I think one of the reasons I love The Phantom of the Opera so much (let’s specifically point this at Leroux and ALW), is that it fulfills the Gothic ideal of “pure innocent young woman meets and is influenced by dark, mysterious stranger,” but SHE IS NOT RUINED BY HIM. it’s so incredibly important to me, because Christine emerges intact. Christine is the strength and compassion and heart of the whole thing, dressed up like the fragile ingenue. the fear and manipulation she endures does not warp her heart or undermine her resolution. most of the time, those arcs consume the heroine in some way, but not Christine. she may shed some of her innocence, but she serves as the salvation of the story through her forgiveness and her sympathetic heart, and it’s so valuable that she exists.
(I hope you don’t mind me adding to this!)
YES I agree with the above!
ALSO: Unlike many other Gothic tales, it’s not your usual “purity vs corruption, good vs evil etc” trope (as in Dracula). Christine, in all her goodness, does contrast Erik’s darkness and insanity, but she doesn’t save the day by rejecting or overpowering him in the traditional sense, but by showing him kindness, by offering to stay with him. That’s the absolute beauty of this character, that she is able to feel compassion even for the one who least deserves it (because while I pity Erik, he was beyond forgiveness at the point tbh).
This could so easily have been a story in which Christine whimpers and cries, Erik is a boring Gothic-villain stereotype and Raoul saves the day, but what it is is just so much better.
God I love this book.
This is such a perfect addition (and more intellectually rooted in the text, which I thank you for, because I was honestly just bursting with love for her when I scribbled this out last night, but that overwhelmed my ability to really construct what I wanted to say, and you hit it exactly). It isn’t about defeat. It isn’t about destroying Erik (who, yes, is pitiable and tragic, but most assuredly beyond forgiveness), it’s about Christine having such a capacity for compassion and empathy that she draws back out the humanity in him, enough that he can let her go, even when she gives him what he desires by offering to stay. He expects her to cry, to protest and collapse, so that he may use it as an excuse to punish everyone, but instead, she astonishes him, she selflessly consents, in order to save everyone else from a terrible fate. It changes everything (Erik actually ADMITS that he goes from seeing her as dead to seeing her as living, as sincere and good). She treats him like a person (”I tore off my mask…and she did not run away!”), something he does not anticipate, and it allows him to extend some measure of grace back to her, not only through freeing she and Raoul, but in acknowledging her agency and her right to live. She remains resolute, and gentle, and walks in the light. Her kindness is the salvation of them all. “saved by the sublime devotion of Christine Daae.”
I’m not crying you are
Published
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 