An inevitable tragedy
The Phantom of the Opera,written by Gaston Leroux,is a classic suspense novel,which has been adapted for movies and musicals for mang times.The story that happened in the Paris Opera House is told from the view of a journalist,consisting of 26 chapters.
Christine is the heroine of the book, who was an actress working in the Paris Opera House.The phantom,Erik,who lived in a dim basement wearing a mask all the time,fell in love with Christine and began to teach her singing.Thanks to the phantom,Christine successfully got a beautiful voice and became good at singing.However,everything was changed after Raoul,a friend of Christine in her childhood,appeared and was falling in love deeply with her.After hearing this news,the phantom was very annoyed and felt that he had been betrayed.Therefore,he started to do something cruel to revenge.He kidnapped Christine and took her to his basement.Afraid of losing his lover,Raoul went to look for Christine but he failed to defeat the phantom and was tied up by him. Eventually, Christine realized that the best way to save her lover was to come to terms with the phantom so she kissed him. This made the phantom know that Christine’s love for Raoul was beyond her life. Then he left and never appeared.
As Hogle delineates,this book fills a gap in Phantom criticism by 'propos[ing] to explain fully where the Phantom comes from (its diverse "sources")'. Through a detailed analysis of the 'othering' of key cultural elements evident in the novel - race, incest, class, politics, religion, gender, death, the counterfeit -especially as represented by the character of Erik, the Phantom himself, Hogle demonstrates that Le Fantôme 'explores the presence "within us" of the teeming interaction of differences that Western culture strives to efface in ideologically and symbolically constructing the "natures" of its "own" members'.(Aroutian,2008)
As far as I am concerned,none of the three have done something wrong because it is the human nature that we always persue happyness and love.Recently,I have known a different defination of id.Hall and Lindzey (1985) define id as“the id operates based on the pleasure principle that tries to obtain pleasure and avoid pain.”Id is without reason, logic, values, moral, or ethics. In sum, the id is demanding, impulsive, blind, irrational, asocial, selfish and, finally, pleasure loving.(Pervin,1984)In this story,Christine causes Erik’s id appear. His id makes him become a madman. The meeting makes Erik wants to be loved by someone again and her id becomes more dominant. Because of his desire, Erik even will do everything to make Christine becomes his wife. Erik has been driven by his mind to act like an evil.(Wardhani,2012)
What is more,when we talk about this novel,"desire"is the word that we must mention.Miller (1999) has an argumentation about desire in which “desire is a very primitive notion, not really explicable in terms of anything.” Based on the quotation, desire cannot be explained by any terms. Desire is only known as an urge from people mind and it can drive people to have an action.(Wardhani,2012)In my opinion,although Erik desires love more than other nomal people,he can not fulfill his desire through a wrong way which can hurt a lot of people.
Studying some details in the story,I find that Erik will become very satisfied when he gets love and attention from other people. However, Erik is not kind of person who only waits someone comes to him and gives him love and attention. On the contrary,he will do every ways he can to get his pleasure, love and attention.There are some evidence in the story.After her great performance, Christine backs to her dressing
room. In her room, she hears Erik’s voice that is angry because Raoul has helped her when she faints after the play. He can see that both Christine and Raoul love each other. Erik shouts to Christine that she has to love him. It that time, Christine says that she sings only for Erik and she has gave her soul to Erik when she is singing. Hearing the answer, Erik feels very happy because he thinks that Christine has accepted him.(Wardhani,2012)
Erik who desires to be loved by other people, especially Christine, will do every action he can to get it although his action contraries with the goodness and the rules. Erik is type of person will break the rule to realize his ambition and that are presented clearly by the author. There are several actions that are done by Erik to get his love.For example,Erik kidnaps Christine from the stage.He does it because he knows that Christine never love him and she loves Raoul. The only one way that he can do to make Christine as his wife is by kidnapping Christine.He takes Christine to his home and he forces Christine to marry him in his home. He does not care with Christine’s feeling and he only thinks about his love and how to make Christine becomes his wife. Erik’s desire of love has been forced him to do the action. He has broken the goodness rule in which he has kidnapped Christine.(Wardhani,2012)
After all,it is a tragedy that is inevitable.Therefore,after we finish reading this novel,we should not blame anyone in the story,especially the phantom,Erik.Instead,we should think about what methods we should use when we need to persue something now that the way Erik uses is not correct.
Referances:
SG Wardhani,2012,Love Desire Of Erik In Gaston Leroux’s Novelthe Phantom Of The Opera (1911): A Psychoanalytic Approach
J Aroutian,2008,Gothic Studies:The Undergrounds of the Phantom of the Opera: Sublimation and the Gothic in Leroux's Novel and Its Progeny
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