The Phantom of the Opera: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

On the evening of Messrs. Debienne and Poligny’s last night as directors of the Paris Opera House, an overexcited group of ballerinas storm into dancer Sorelli’s dressing-room. Little Jammes, who quickly locks the door, tells Sorelli, a beautiful yet—according to the narrator—unintelligent ballerina, that they have seen the ghost. Although Sorelli reacts skeptically (even though she is secretly scared and superstitious), the girls all begin to talk at once, defending what they have seen, explaining that a mysterious, ugly figure cloaked in black suddenly appeared out of nowhere, scaring them all.

The narrator notes that for the past several months, everyone at the Opera House has been discussing the matter of this ghost, who sometimes appears in person and sometimes causes strange occurrences. People have become so paranoid that any strange trick or surprising event is attributed to the ghost’s doing. Nevertheless, the girls in Sorelli’s room insist that they have seen the ghost, who has a skull-like head.

The narrator notes that this description fits the one that Joseph Buquet, the chief stage machinist, shared. According to Buquet, the ghost is skeletal, has neither eyes nor nose, and has yellow skin. Since Buquet is not prone to fanciful stories but is considered serious and reliable, people paid attention to his description, even though some people claimed that Buquet must have been the victim of a joke.

Another episode also created an uproar. One of the firemen on duty, Papin, almost fainted after his safety rounds below stage. He claimed to have seen a floating head of fire come toward him, which terrified him beyond measure. Defending Papin’s experience, the narrator ironically notes that firemen are not usually scared of fire. Although this description did not necessarily conform to the ballerinas’ and Buquet’s depiction of the ghost, people concluded that the ghost might have several heads.

These events help explain everyone’s fright in Sorelli’s room. When Sorelli interrogates the girls about what they have seen, Little Jammes defends their narrative by explaining that Gabriel, the chorus-master, saw the ghost the day before: The Persian, a mysterious man whom everyone believes to have the “Evil Eye,” entered the office and the ghost’s face appeared behind him, terrifying Gabriel and causing him to hurt himself while running away. After Little Jammes’s story, Sorelli tries to hide her fear and a silence settles in the dressing-room.

Little Meg Giry then notes that Joseph Buquet should keep quiet, because her mother, Mme Giry, says the ghost should be left in peace. Pressed to explain herself, Meg reveals the secret her mother has asked her to keep: that her mother interacts with the ghost in his private box, Box Five. She notes that the ghost is invisible, and that Buquet’s description thus makes no sense. She adds that her mother has told her Buquet would suffer for his revelations.

In that very moment, Little Jammes’s mother calls her daughter, wild with fear and excitement. To everyone’s horror, she announces that Joseph Buquet has been found hanging down the stage in the cellar. The machinists who found the body claimed to hear music for the dead at the same moment. All the ballerinas whisper to each other that this must be the ghost’s doing. The narrator himself notes that, although the press claims that Buquet committed “suicide under natural circumstances,” when the co-directors ran down to look for Buquet, they found him dead on the floor, with no rope to be seen. The narrator notes ironically that a hanging without a rope can hardly be called “natural circumstances.” The narrator adds that the disappearance of the rope will later become more understandable, in light of later events.