Violence, Revenge, and Redemption Theme Analysis

The narrative of The Phantom of the Opera is driven by the “Phantom” Erik’s misdeeds, which range from intimidation and blackmail to abduction and murder. Erik’s past as an assassin in Persia puts these crimes in context, portraying Erik as a callous individual whose life work centers around violence. At the same time, Erik’s difficult childhood and his history of rejection also reveal his vulnerability, suggesting that his violent deeds might be an expression of anger and frustration more than a gratuitous desire to cause harm. Erik himself argues that he could be reformed if only he received sincere love—in particular, if Christine agreed to love him—which would compensate for a life spent stewing in fear and hatred. Although Erik’s motives in forcing Christine to be faithful to him are initially suspicious, his final act of kindness reveals that love can actually reform a violent man, showing him the path toward justice and morality.

Erik initially seems driven by violence and the desire to dominate over others—even Erik’s longtime friend Daroga “the Persian” denounces Erik as a “monstrous fiend” and cold-blooded assassin. At the Opera, Erik does not hesitate to harm other people in order to assert his authority. To take revenge on the new Opera directors Moncharmin and Richard, who do not believe in his own existence, he makes a chandelier fall over the crowd at a performance, thus killing an innocent concierge. He also kills stage machinist Joseph Buquet, who discovered Erik’s traps and thus put Erik’s livelihood at risk. In addition, he does not hesitate to kidnap Christine to force her to obey his will. These actions highlight the ease with which he undertakes violence, along with his deep desire for domination, painting him as an irrational and destructive monster.

However, although these circumstances present Erik as unfeeling, much of his evil behavior can be understood in light of the harm he has suffered at the hands of others throughout his life. Because of this, Erik believes that receiving love as an adult will be sufficient to compensate for the pain he has suffered—and thus encourage him to change his ways. From Erik’s birth, his parents found him repugnant and treated him terribly, ultimately forcing him to run away from home. Other adults later did not hesitate to use the young boy’s deformity for their own benefit, such as when a showman exhibited Erik in fairs as a “living corpse.” Later, in Asia, when Erik worked for the Shah and the Sultan as an illusionist and assassin, both leaders tried to kill him—not because Erik had done anything wrong, but because he simply knew too much. This atmosphere of manipulation, domination, and revenge has a formative influence on Erik, convincing him that he must use violent tricks to survive. As the Persian explains: “[Erik] employed the extraordinary skills and imagination that nature had bestowed upon him, in compensation for his monstrous ugliness, to prey upon his fellow-man.” Unable to be taken seriously as a singer because of his appearance, Erik turned to violence as a form of self-expression, a means to display his wit and intelligence. In Persia, he created elaborate torture and killing methods for local rulers’ enjoyment—a practice he later carried with him to Paris, as he keeps a torture room in his underground abode.

Aware of the impact of his environment on his actions, Erik claims that all he needs is to receive love in order to change. He invokes his cruel family as an explanation for his deep internalization of rejection—and his desire to make Christine love him: “My own poor, unhappy mother […] never let me kiss her – she recoiled from me and made me cover my face – nor did any other woman!” This history of rejection convinces him that he behaves badly because he has never been loved. “You’re afraid of me!” he tells Christine. “And yet, deep down, I am not a bad man. Love me and you’ll see! To be good, all I ever needed was to be loved for myself.” Although Erik’s desperation seems sincere, he uses it to pressure Christine into acquiescing to his desires—thus using Christine’s compassion as a means to satisfy his desires.

However selfish or manipulative Erik might appear, his belief that love will make him a better person does ultimately prove correct. The novel concludes that love can be a powerful force for moral behavior, capable of reforming even the most twisted of criminals. When Christine lets Erik kiss her forehead without expressing horror (unlike his own mother used to), Erik is so moved that he decides to set Christine free. According to Erik’s interpretation, love—or, what readers might see as Christine’s stoic tolerance of his ugliness—does change him, compensating for his past history of rejection and neglect. From then on, he abandons his habit of kidnapping her and understands that he is capable of performing selfless deeds, such as letting the young woman he loves live a happy life far away from him.

The novel thus concludes that the moral nature of one’s actions depends on one’s past and present circumstances, specifically highlighting the power of love to reform morally corrupt and broken people. As long as Erik believed that no one would ever love him, he expressed his anger and frustration at the world, harming others in the process—in the same way that he believed others harmed him. However, as soon as Erik received love and compassion, he was able to pay these emotions forward, proving more noble and kind-hearted than ever before. In this way, his circumstances and human relationships served as the foundation for his moral (or immoral) behavior.