Luminstruct
  • Home
  • Programs
    • Ice Breakers
    • Team Builders >
      • Diversity Activities
      • Reflection Activities
      • Teamwork Activites
    • Educational Programs
    • Social Programs
    • Advertisements
  • Bulletin Boards
    • All Ideas
    • Filter by Theme >
      • Animal Boards
      • Clothing Boards
      • Entertainment Boards
      • Holiday Boards
      • Meal Boards
      • Nature Boards
      • School Boards
    • Filter by Lesson >
      • Self Boards >
        • Alcohol Education Boards
        • Communication Boards
        • Cyber Safety Boards
        • Goal Setting Boards
        • Life Skill Boards
        • Mental Health Boards
        • Physical Wellness Boards
        • Professional Development Boards
        • Self Love Boards
        • Sexual Education Boards
        • Uplifting Quotes Boards
      • School Boards >
        • Academic Success Boards
        • History Boards
        • Motivation Boards
        • Success Tip Boards
      • Community Boards >
        • Community Development Boards
        • Diversity Boards
        • Entertainment Boards
        • National Holiday Boards
        • Politics Boards
        • Recognition Boards
        • Student Involvement Boards
        • Sustainability Boards
      • Res Life Topic Boards >
        • Closing Boards
        • Policy Boards
        • Spring Break Boards
        • Staff Boards
        • Winter Driving Boards
        • Welcome to College Boards
    • Guidebook
  • Door Decs
    • All Ideas
    • Filter by theme >
      • Animal Door Decs >
        • Bird Door Decs
        • Insect Door Decs
        • Mammal Door Decs
        • Marine Door Decs
        • Mystical Creature Door Decs
        • Reptile Door Decs
      • Clothing Door Decs >
        • Accessory Door Decs
        • Shirt Door Decs
        • Pants Door Decs
      • Entertainment Door Decs >
        • Art Door Decs
        • Cinema Door Decs
        • Game Door Decs
        • Music Door Decs
        • Performance Door Decs
        • Reading Door Decs
        • Sport Door Decs
      • Holiday Door Decs >
        • Christmas Door Decs
        • Dia de los Muertos Door Decs
        • Easter Door Decs
        • Graduation Door Decs
        • Halloween Door Decs
        • New Year Door Decs
        • St. Patrick's Day Door Decs
        • Thanksgiving Door Decs
        • Valentine's Day Door Decs
      • Meal Door Decs >
        • Food Door Decs
        • Drink Door Decs
      • Nature Door Decs >
        • Beach Door Decs
        • Cactus Door Decs
        • Camping Door Decs
        • Flower Door Decs
        • Mountain Door Decs
        • Outer Space Door Decs
        • Travel Door Decs
        • Tree Door Decs
        • Weather Door Decs
      • School Door Decs >
        • School Subject Door Decs
        • School Supplies Door Decs
        • Technology Door Decs
    • Door Decor DIY
  • Resources
    • Roommate Agreement
    • Live In/On Report
    • Resident Assistant Report
    • BCD Training
  • Contact Us

Blog 

Book

4/23/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
Hello world! For those of you who are new, welcome to the Luminstruct blog! I am currently working on a "365 Word Project" where everyday I will be posting a reflection on a word and today's word is "Book".

When it comes to my book collection, my favorite book of all time is "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux. When I was younger, one of my fondest memories of one of my grandmothers was when she gave me a pile of books from when she was my age. One of these books was "The Phantom of the Opera." The book was an antique even at that time, but it was so cool to have a piece of my grandmother in that book. The binding was worn and the pages had a distinct smell, but in many ways that only added to "special-ness" of the novel. It even had pictures from various play performances! Along with the special factor the book offered when my grandma gave it to me, I also immediately fell in love with the characters and the overall complexity of the story. My friends make fun of me because I root for the phantom whenever we watch the movie, but in some aspects I understand him much more than Christine or the Raoul. 

Not many people understand the motivating drives behind the Phantom's actions. Although these are completely my own theories of the character, I should also mention that it has been a while since I've gotten the chance to reread the novel, most of these insights are based on the movie's interpretation. So without further ado, here are my views on why the Phantom (Erik) should be seen as the hero in the story.

Starting from the beginning, Erik was brought up in a troubled environment. Due to his disfigured face, he was brought up by a travelling circus and was surrounded by people who called him the spawn of Satan. The only way he was ever treated like a normal person was when he covered his face from the world. After a long period of time in this environment, he finally had enough and decided to take actions into his own hands and escape the prison he was in. Once he escaped, he hid in the sewers of the opera house and quickly learned the ins and outs of the building without being caught. To his surprise, he sees Christine as a child who has recently lost both of her parents and believes her father will send her an angel to help guide her. Erik quickly empathizes with her because he too is sad and alone. In order to keep this relationship alive and have someone who can understand him, he hides himself away as to not jeopardize this relationship and indirectly becomes Christine's guardian angel, the angel of music. 

Erik then finds himself in a role where he must learn the trade and skills offered in the opera house in order to keep Christine as a friend. I use the word "friend" loosely, but when you've never really had a positive relationship in your life, you make do with what you have available. When Erik devotes his life to Christine's interests, he learns all that he can to help her along the way. He quickly realizes that the more praise she receives from his teaching efforts, the more often she reports to him and wants to be around him. Although most people would call it an obsession, he falls in love with her after some time and rightfully so. He had spent every waking minute helping her and in many ways they become one person. This is where he can "place her under a trance" because he knows her so well because he has been watching her for the majority of his life. With this being said however, whereas the Phantom began seeing Christine as a friend who eventually matured into a romantic desire, Christine began seeing Erik as a guardian angel who eventually matured into becoming the spirit of her father.  Although there are very deep connections she has with the phantom, they will never be in a sexual manner, simply the manner you would have with a father figure.

As time goes by, Christine begins to get more attention from admirers including an old childhood friend, Raoul who was a part of Christine's life before Erik was in the picture. Raoul falls for Christine's talent and it breaks Erik's heart to see her go toward a "complete stranger" who was only interested in Christine because of her talents, the talents that Erik had invested in her. As she gets more and more distant, Erik reaches a level of desperation. If Christine is no longer in his life, what has his life added up to? A lot of people think it is because he is some super jealous guy who hates seeing her with another man and although that is partially true, I believe it is also due to him realizing that he might lose the only friend he has every had in his life and she has made him who he is today. If she is not there anymore, what is left but a child who was abused by many people and was forced to wear a mask to the world, further drawing himself away from everyone else. You would become desperate too if it meant keeping your best friend instead of traveling through the world alone, being hated by everyone.

I think it is also important to mention the phantom's unbelievable levels of mental thinking. He had managed to live in an opera house for more than 20 years without being noticed and even had the managers paying him a salary for basically not doing anything. He was able to create a palace in the sewers and made secret passage ways going throughout the entire building. Multiple times people tried to follow him through these passages, but only came up short in a dead end or a booby trap. In the book Raoul tries to follow Erik into the sewers and finds him in the room full of mirrors. Whereas this could be mind numbing to begin with because it was impossible to find a way out, the Phantom added an additional psychological element and placed a tree with a noose in the center of the room so the mirrors would reflect it and create a forest of nooses. I don't know about you, but that would terrify me! To finalize the statement of his brilliance, he was able to construct his own play, Don Juan Triumphant. In the book, it says Erik plays a section of his opera following his unmasking at the hands of Christine Daaé, who is stunned by the power of the music. As she describes it, the music takes the listener through every detail of suffering of "the ugly man," taking her into the abyss of the wretched torment and misery Erik has experienced in his life. The piece makes Pain divine. At the end, the piece takes a rapid ascent out of misery whirling up into a triumphant and victorious flight... as Ugliness, lifted on the wings of love, dared to look Beauty in the face. (Thank you Wikipedia for that reference).

Just by being able to take his terrible life and then strike up the courage to show his real face to Christine is a symbol of bravery. All he has ever known in his life has been hate and yet he still lets Christine leave with Raoul so that he can face the world on his own stage. It never says what happened to the Phantom after Christine left him, but we know that he always loved her for helping him see the good in the world and helped form him into the man he became. The movie version even ends where he escapes into the world without his mask and still lays a rose on Christine's grave after she is long gone. That is pure love. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the REAL unsung hero! 

By no means am I saying that killing people with nooses is alright in any world, but it can be understood by seeing the world that he came from. The noose was actually the only thing in his life that freed him from the traveling circus in the first place. And that is my super long post of the week :) I still feel like I did not serve the Phantom enough justice, but maybe I began to shed some light on one of the most misunderstood book characters of all time. It is truly amazing what a book can do and I look forward to reading more soon!   


Take Away:


Tomorrow's Topic: "Dare"

1 Comment
Karla link
7/20/2022 09:35:36 am

This is awesomee

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    My name is Mark and I'm here to share my story!

    Archives

    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    365 Word Project
    4th Of July!
    A Date To Remember
    A Date To Remember: Old West Photoshoot
    Age
    Alive
    Amazing
    Angels
    Angry
    Ask
    Awaken
    Balance
    Be
    Beach
    Beauty
    Begin
    Believe
    Bloom
    Book
    Boredom
    Brave
    Breathe
    Charge
    Childhood
    Choose
    Clean
    Cloud
    Complete
    Connected
    Consequence
    Cry
    Cycle
    Dance
    Dare
    Darkness
    Date
    Dazzle
    Delicious
    Destiny
    Determination
    Difference
    Disaster
    Discipline
    Discovery
    Dream
    Ecstasy
    Energy
    Enormous
    Experience
    Factory
    Faith
    Fame
    Family
    Fire
    Flower
    Focus
    Forgiveness
    Found
    Fresh
    Friendship
    Future
    Game
    Garden
    Give
    Go
    Goals
    Grace
    Happiness
    Harmony
    Health
    Heart
    Help
    Home
    Honesty
    Hope
    Horizon
    Hug
    Imagination
    Independent
    Innocence
    Inside
    Intuition
    Jump
    Kindness
    Laughter
    Leadership
    Learn
    Legend
    Letters
    Light
    Listening
    Locket
    Loneliness
    Lost
    Love
    Machine
    Metamorphosis
    Mind
    Miracle
    Missing
    Mistake
    Motivation
    Mountain
    Move
    Muse
    Music
    Mystery
    New
    Nowhere
    Open
    Outside
    Parade
    Path
    Patience
    Pause
    Peace
    Possibilities
    Power
    Prescription
    Project
    Promise
    Proud
    Rainbow
    Recovery
    Rejuvenate
    Relax
    Rhythm
    Safety
    Secret
    Seek
    Self
    Shine
    Silence
    Simple
    Skip
    Sleep
    Smart
    Smile
    Soar
    Soul
    Space
    Spiral
    Stand
    Stars
    Strength
    Stress
    Success
    Sweet
    Talk
    Tear
    Thankful
    Time
    Today
    Top 5 Tips
    Top 5 Tips: First Year At College
    Top 5 Tips: Personality Tests
    Tranquility
    Unique
    Useful
    Vacation-time
    Vibrancy
    Victory
    Vintage
    Vision
    Wandering
    Wings
    Wisdom
    Work
    Yes

This website is designed for students, faculty, and staff to share ideas. Ice Breakers, Programs, Bulletin Boards, Door Decorations and so much more!

Contact Us:

Picture
Luminstruct does not claim to have created nor own the pictures, ideas, or other content available on this site. Luminstruct's primary purpose is to create a community where individuals can share ideas to benefit others. All material has been obtained from social media outlets, websites, and contributions from viewers like you.

-Luminstruct Staff