Andy Choo
Setting of the Count
of Monte Cristo
This novel took place France,
Paris specifically, during the late 1700s and early 1800s with King Louis XVIII
in power. Men wore white wigs, tapered suits, and dress shoes while women wore
big frilly dresses that covered the entire body. The most used means of
transportation in the novel were horses, carriages, and ships. If the people
weren’t too busy with their jobs, they would spend their time at operas, public
executions, balls and dinner parties. With exceptions to Monte Cristo’s multi
cultural servants, the main religion was Christianity and you either believed
in it or didn’t. Honor and reputation was a big part of their culture. If one
were humiliated publically, a duel to the death settled the quarrel.
In this novel, there were three
types of economic classes, poor, middle class, and rich. Poor people, such as
Caderousse, relied on begging and thievery in order to sustain their lifetime
and actually survive in the world. The poor were usually evil and greedy,
because they needed to be in order to live. The middle class people, such as
Dantes in the beginning of the novel, could live and were happy with the couple
thousand francs they had. Then there were the rich people, such as Villefort,
Danglers, and Albert. They usually held the big jobs such as being a banker,
being a lawyer, and being a war general. The rich could practically do anything
they wanted as long as it was okay with the law. There was a big gap between
the poor and the rich, some people having nothing and others that carry around
millions of francs in their pockets.
The view of this story is mainly
set on the rich parts of Paris because of the targets becoming very successful
after Edmond’s imprisonment. People of other economic classes were barely
mentioned in the story except for Caderousse and before Edmond were sent to
prison. Every family had multiple servants to serve every order and announce
them when they went places. Money ruled the area and everything could be
out-bought by the rich or things could be kept secret with it. However, just
like any family, they had dark secrets within their own families.
The diction in this novel matches
the setting fairly well. The original speech is French, and this novel was a
translation of it. Many words have been used that have eventually died off in
this modern era. Some of these words that include quarrel, misfortune, and
benevolent would not be used in a casual conversation during the modern day,
but would have been used in previous years. To the modern day adolescents,
these words may seem fancy because their meaning has been replaced with much
simpler words, and that really fit the book. These families were wealthy,
noble, and highly respected, and these older words have really made their
sentences seem more snobby and noble, which was a perfect fit for the time.
