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Normally I would not group so many chapters together but it seems as if this discussion has come to a halt and no one is really participating any more so I wanted to at least provide a place where people can discuss the end of the book.

Be aware if you have not finished the book spoilers may be found here.

I was curious what people thought about the Count's premise that people must experience pain/hardship before they can truly expereince happiness? This was brought out several times in the book (view spoiler)[(e.g., giving the Morrel family extra time before they had to pay their loan, letting Maximilien believe Valentine was dead, etc.). (hide spoiler)]

I found it a bit frustrating to be honest, and it seemed like it was fraught with incredible risk that people didn't on purprose or accidentaly die as a result of the hardship before they experienced the happiness.

That is an interesting question. I did think that Dantes took a grave gamble with the lives of both Mr. Morrel and Macmillan to an extent with Eugene as well.

I was frustrated in the way in which he did stretch out their pain and suffering for so long and pushed them to that very brink of death and despair before at last coming to save them from it. For it seemed to me there was no guarantee that either of the Morrels would not have killed themselves before Dantes had the chance to bring them their salvation so to speak.

I wonder if Dantes himself truly believes that in the end of everything he suffered he is really left happier than he would have been if he simply had been allowed to have his idealistic life uninterrupted?

Perhaps after his own struggles with despair, and his being brought to the edge of death and craving death, only to be at last granted liberation gave him a deeper apperception for his life as well as a greater understanding of just what he had lost. And he felt that they needed to know just what it would feel like to loose everything before they could gain the full apperception of what they had and not take their happiness for granted.

While it would still be possible to be happy without first having contrasted it with pain and suffering, after coming through such an ordeal the happiness would be all the sweeter to them and they would hold onto it all the dearer.

Maybe it was also a lesson to them as well. For one of the reasons why Dantes had fallen prey to such hands was because of his own goodness and happiness he was blinded to the corruption in others. Perhaps in his bringing the Morrels into that darkness and despair before granting them their happiness, he would open their eyes so they would be better prepared to than defend their happiness and be able to recognize the darkness in other people who may threaten their own lives.