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Frame Story
Genre
Explanation and Analysis:
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel first and foremost. It is an account of the adventures—the many, many adventures—of the titular Count over the course of almost three decades. In addition to the adventures of the Count, the novel also explores the past adventures of a variety of its other characters, including the bandit Luigi Vampa and the Count's steward Bertuccio, through the use of frame stories. As an adventure novel, it has all the vast array of action sequences, suspense, and requited and unrequited love that the reader might expect to find.
The Count of Monte Cristo is also a work of historical fiction, as Dumas caches the entirety of the narrative within the context of the political situation in France in the early 19th century: Napoleon's exile and the Bourbon restoration form the contextual backbone of the beginning of the novel, in which Dantès faces the accusation of Bonapartism—or allegiance to Napoleon's cause—as a pretense for his exile.
Finally, The Count of Monte Cristo is also a serial novel, meaning it was released serially—chapter by chapter—over the course of almost two years from 1844-1846. This episodic structure is evident throughout the novel, which has an incredible level of complexity and a number of side plots that would have helped keep readers engaged over such a long period of time.
