Saturday, July 26, 2008

REVENGE & THE COUNT = JUSTICE?

Micah 3:1-3


Dan Russell

...Should you not know justice?You who hate good and love evil;who tear the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones who eat people's flesh strip off their skin and break their bones in pieces;Who chop them up like meat for the panlike flesh for the pot? Micah 3:1b-3
This is the consequence of eating of the wrong flesh and drinking the wrong blood. Loving evil and hating good...Jesus brings justice. Food for thought?Dan


Lisa Northcraft

Justice...Makes me think of The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work & among the highest selling books of all time. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean and the Levant during the historical events of 1815–1838 (from just before the Hundred Days through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France). The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. It is primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, forgiveness and death, and is told in the style of an adventure story.The main character was wronged by his best friend and felt wronged by the people he was surrounded by. Edmond Dantès, a dashing 19-year-old sailor aboard the ship Pharaon, returns home to Marseille. He is excited to be reunited with his family and friends, and eager to marry his fiancée, the gorgeous Catalan Mercédès. He is also proud of his recent promotion to captain. At the same time, he is sad due to the recent death of his friend Captain Leclère, his predecessor. Captain Leclère, a supporter of the now exiled Napoléon, had charged Dantès on his deathbed to deliver a package to former Grand Marshal Maréchal Bertrand, who had been exiled to the isle of Elba. During the Pharaon's stop at Elba, Dantès spoke to Napoléon himself, who asked the sailor to deliver a confidential letter to a man in Paris. Edmond's wonderful fortune creates jealousy in those closest to him. His promotion to captain angers the ship's purser, Danglars; his gain stuns his neighbor, the impoverished tailor Caderousse; his relationship with Mercédès inspires the jealousy of her cousin Fernand Mondego, who wants Mercédès all his own. Danglars scribes an anonymous letter to the crown prosecutor accusing Dantès of being a Bonapartist traitor. Inflaming his jealousy, he instigates Fernand to send the letter, while Caderousse looks on in a drunken stupor, his slurred words goading on the others and revealing his true feelings of jealousy.Villefort, the deputy crown prosecutor in Marseille, takes on the duty of investigating the matter on Dantès' wedding day and on the day of his own betrothal to Renée de Saint-Meran; he indeed finds an incriminating letter. Dantès knows nothing of its contents, only that he was asked to deliver it. Although at first sympathetic to Dantès' case, when Villefort questions Dantès as to where and to whom the letter was to be delivered, he discovers to his horror that it is addressed to his own father, Noirtier de Villefort, a well known Bonapartist. Due to the political climate created by the restoration of King Louis XVIII, Villefort wants to distance himself from his Bonapartist father. The deputy crown prosecutor burns the letter, which has the potential to fatally hinder his own success. Although Villefort would rather not imprison an innocent man, he ultimately chooses to save his political career rather than properly exercise justice and condemns Dantès to life imprisonment in the island prison of the Château d'If, using his knowledge of the letter's contents to advance himself and his career at the court of Louis XVIII.A sentence of Life IMPRISONMENT! He is innocent! How would this make you feel? I can’t imagine what he went through. The book describes the immense struggle of disillusionment and then depression leading to anger and ultimately a plot of revenge. How destructive humans can be one to another. This is just one example of the eating of flesh and the drinking of blood.

1 comments:

TravisM said...

What is ultimate justice? What does it mean to be just? Can humans make justice decisions? How do we decide what makes right a wrong?