The Master of Revenge

	In Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, main character Edmond Dantès is a master of revenge. Young Dantès had a promising future at the beginning of the novel; he was about to become the captain of a ship and had a fiancée. However, his friends betrayed him and had him put into prison because they were jealous of his life. Fourteen years later, he escaped and wrecked havoc on the lives of his enemies in a bloodthirsty quest for revenge. Dantès used the weaknesses of Fernand Mondego, Danglars, and Gèrard de Villefort to exact revenge on them.
	Dantès used Fernand’s weakness, his desire to be respectable, to ruin his life. Fernand was probably so obsessed with being respectable because of his past as a poor fisherman. While Dantès was in prison, Fernand obtained the title of “Count” to make himself appear reputable. He carefully hid away his previous misdeeds. Before Dantès arrived on the scene, Fernand appeared as the perfect gentleman.
	However, when Dantès escaped from prison, he took all of Fernand’s respectability away from him. He revealed the fact that Fernand once betrayed a Greek prince and sold the prince’s wife and daughter into slavery. Fernand’s respectable appearance was ruined, and his wife and son shunned him. Because being well thought-of mattered so much to Fernand, losing it ruined his life.
	Danglars’s weakness, greed, enabled Dantès to shatter his life, as well. Danglars was obsessed with money and always tried to get more. On page 364, Dantès spoke of Danglars’s riches: “So rich, baron, that your fortune is like the pyramids…” This quote shows how rich Danglars was and how was always getting more money. Danglars even lied about how much money he actually had to extract more from his clients. 
	This lead to Dantès’s revenge on Danglars. Dantès asked Danglars for more money than he actually had. Danglars then ran away to hide his shame, and he was captured by a bandit. His money was gradually extracted from him by the bandit, just as he had done with his clients. Money meant everything for Danglars, so had lost everything.
	Dantès was able to ruin the life of Villefort because Villefort was so preoccupied with his image. Villefort’s father had opposite political views, so Villefort was always worried about how this would affect his public image. Villefort said in the novel, “Oh, father, will you always be an obstacle to my happiness?” This quote shows that Villefort thought that his father was spoiling his image. He is determined to appear as “puritanical”.
	Dantès utilized this weakness to punish Villefort. In order to exact his revenge, he revealed that Villefort once had an affair with the wife of Danglars and that Villefort buried the baby they had. Dantès also manipulated Villefort’s wife into poisoning the entire family, causing Villefort to be caught in a conflict; whether he prosecutes his wife or not, his image would still be ruined. Villefort was publicly shamed, and his angelic image was permanently destroyed. Thus, Dantès used Villefort’s weakness to get revenge on him.
	Fernand, Danglars, and Villefort had certain weak spots that allowed Dantès to ruin their lives. Fernand was fixated with being highly regarded and Dantès took respect away from him. Dantès got revenge on Danglars, who was covetous, by making him lose his money. Dantès caused Villefort, who was preoccupied with his image, to be publicly disgraced. Edmond Dantès, the master of revenge, will forever live on in our minds as the man who manipulated his enemies into destroying themselves.