.Why didn’t Dumas make an Edmond and Mercedes ending together?

Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590)) and The Odyssey influenced the book The Count of Monte Cristo. In Book IV of The Odyssey, Telemachus visits Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris. Helen was sorry for what she did, but still Menelaus needed to use drugs to forget his painful memories like Helen’s union with Paris. This influenced Alexandre Dumas. Edmond would never be happy with Mercedes and would never forget her marriage to Fernand. This would always make him have painful memories. Their marriage would be deeply unhappy.

Haydee does not bring the count the painful memories that Mercedes does. More realistic for him to be happy with Haydée.

The adaptations of 1934 with Robert Donat, 1998 with Gerard Depardieu and 2002 with Jim Caviezel make the mistake of transforming the Edmond and Mercedes union into a happy union. Their union should be unhappy and Edmond would always need Hashish to try to erase the memories that Mercedes was married for 20 years to the man who ruined his life.

  • EmykoEmyko@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    It’s an interesting choice from Dumas because Edmund is capable of near-miracles in almost every other regard.

  • Peter_deT@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    It’s not just that he could not be happy with Mercedes - she could never be his wife. His vengeance has destroyed her marriage and dis-honoured her married name (her son goes off to North Africa with her blessing under her maiden name - “Take my name - Hererra - its has never a spot” she says). She has her own pride.

  • ForFoxSake1217@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Because that Edmond Dantes that was in love with Mercedes was a different Edmond Dantes. Being imprisoned in a dungeon for 14 years has changed him. He is a much more hardened man than he was before being imprisoned. He realizes that the Edmond Dantes that was in love with Mercedes no longer exists. That was a different man from a different life and it needs to be left in the past.

    I like the ending because it doesn’t try to do the “and they reunited, and picked up right where they left off and lived happily ever after” thing. People often have a strong desire to recreate the past and go back to a happier time in their lives, but things change and people change. It can never be like it was before. People grow up, go through different life experiences, develop new interests, get married, and have families. At 45, they aren’t going to be the same person they were when they were 20. Dantes realizes that he cannot recreate the past.

    I love the Count of Monte Cristo for its realistic portrayal of human experiences. Edmond Dantes isn’t a Clark Kent or Steve Rogers who can be beaten and tortured to seemingly no end and remain completely unphased by it. His experience of being wrongfully imprisoned in a dungeon has made him a much darker person. He is still a good man at heart, but he has a dark side. He’ll kill a man in a duel and not lose a wink of sleep over it. The Edmond Dantes before being imprisoned would have been appalled at watching the execution, whereas the one after being imprisoned watches it with great anticipation. He’s a much more human character than your typical fictional hero.

    • suid@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      I like the ending because it doesn’t try to do the “and they reunited, and picked up right where they left off and lived happily ever after” thing.

      That was the biggest thing I hated about the Gerard Depardieu movie version. I mostly enjoyed it until then, but the mangled faux-happily-ever-after ending soured it instantly.

      • shootingstars23678@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        That’s my biggest issues with any count of monte cristo adaptions they never seem to understand that Edmond and Mercedes not getting together is a very important point thematically

        • Gilgamesh-ishtar@alien.topBEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          That’s my biggest issues with any count of monte cristo adaptions they never seem to understand that Edmond and Mercedes not getting together is a very important point thematically

          This is much more of a Hollywood option than one of adaptations.

          Hollywood made the 1922, 1934 and 2002 adaptations and all three Edmond and Mercedes end up together.

          The French adaptations of 1929, 1943, 1954 and 1979 have the Edmond and Haydee ending.

          Russia with the 1988 adaptation and England with the 1964 miniseries also kept the book’s ending.

    • Logan_Maddox@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Not only him, but Mercedes too. Sure she married Fernand due to resignation at first, but it was 18 years married. She has a son whom she loves, she lives a life that may not be super happy but it’s still her life.

      There’s a couple little moments when Dantes meets Mercedes that feel to me like Mercedes is more worried about Dantes’ vengeance than wants to get back to him. Like, she literally has to beg him for her son’s life, I don’t think you do that to someone you see as your former lover now returned, you do that to a spirit of revenge.

      Also, Dumas goes out of his way to show how Fernand really cares about Mercedes and Albert, Albert himself was raised quite well, and that’s gotta count for something. Fernand would rather kill himself rather than let his wife and son live in shame.

    • disfeature@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      You said it perfectly.

      Dantes has to learn to live in the present and put the past behind him. The past isn’t just old hurts though; it’s old loves too. Even if they could be together, it would have only harmed both of them.

      I appreciated that the narrative acknowledged that in a way that wasn’t cynical. Dantes and Mercedes still love each other, it’s just grown and changed with time as they have.

  • elutriation_cloud@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Thanks for this insight. This is my favorite novel and favorite ending. I love how Edmond Dantes was allowed to be a little bit more selfish in order to find his happiness in the end.

  • ivanbin@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Menelaus who won Helen back after his elopement with Paris.

    He did WHAT with Paris? I definitely need to re-read the story as I clearly missed some very important bits

    • shootingstars23678@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Apart from the misuse of the word his. Menelaus didn’t really win Helen back, more like as a woman she has no agency and was used as a trophy to be won between the Greeks and Trojans

      • eurydice_ovid@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Helen was dissatisfied with Paris and wanted to return to Menelaus. She only humiliated Paris and says in the Odyssey that she was happy to return to Menelaus.

  • EternallyReturn@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    What do you mean “why”?

    Why would any of us know?

    Because that’s how he chose to write it. What answer did you think there was?

  • kakha_k@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Do not know but the ending is awesome and insanely great as this whole magnificent novel is.

  • PogueBlue@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Read the nonfiction book the Black Count by Reiss. This book changed the CMC for me in an amazing way.

  • SayaScabbard@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m perfectly fine with Edmond and Mercedes not being together again.

    But I cannot stand that he ends up with Haydee.

    Just… ew.