[Abstract] This paper centers on the lover’s conflicts among four protagonists --- Edmond Dantes, Fernand Mondego, Mercédes, and Haydee in the book of The Count of Monte Cristo. Through the love story, we can find love plays two different roles ---- a killer and a saver. Dantes’ deep love for Mercedes has made him lose himself in the revenge, because Mercedes does not keep her promise and marries Mondego, who is Dantes’ total personal enemy. While love between Dantes and Haydee helps Dantes get him out of the revenge. Alexandre Dumas has given a new annotation to love.
[Key Words] love; The Count of Monte Cristo; revenge

【摘 要】 这篇论文主要讨论《基督山伯爵》中四个主人翁爱德蒙·唐太斯、弗尔南多、美塞苔丝和海黛等情侣之间恋爱所引发的矛盾。我们能够发现爱情在整个爱情故事中扮演了两个截然不同的角色——杀手与拯救者。爱德蒙·唐太斯对美塞苔丝深深的爱使他迷失在复仇的怪圈中不能自拔，因为美塞苔丝没有遵守自己的诺言，嫁给了弗尔南多，而他恰恰是爱德蒙·唐太斯真正意义上的仇人。然而爱德蒙·唐太斯与海黛的爱，帮助他找回自己，走出复仇的怪圈。亚历山大仲马给了爱情一个全新的诠释。
【关键词】 爱情；《基督山伯爵》；复仇

　　　　　　　　　　　　
Abstract
摘要
1. Introduction
2. Context
2.1 Plot overview
2.2 Context on the author
2.3 The origin of the story of The Count of Monte Cristo
3. Introduction of the lovers’ relationship
4. The devastation of love
4.1 Love–the last straw of revenge
4.2 The revenge of love
5. The salvation of love
6. Conclusion
7. Bibliography

1. Introduction
The name of Alexandre Dumas is synonymous with romance and adventure. In June 1844 he wrote The Count of Monte Cristo, his most enduring novel. It has not only delighted generations of readers but made history exciting. It is a great pity that so far we have done little research on this book. This paper centers on the research in the field of love in The Count of Monte Cristo. [1]
Love is a forever theme in every form of literature. Alexandre Dumas has no exception since he is such a romantic person. But Alexandre Dumas has given a new annotation to love. In his novel The Count of Monte Cristo, love plays two different roles----a killer and a saver.
 
2. Context
2.1 Plot overview
At the age of nineteen, Edmond Dantes seems to have the perfect life. He is about to become the captain of a ship; He is engaged to a beautiful and kind young woman, Mercedes; And he is well liked by almost everyone who knows him. This perfect life, however, stirs up dangerous jealousy among some of Dantes’ so-called friends. Danglars, the treasurer of Dantes ship, envies Dantes’ early career success; Mondego Mondego is in love with Dantes’ fiancee and so covets his amorous success; His neighbor Caderousse is simply envious that Dantes is so much luckier in life than he is.
Together, these three men draft a letter accusing Dantes of treason. There is some truth to their accusations: As a favor to his recently deceased captain, Dantes is carrying a letter from Napoleon to a group of Bonapartist sympathizers in Paris. Though Dantes himself has no political leanings, the undertaking is enough to implicate him for treason. On the day of his wedding, Dantes is arrested for his alleged crimes.
The deputy public prosecutor, Villefort, sees through the plot to frame Dantes and is prepared to set him free. At the last moment, though, Dantes jeopardizes his freedom by revealing the name of the man to whom he is supposed to deliver Napoleon’s letter. The man, Noirtier, is Villefort’s father. Terrified that any public knowledge of his father’s treasonous activities will thwart his own ambitions, Villefort decides to send Dantes to prison for life. Despite the entreaties of Monsieur Morrel, Dantes’ kind and honest boss, Dantes is sent to the infamous Château d’If, where the most dangerous political prisoners are kept.
While in prison, Dantes meets Abbe Faria, an Italian priest and intellectual, who has been jailed for his political views. Faria teaches Dantes history, science, philosophy, and languages, turning him into a well-educated man. Faria also bequeaths Dantes a large treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo, and he tells him how to find it should he ever escape. When Faria dies, Dantes hides himself in the abbe’s shroud, thinking that he will be buried and then dig his way out. Instead, Dantes is thrown into the sea, and is able to cut himself loose and swim to freedom.
Dantes travels to Monte Cristo and finds Faria’s enormous treasure. He considers his fortune a gift from God, given to him for the sole purpose of rewarding those who have tried to help him and, more important, punishing those who have hurt him. Disguising himself as an Italian priest who answers to the name of Abbe Busoni, he travels back to Marseilles and visits Caderousse, who is now struggling to make a living as an innkeeper. From Caderousse he learns the details of the plot to frame him. In addition, Dantes learns that his father has died of grief in his absence and that Mercedes has married Mondego. Most frustrating, he learns that both Danglars and Mondego have become rich and powerful and are living happily in Paris. As a reward for this information, and for Caderousse’s apparent regret over the part he has played in Dantes’ downfall, Dantes gives Caderousse a valuable diamond. Before leaving Marseilles, Dantes anonymously saves Morrel from financial ruin.
Ten years later, Dantes emerges in Rome, calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo. He seems to be all knowing and unstoppable. In Rome Dantes ingratiates himself with Albert de Morcerf, son of Mondego and Mercedes, by saving him from bandits. In return for the favor, Albert introduces Dantes to Parisian society. None of his old cohorts recognize the mysterious count as Edmond Dantes, though Mercedes does. Dantes is thus able to insinuate himself effortlessly into the lives of Danglars, Mondego, and Villefort. Armed with damning knowledge about each of them that he has gathered over the past decade, Dantes sets an elaborate scheme of revenge into motion. Mondego, now known as the Count de Morcerf, is the first to be punished. Dantes exposes Morcerf’s darkest secret: Morcerf made his fortune by betraying his former patron, the Greek vizier Ali Pacha. He then sold Ali Pacha’s wife and daughter into slavery. Ali Pacha’s daughter, Haydee, who has lived with Dantes ever since he bought her freedom seven years earlier, testifies against Morcerf in front of the senate, irreversibly ruining his good name. Ashamed by Morcerf’s treachery, Albert and Mercedes flee, leaving their tainted fortune behind. Morcerf commits suicide.
Villefort’s punishment comes slowly and in several stages. Dantes first takes advantage of Madame de Villefort’s murderous intent, subtly tutoring her in the use of poison. As Madame de Villefort wreaks her havoc, killing off each member of the household in turn, Dantes plants the seeds for yet another public expose. In court, it is revealed that Villefort is guilty of attempted infanticide, as he tried to bury his illegitimate baby while it was still alive. Believing that everyone he loves is dead and knowing that he will soon have to answer severe criminal charges, Villefort goes insane.
For his revenge on Danglars, Dantes simply plays upon his greed. He opens various false credit accounts with Danglars that cost him vast amounts of money. He also manipulates Danglars’ unfaithful and dishonest wife, costing Danglars more money, and helps Danglars’ daughter, Eugenie, run away with her female companion. Finally, when Danglars is nearly broke and about to flee without paying any of his creditors, Dantes has the Italian bandit Luigi Vampa kidnap him and relieve him of his remaining money. Dantes spares Danglars’ life, but leaves him penniless.
Meanwhile, as these acts of vengeance play out, Dantes also tries to complete one more act of goodness. Dantes wishes to help the brave and honorable Maximilian Morrel, the son of the kind shipowner, so he hatches an elaborate plot to save Maximilian’s fiancee, Valentine Villefort, from her murderous stepmother, to ensure that the couple will be truly happy forever. Dantes gives Valentine a pill that makes her appear dead and then carries her off to the island of Monte Cristo. For a month Dantes allows Maximilian to believe that Valentine is dead, which causes Maximilian to long for death himself. Dantes then reveals that Valentine is alive. Having known the depths of despair, Maximilian is now able to experience the heights of ecstasy. Dantes too ultimately finds happiness, when he allows himself to fall in love with the adoring and beautiful Haydee.[2]
2.2 Context on the author
Alexandre Dumas was born in 1802 in the village of Villers-Cotterêts, fifty miles northeast of Paris. The younger Dumas was not a good student, but he had excellent handwriting. [3] When he moved to Paris in 1823, hoping to make his fortune as an author, his lovely handwriting earned him a job as a minor clerk. Dumas spent six years as a clerk, during which time he wrote plays, conducted torrid love affairs, and lived beyond his means until in 1829, when he had his first dramatic success with Henry III and His Court.
Like his Romantic colleagues, Dumas believed in the principles of social equality and individual rights. [4] He tried to infuse his dramatic works with these principles. Dumas went further than writing about his beliefs, however. He took an active role in the Revolution of 1830, helping to capture a powder magazine at Soissons, and he was appointed organizer of the National Guard at Vendee. Encountering strong local opposition, Dumas gave up the position, refusing to act against the wishes of the majority.
Returning to the literary community of Paris, Dumas continued to write popular plays, sticking to historical works that he filled with melodrama. He also began to write travel literature, which led to a walking tour of southern France in 1834 [5] (a tour that he would later put to use in The Count of Monte Cristo). In the late 1830s, Dumas began writing novels, as much for financial gain as for artistic reasons. At that time, it was common for cheap newspapers to run novels in serial form. If a writer was adept at writing quickly and melodramatically, as Dumas was, the financial incentives would be enormous. Dumas was so good at this sort of writing that he sometimes had three or four serial novels running simultaneously. His writing soon made him the most famous Frenchman of his day, and he gained renown throughout the Western world. In 1844, the same year when he published The Three Musketeers, Dumas began the serialization of The Count of Monte Cristo. He continued writing prolifically for most of his life, publishing his last novel, The Prussian Terror, in 1867, three years before his death.
Dumas was also a generous man, granting money and gifts to virtually anyone who asked. Dumas’ self-indulgent lifestyle and excessive generosity eventually took a toll on his finance. By the time he suffered a stroke in 1870, he was far from a rich man, despite the fact that he had earned millions of dollars in his lifetime. He died in December, 1870.
2.3 The origin of the story of The Counte of Monte Cristo
Dumas’ liberal borrowing from outside sources occasionally brought him accusations of plagiarism. While he lifted many of his plotlines from the works of other authors and from historical events, he molded these stories in his own characteristic way, making them his own. The Count of Monte Cristo is an example of the appropriation process Dumas frequently employed. His inspiration for the novel was from an anecdote he read in Memoires historiques tires des archives de la police de Paris,[6]a collection of intriguing criminal cases recorded by Jacques Peuchet, a former police archivist. The anecdote relates that in 1807, a man named François Piçaud became engaged to a pretty and wealthy girl, inspiring the envy of his friends. One of these friends, Loupian, persuaded the others to join him in denouncing Piçaud as an English spy. Though innocent of the charge, Piçaud was arrested and kept in prison for seven years. While in prison, he befriended a rich Italian cleric who left Piçaud his vast fortune when he died. Piçaud returned to Paris in 1815 as a wealthy man. Using his wealth, as well as numerous disguises, he enacted a complex plan to avenge himself on his enemies, murdering several of them. Though this real-life story has all the essential plot elements of Dumas’ novel, it lacks the fantastical, epic proportions of a great melodrama. Dumas’ greatest gift was his ability to grant epic proportion to existing stories.[7]
 
3.  Introduction of the lovers’ relationship
Edmond Dantes — The protagonist of the novel. This paper refers to Dantes by his given name until Chapter 30, after which he is generally referred to him as the count of Monte Cristo.
Mercédes — Dantes’ beautiful and good fiancée. Though Mercédes marries another man, Mondego Mondego while Dantes is in prison, she never stops loving Dantes. Mercédes is one of the few whom Dantes both punishes (for her disloyalty) and rewards (for her enduring love and underlying goodness).
Mondego — Dantes’ rival for Mercédes’ affections. Mondego helps in framing Dantes for treason and then marries Mercédes himself when Dantes is imprisoned. Through acts of treachery Mondego becomes a wealthy and powerful man and takes on the name of the Count de Morcerf. He is the first victim of Dantes’ vengeance.
Haydée — The daughter of Ali Pacha, the vizier of the Greek state of Yanina. Haydée is sold into slavery after her father is betrayed by Mondego and murdered. Dantes purchases Haydée’s freedom and watches her grow into adulthood, eventually falling in love with her.
Gérard de Villefort — The blindly ambitious public prosecutor responsible for sentencing Dantes to life in prison, who is just going to marry Renee for his political reasons.
Renee – the daughter of M. de Saint Meran (Villefort’s senior). Renee likes Villefort , who pays more attention other than herself.
 
Altogether there are four couples of lovers. Their relationship can show as follows:
 
          Dantes                            Mondego                
 
Mercedes
 
Villefort                   Renee
 
means love
Love has run through The Count of Monte Cristo. Everything comes from it and ends with it.
 

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