The Influence of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo

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Alexandre Dumas, author of The Count of Monte Cristo , was greatly influenced by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . He used Shakespeare's way of using poison to incorporate one's love and perseverance to be with their true love. Alexandre Dumas was born on July 24, 1802 and started writing books and performances in 1822, he was inspired by William Shakespeare, Lord George Gordon Byron, and Sir Walter Scott . William Shakespeare was his greatest inspiration, Shakespeare's work influenced Dumas's book, The Count of Monte Cristo. The use of poison, perseverance, and hatred in The Count of Monte Cristo were all influenced by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

In The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas uses poison and medicine to help simulate the forbidden and true love between two characters in his book, Maximillien and Valentine. This idea was influenced by the writings of William Shakespeare in the play Romeo and Juliet, in the play Juliet is poisoned and Romeo finds her lying on the floor dead, so he kills himself. He kills himself because he knows this is the end and he will never be able to show pure love to anyone else, but to the girl who is now dead. The substance that Juliet is given wears off and she wakes up to find her true love, Romeo, lying on the floor dead and hopeless. Alexandre Dumas uses this method of poison and medicine to capture the reader's attention on the forbidden love that Maximillien and Valentine share in the midst of the story. Valentine is given a poison, like Juliet, and Maximillien wants to kill himself because of the fact that his true love is no longer living, like in Romeo and Juliet. The Count tells Maximillien that he will not kill himself and that he is going to live with him for a month and i...

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...th Romeo and Juliet and The Count of Monte Cristo are very good and popular books; they can teach a person a lot about the past and also themes like hatred, perseverance, and forbidden love. Each theme in these books are related in same way and even some of the characters can be similarly related. William Shakespeare influenced Alexandre Dumas on a lot of the themes and emotions that were in his book, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Alexandre Dumas did a great job using these themes and making them his own.

Works Cited

Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo; 1844

Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet; 1591-1595

http://www.online-literature.com/dumas/

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/Tragedy/romeoandjuliet/romeoandjuliet.html

http://www.shmoop.com/count-of-monte-cristo/perseverance-theme.html

http://www.shmoop.com/romeo-and-juliet/hate-theme.html

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