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Get every literary device explanation for The Count of Monte Cristo
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Explanation and Analysis—Haydée's Story:
In Chapter 77, Haydée recounts her life story. Yet again, Dumas uses both the flashback and the frame story as a way to envelop the reader in a secondary tale:
Albert turned to Haydée. ‘At what age did the signora leave Greece?’ he asked.
‘At the age of five,’ Haydée replied.
‘And do you recollect your homeland?’ Albert asked.
‘When I close my eyes, I can again see everything that I used to see. There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body’s sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers for ever.’
‘What is your earliest memory?’
Dumas eases the reader into Haydée's tale through this framing dialogue that gradually gives way to her own exposition. Haydée is a character of particular intrigue in The Count of Monte Cristo, given the possibility of her noble background and her significance to the Count as his slave and, eventually, his love. Through flashback, Haydée contextualizes her life for her fellow characters and for the reader themselves, and explains her gratitude to the Count.
Frame stories such as these enable Dumas to change the pace of his narrative, flesh out his massive cast of characters, and even set up future dramatic irony: by privileging the reader and a select amount of characters with an extensive amount of information, Dumas can invite the reader into the know while keeping some of his other characters in the dark.
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