison guards and the stoic walls themselves. Though he is imprsioned in body, there is no containing his active mind, bent on revenge and liberation. The real liberation, he learns after some great amount of time in captivity, is found by the metric of his own design.
This was something very interesting to read about and reflect upon: how often and how easily we fall into the trap of mass-comparison and the “grass is greener” ideology. While competition had brought him to detest those who sought his lover, and pride obscured the vision of a necessary path to re-invention, Edmond learns patience and stillness are his true allies, and that his supposed loneliness was really the void necessary to be filled by the self-respect that was missing
At first impressions a man of grievous misfortune and the product of a major stroke of bad timing, events take the turn of good favour through a thorough reinvention of paradigms; from the guiding philosophies of a wanderlust seafarer to the refined sensibilities of an aristocrat. And yet this fundamental procurement of “easy cash” bears repercussions and a myriad of moral messages – some more clearly allusive and some more profoundly realised than others. Edmond oscillates between degrees of altruism and shifts constantly through class sympathy that puts him in the favour of almost everybody he meets: this pattern of ‘happy-go-lucky’ and see-no-evil sounds ridiculously familiar for the unscrupulous businessman.
Rather, with the accompanying honesty of a ‘fair go’ and an internal compass toward a system of justice that, left to the legislation of society itself, is otherwise slanted in the conservative monarch of Louis XIV, Edmond greets the novelty of variety in his life. From swashbucklers to merchants, seafarers, captains and pious priests and the genteel, each caste of person bestows a unique gift of experience that would be impossible to gain without the assistance of a refined charisma and the healthy beqeauth of treasure. It seems incredulous that Edmond should ever become lost in himself with the copious indulgence of power and luxury; when he dines, he eats very little and drinks only seldom. And most importantly, he is incredibly empowered by the potential for self-reformation of inner identity through the fabricated costumes and disguises at his disposal – each bearing a grain of truth to their clearly ironic presence in the novel.
Although Alexandre Dumas touched on a wonderfully insightful issue here, somehow I doubt that throwing me into jail would stop me from feeling absolutely compelled to be at comparative odds with others, or for that matter, to be at the mercy of their showy and attention-seeking ways. It’s such a shame that, to that end, every day I’m finding myself putting up with people who talk but refuse to listen, or refuse to share with me the heart that beats on their sleeve. Perhaps if everybody said what they actually were thinking, we’d have no need for knives in our drawers sharp enough worth using, because the world would be so blunt. (please excuse that awful, awful pun)
At the risk of sounding awfully conceited, the old proverb goes, “Empty vessels make the most noise”. Does this mean that to in order to solve my crisis of intermittent inadequacy by making lofty comparisons, I should put in some ear-plugs and respond in kind to selfish thrill-seekers with a seatbelt and a good yarn? I have to say that the operant conditioning technique using a water-pistol idea sounded so much more gratifying. “Look at me, look at me, see how great my skills are, me, me, me!” responded to with *squirt!*.
Seriously though, just for the record, I’ve sort of learned by this read that the true metric of constructive value and self-efficacy is the one we behold alone. A simple philosophy with such great properties for restoring faith in our place in the world, it’s much harder in application but so much more rewarding. If only I had a magnet or a special set of spectacles for sorting out the diamonds from the rough. If only, I say. If only Edmond Dantès had a musket, a bottle of rum and the charisma of his guise as The Count of Monte Cristo at the right time to teach Danglars a lesson about messing with his fiancé. Luckily he knew the right thing to do was to centre himself and believe, unselfishly, in his self-efficacy. At the end of the day, his self-confidence won the friends that respected him. Shame about the loss of his wife, though. One cannot have everything and expect a place to store it all
So, while there can be no greater nor more definitive a rags-to-riches story for the period of 1844 than The Count of Monte Cristo, to simply dismiss the work of Alexandre Dumas as merely an adventure novel would be myopic indeed. It’s pure genius of some great, well, hinted at magical realism (even though it’s not succintly there). If you’ve the time and the patience of Edmond to read the 400+ page tome of great literature that will transport you to a massive map of characters and places, this is definitely your place to be.
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