Old Dantes / Dantes’ Father Character Analysis in The Count of Monte Cristo

Old Dantes is Dantes’ beloved father. After his son is thrown in prison for an indefinite amount of time, Old Dantes dies in poverty, despite Mercedes and Old Morrel trying to help. Old Dantes thinks only of his son, and he is a stoic figure who cannot eat when he knows his son is suffering, and who refuses all but the most meager of aid until the end of his life. Dantes vows to avenge his father’s death once he escapes, and he eventually buys the apartment building in which his father died. He and Mercedes have their parting conversation in the room where his father once passed on in quiet agony.

Old Dantes / Dantes’ Father Character Timeline in The Count of Monte Cristo

The timeline below shows where the character Old Dantes / Dantes’ Father appears in The Count of Monte Cristo. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...join him for dinner that night, but Dantes politely declines, saying he must see to his father , about whom he’s worried, and to his fiancée, a beautiful woman of Catalan descent... (full context)

Dantes climbs up to his father ’s cramped, dilapidated apartment, to find him there tending to his flowers. His father is... (full context)

Justice, Revenge, and God’s Will Theme Icon

At this, Caderousse enters the small apartment and pretends to be kind to Dantes’ father and Dantes, as though his lending of money to them was a great favor. In... (full context)

As an uneasy Dantes leaves to find Mercedes, Caderousse leaves Dantes’ father and heads downstairs where Danglars has been waiting. It is revealed that the two are... (full context)

...Danglars merely crumpled it and left it near Fernand. Although Danglars tries to speak to Dantes’ father and Mercedes, saying it must be a small item with the customs bureau that’s causing... (full context)

...days spent in the horrid conditions of the Chateau D’If, thinking only of Mercedes and his father . (full context)

...thought that he has “taken out” a rival for the captaincy of the Pharaon. And Old Dantes sits in his room, unable to eat or move, thinking of his son. (full context)

...for help—although their relationship is still friendly and not romantic. Once Louis XVIII is restored, Dantes’ father , convinced there is no hope at all for Dantes, dies. Mercedes and Morrel take... (full context)

...little by way of formal learning. In prison, he can only think of himself, Mercedes, his father , and Morrel, and they seem like ghosts to him. After a time, he resolves... (full context)

...stays on-board with nothing said between sailors. Dantes swears to himself that he will find his father and Mercedes, and seek revenge on Fernand, Danglars, Caderousse, and Villefort. (full context)

...in his own ship, purchased with Dantes’ initial investment, and tells him the sorry news: Old Dantes is no longer alive, and Mercedes has “vanished.” Dantes conceals his response from Jacopo, going... (full context)

...a large tip for no reason other than charity, and continues on his way to his father ’s house. (full context)

Dantes mounts the stairs to his father ’s old two-room apartment, and he finds a surprised, poor couple inside. He recognizes nothing... (full context)

...has come to determine if Caderousse indeed used to live in the apartment next to Old Dantes . (full context)

...“last friends on earth.” The Abbe claims these friends were: Caderousse, Danglars, Fernand, Mercedes, and Dantes’ father . The Abbe notes that Dantes’ father is dead, and that Mercedes can no longer... (full context)

...destroy him and La Carconte. The Abbe agrees. Caderousse begins by describing what happened to Dantes’ father : after Dantes’ arrest, his father returned to his apartment and refused to leave it,... (full context)

...concertedly, telling her that Dantes was dead and never to return. After the death of Old Dantes , Mercedes finally did marry the now-Count de Morcerf, and he took her away from... (full context)

...this letter, Sinbad writes that Julie is to go to the apartment once occupied by Dantes’ father , take from the mantle there a purse with money, and return with it to... (full context)

...where Morrel has been waiting with his pistols. Julie announces that, in the apartment of Old Dantes , she has found (in the same bag Morrel once filled with some money to... (full context)

...mention the agent from Thomson and French—the man who left the bag of money in Old Dantes ’ home that paid off the family’s debts—whom they believe to be the same man... (full context)