What’s one thing Aladdin and Edmond Dantes in ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ have in common?
For one thing, they’re both lucky in their own ways with the help of their unexpected friends.
Aladdin, for one, fell into the scam of Jafar along with Babu, his pet monkey. To their astonishment, they’re not the only one inside the ‘Cave of Wonders’; a friendly magic carpet stirs and wanted to make friends with Babu and Aladdin and help them find the magic lamp.
Walking through the Cave of Wonders tests both Aladdin and Babu’s sense of lust and gluttony as they see mountains of gold and valuable items even the Sultan lacks of.
Eventually, they see the magic lamp but.. it’s just an ordinary lamp. However, the lamp possesses a genie! The genie grants him three wishes and any wishes except resurrection, love and asking for more wishes. With Aladdin’s deceit, he manages to get out of the cave without using a wish.
Going back to The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes finds himself to be falsely accused of a crime and sent to a prison. To his luck, he hears tapping and finds out it is someone who is digging his escape from the prison. Here we meet the priest Abbe Faria, a new friend of Dantes who guides him to his riches at the Isle of Monte Cristo after he has exasperated from his efforts to try again and escape. With Dantes’ cunning tricks, he successfully escaped without any trouble.
Another association I found between the two is the fact that they’ve been tricked and sentenced to prison without an explanation. Aladdin was a harmless market thief but Jafar convicted him of kidnapping Jasmine the princess.
On the other hand, Dantes was wrongly accused of being a Bonapartist and helping Napoleon escape from his exile at the Isle of Elba and sending information about it when he actually was just a sailor who did a favor of sending a letter to someone at an island.
As you can see, both characters experience injustice of where they’re at. Inequality is an important theme here because later on in their stories, the characters rise up to their opponents, making them better than they were. In today’s world, we still have people who are just like Aladdin or Dantes and are waiting to strike back at their opponents.
The most important thing everyone needs to remember is that everyone should be given a fair and equal chance to rise up to their potential. No person, despite their disabilities or unfortunate events, has a less chance of becoming the person they want to be. If everyone can see that and was given the proper resources, imagine how Aladdin could’ve turned out to be; instead of a street rat, he could become a street merchant! Or in Dantes’ case, he could’ve defended himself innocent and received the job that he was offered.
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