To Young Adults:
My name is Sebastian Vaughn, student at Oak Park High School. I was assigned a book, the Count of Monte Cristo, for Honors Comp. and Lit. Call me crazy, but I like classics; ever since I played the Divine Comedy in Band, I had a deep interest in reading the corresponding book. I like to think that fueled my interest in classics. The Count of Monte Cristo did not prove me wrong. My issue from this novel is Revenge.
1. The Count of Monte Cristo portrays a story of an arrogant, adventurous sailor named Edmond Dantes. Dantes comes home from sailing on the Pharaon to marry his partner Mercedes, to find out that he has been elected Captain of the Pharaon. The Count decides to throw a party, but gets shut down quick because four men have arranged the arrest of Dantes because of supporting Napoleon. Dantes is sent to prison for 14 years, where he meets a priest who gives him a treasure map that leads to Monte Cristo. The priest and Dantes try to escape the prison, but Dantes makes it out alive; he then finds out who have framed him and slowly seeks revenge, just the way he wanted. The count favors a slow and painful death, because he believes his enemies should not have the right to a quick and painless death- for he suffered a slow and agonizing 14 years in prison.
2. The events or quotations that led to my issue is when the men framed Dantes and got him sent to prison. Back to what I said about Dantes assuring a slow and painful death to his enemies- he wanted to get back at them because of what they have done. Starting off, Pages zero to twenty (first chapters) contain Dantes framed for supporting Napoleon, and being sent to jail. After page 121, Dantes decides he needs to seek revenge on the ones who have done wrong to him, and finds a slow and agonizing death for each one. From pages 200 to the end, Dantes lives a happy life.
3. My personal connection to revenge is the fact that if someone does something to me, I would want to do something back to them. I chose it because it goes well, and is exactly what Dantes did. It may not be the best thing to do, but in a perfect world, that wouldn’t happen. In a perfect world, you wouldn’t do anything because of, “treat others how you would want to be treated”. If I used the logic from the book, I would want to equalize the pain, so that if someone hit my arm, I hit their arm back.
4. The audience would be young adult. I picked them instead of Teens or children because of the Young Adult making better choices, and is more responsible. One source to support this idea would include the sweetness of revenge, because of the events including: a car cutting you off, a wallet being stolen, or a person bumping into you. All of these events correlate with an everyday young adult. This issue is still relevant because of the Donald Trump Sex Misconduct Allegations, which still supports the revenge issue.
5. The purpose of my letter is to address and show how revenge really is. Not just how well the Count of Monte Cristo represents it, but of the general idea of, “an eye for an eye”. Dantes believed in equality, and made sure what was done to him, would be done back.
6. I am going to end this with a connection from the book, Dantes finishing the last person who avenged him. What is started must be finished. If someone were to cause harm to you, you would want them to be harmed, mentally or physically. An explanation to mentally would be reporting the incident to someone, and having an authority take care of his pain. An explanation to physically would be cause harm right back. It is up to the individual to figure out which is best.
