Retributive Justice in Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Author: Mahjabin Ali

Keywords: Retributive justice, moral philosophy, Machiavellianism, systemic injustice, legal philosophy

Abstract: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a classic French novel that tells the story of Edmond Dantes, a sailor who has been wrongly accused of treason by three of his friends, namely Danglars, Fernand Mondego and Caderousse and as a result of which he was sent to the infamous tower prison, Chateau d’If to serve a life sentence. Eventually, Dantes is able to get out of prison and after carefully planning his revenge for nearly a decade, he reinvents himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo with only one thing in mind: vengeance. This paper examines the meticulously planned revenge executed by Dantes through the lens of moral philosophy, namely the concept of retributive justice to determine if Dantes’s vengeance against his conspirators is justified.

Article Info: Received: 31 Aug 2025; Received in revised form: 30 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Oct 2025; Available online: 08 Oct 2025

DOI: 10.22161/ijeel.4.5.10

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