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Chapter 96
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Count of Monte Cristo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Justice, Revenge, and God’s Will
Changes of Identity and Station
Love, Devotion, and Redemption
Debt and Gratitude
The Domestic and the Foreign
Summary
Analysis
After the commotion has taken place, Danglars and his wife lock themselves in their separate chambers, and Eugenie, with her friend Louise, imagines what to do next. When Louise asks if Eugenie is okay, however, Eugenie replies that she has a plan—she has had a plan for some days, and it involves her and Louise escaping together as a pair. Eugenie shears her hair and says she will dress as a man and accompany Louise to Belgium with what money they can grab. They will live together as partners and musicians, thus earning money to survive.
Eugenie’s relationship with Louise has, over the course of the novel, seemed like a particularly intense friendship. But here, according to the standards of the time in which the novel is set, Eugenie seems to declare that she seeks a romantic relationship with Louise, who is amenable to it. This is an additional change of identity in the novel, from the heterosexual marriage expected of a young woman to a different form of romantic partnership.
Themes
Louise is shocked at the plan but agrees, as she is devoted to her friend Eugenie and they both spurn the idea of marriage to men. They order a cart, make their way out of the house and down toward Fontainebleau, then go out on the main road to Belgium, from which time, the narrator asserts, Danglars “has a daughter no longer.”
Danglars has not only lost his wealth and his good name, but he has physically lost the daughter on whom he hoped to stake his reputation, through a marriage to Andrea. Danglars will soon find himself completely alone in the novel, just as Fernand did.
Themes
