PARCC Prep

Adrian Rincon

Literary Analysis

Both The Count of Monte Cristo and Blessings explore the theme of freedom in different ways. Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. Meaning that whatever you think is right for yourself to just let go is what you need to do more often in life. Freedom can also be described as a hobby or hope.

In The Count of Monte Cristo, the main character Edmond Dantes hears a strange sound coming from the room next to him. The sound didn’t wake him up right away because it could’ve been an animal. But it just kept coming. So Edmond than thought that a prisoner is trying to escape. And if he does maybe he could take Edmond with him. This is the first sense of hope he had for freedom. He was trying to starve himself to death. But the jailer came in and Edmond did not want the prisoner to get caught. “Dantes raised himself up and began to talk about everything; about the bad quality of the food, about the coldness of his dungeon, grumbling and complaining, in order to have an excuse for speaking, louder, and wearying the patience of his jailer, who out of the kindness of heart had brought broth and bread for his prisoner.” Then the jailer left only because he thought Dantes was delirious. “He saw but one means of restoring lucidity and clearness to his judgment. He turned his eyes toward the soup which the jailer brought.” Dantes ate not to survive but because his hope was restored and he believed that he could escape one day.

In the play Blessings, the main characters Jesse and Rene travelled to a mountain where everything looked beautiful and where they could let their minds drift off somewhere else. Jesse came up here often after her uncle moved in her house because up there nothing seemed to matter. ”Man I got to bring my paints up here.”  Rene liked to paint picture maps and sell them to people. It was the first time Jesse went to the top of that mountain. But once she did she felt like she could do anything. Jesse loved to write poems. “Love to cook. Like poems, ever written a poem.” It was her hobby just like Jesse’s hobby is to paint. In Blessings Jesse and Rene scaled the mountain to get away from reality, to feel freedom. In The Count of Monte Cristo Edmond Wants to get out of captivity, so he could feel freedom too.