Previous
Foreshadowing
Chapter 33 – Roman Bandits
Explanation and Analysis—Vampa's Tale:
In Chapter 33, the reader discovers a story within a story—the tale of a legendary bandit named Luigi Vampa, as told by Signor Pastrini:
You could not have a better informant than I, Excellency, if you want to have the full story, because I knew Luigi Vampa as a young child. One day when I myself fell into his hands while traveling from Ferentino to Alatri, he remembered our earlier acquaintance, luckily for me. He let me go, not only without making me pay a ransom, but even making me a present of a very fine watch, and telling me his life story.
[...]
The hotelier sat down, after bowing respectfully to his future listeners, with the intention of letting them know that he was ready to give them any information about Luigi Vampa that they might require.
Dumas's frame story of Vampa's epic adventures lends additional depth to his world—an entire canon of adventure stories equivalent to Dumas's own work—and allows Dumas to draw parallels between characters in frame stories and characters in the main novel. In this case, Vampa emerges as another foil for the Count of Monte Cristo himself. Unlike the Count, however, Vampa is a generally violent criminal who uses his intelligence and cunning—traits he shares with the Count—for personal gain or otherwise for ill. Consider the following passage, in which Pastrini playfully implies that Vampa sets fire to a villa:
That same night a great accident occurred, no doubt because of the neglectfulness of some servant who had forgotten to put out the lights: the Villa San-Felice caught fire, in the very wing where the beautiful Carmela had her apartments.
While Vampa leaps in to save Carmela and avoid suspicion, he manages to also rob her of a fine dress and priceless jewelry so as to impress his lover, Teresa. Where Vampa is the architect of this sort of chaos for the sake of personal enrichment—or enrichment of the status of his legend—the Count, by contrast, uses his equivalent talents for the sake of revenge. Although his specific methods may be objectionable, Dumas makes clear over the course of the considerable scope of his novel that this revenge is a noble enough cause.
Related Themes:
Chapter 44 – The Vendetta
Explanation and Analysis—Bertuccio's Tale:
In Chapter 44, at the Count's bidding, Bertuccio begins a tale that unfolds into a full narrative of its own—a frame story, within the outer novel, in which a new narrator takes over. Bertuccio introduces this story as a flashback to his past years ago:
‘Where would Monsieur le Comte like me to begin?’ Bertuccio asked.
‘Wherever you wish,’ Monte Cristo replied, ‘because I know nothing.’
‘But I thought that Abbé Busoni had told Your Excellency …’
‘Yes, a few facts, perhaps, but that was seven or eight years ago and I have forgotten.’
‘So, not wishing to bore Your Excellency, I can safely …’
‘Come on, Monsieur Bertuccio, come: you will be my evening newspaper.’
‘It all goes back to 1815.’
‘Ah!’ Monte Cristo exclaimed. ‘A long time ago, 1815!’
In keeping with the serialized nature of The Count of Monte Cristo, some chapters—in more or less their entirety—are frame stories that slow the pace of the narrative while pulling the reader into entirely new worlds. In this case, this is the world of Bertuccio's own tragic past. It begins, as with many flashbacks in literature, with the introduction of an explicit leap backward in time: "It all goes back to 1815."
This particular flashback reveals more about the character of Villefort, with whom Bertuccio also has extensive experience, and his tendency to ignore his duty to justice in favor of protecting his own career. Through the inclusion of frame stories with perspective and time jumps like this, Dumas is able to tightly weave together the disparate strands of his sprawling tale and build years and years of connections between the characters before the reader's very eyes.
Chapter 77 – Haydee
Explanation and Analysis—Haydée's Story:
In Chapter 77, Haydée recounts her life story. Yet again, Dumas uses both the flashback and the frame story as a way to envelop the reader in a secondary tale:
Albert turned to Haydée. ‘At what age did the signora leave Greece?’ he asked.
‘At the age of five,’ Haydée replied.
‘And do you recollect your homeland?’ Albert asked.
‘When I close my eyes, I can again see everything that I used to see. There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body’s sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers for ever.’
‘What is your earliest memory?’
Dumas eases the reader into Haydée's tale through this framing dialogue that gradually gives way to her own exposition. Haydée is a character of particular intrigue in The Count of Monte Cristo, given the possibility of her noble background and her significance to the Count as his slave and, eventually, his love. Through flashback, Haydée contextualizes her life for her fellow characters and for the reader themselves, and explains her gratitude to the Count.
Frame stories such as these enable Dumas to change the pace of his narrative, flesh out his massive cast of characters, and even set up future dramatic irony: by privileging the reader and a select amount of characters with an extensive amount of information, Dumas can invite the reader into the know while keeping some of his other characters in the dark.
Related Themes:
