The Phantom of the Opera

Summary

The narrator, presenting himself as a researcher, announces that the Opera ghost really existed and that he has proved it from archives, the memories of old employees and the papers of a mysterious Persian. In the 1880s the ballet girls of the Paris Opera whisper about a ghost in evening dress with a death's head; the scene-shifter Joseph Buquet, who claims to have seen him, is found hanged in the third cellar. At the farewell gala for the retiring managers Debienne and Poligny, the little-known Swedish singer Christine Daaé replaces the star Carlotta and triumphs. In the audience the young Viscount Raoul de Chagny, younger brother of Count Philippe, recognizes her as the childhood friend whose scarf he once rescued from the sea in Brittany, and outside her dressing-room he hears a man's voice telling her she must love him. The new managers, Richard and Moncharmin, laugh at the ghost's demands for Box Five and a monthly salary of twenty thousand francs, until the box-keeper Mme. Giry tells of his voice, Carlotta croaks like a toad in the middle of Faust, and the great chandelier crashes into the stalls, killing a woman. Christine has been taught by a voice she believes is the Angel of Music her dying father promised to send her. At her father's grave at Perros-Guirec, Raoul hears an unseen violin and is struck down by a figure with a death's head; at the masked ball he sees the same figure dressed as the Red Death. On the roof of the Opera, beneath the statue of Apollo's lyre, Christine tells Raoul the truth: the voice led her through her mirror to a house on an underground lake, where he revealed himself as Erik, a musician of genius hidden behind a mask; when she tore it off, she saw a face like a corpse's. Raoul plans to take her away after her last performance, but Erik overhears them. During Faust Christine vanishes from the stage in darkness. Raoul, guided by the Persian, a former police chief who knew Erik at the court of Persia, descends through the cellars and is trapped in Erik's torture chamber of mirrors and heat. Erik gives Christine a choice of two bronze figures, the scorpion meaning marriage and the grasshopper meaning that the Opera, mined with gunpowder, will be blown up. She turns the scorpion; the cellar floods instead, and the prisoners nearly drown. Moved when Christine lets him kiss her forehead and weeps with him, Erik releases her and Raoul, asking only that she return his ring and bury him. Three weeks later a newspaper announces that Erik is dead. In the epilogue the narrator traces Erik's origins near Rouen, his years as a fairground living corpse and an architect in Persia, and identifies his skeleton by the gold ring. Le Fantôme de l'Opéra was serialized in Le Gaulois in 1909-10 and published as a book in 1910; Alexander Teixeira de Mattos's English translation appeared in 1911.

Plot or Argument

• Prologue and Chapters I-III: The ghost and the gala

  The narrator's claim; the frightened ballet girls; Buquet's death; Christine's triumph at the farewell gala; Raoul at the dressing-room door; the new managers inherit the ghost's conditions.

• Chapters IV-VI: Box Five and Perros-Guirec

  The managers mock the ghost; Mme. Giry's stories; Raoul follows Christine to Brittany, hears of Daddy Daaé, Little Lotte and the Angel of Music, and is attacked at the grave after the enchanted violin plays.

• Chapters VII-X: Faust, the brougham and the masked ball

  Carlotta's croak and the fall of the chandelier; Christine's disappearance and return; a glimpse of her in a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne; the Red Death at the masked ball; Christine begs Raoul to forget the voice.

• Chapters XI-XII: Above the trap-doors and Apollo's lyre

  On the roof Christine tells of the passage through the mirror, the lake, the house below, Erik's music and the unmasking; she and Raoul plan to flee, and a shadow on the lyre listens.

• Chapters XIII-XVII: The abduction and the managers' comedy

  Christine vanishes from the stage; Richard and Moncharmin pursue the missing twenty thousand francs with safety-pins and suspicion; Mme. Giry reveals what she knows.

• Chapters XVIII-XX: The Persian and the cellars

  Count Philippe pursues his brother; the Persian leads Raoul down through the cellars, pistols ready, hands raised against the Punjab lasso.

• Chapters XXI-XXV: The Persian's narrative

  Erik's past in Mazenderan; the torture chamber of mirrors and its burning forest; Christine's choice between scorpion and grasshopper; the barrels of gunpowder and the rising water.

• Chapter XXVI and Epilogue: The end of the ghost's love story

  Erik visits the Persian to tell how Christine's kiss and tears moved him to free the lovers; his death announced; the narrator traces his life and finds his skeleton with the gold ring.

Characters

• Erik, the Opera ghost

  A deformed genius of music, architecture and illusion who lives beneath the Opera and loves Christine.

• Christine Daaé, heroine

  A young Swedish soprano, the daughter of a country fiddler, who believes Erik is the Angel of Music.

• Raoul, Viscount de Chagny, Christine's suitor

  A brave, impetuous young naval officer who loved Christine as a boy.

• The Persian (the daroga), guide and witness

  A former chief of police from Mazenderan who knew Erik in Persia and watches him in Paris.

• Count Philippe de Chagny, Raoul's elder brother

  A worldly patron of the Opera who disapproves of Raoul's attachment.

• Richard and Moncharmin, managers

  The new directors of the Opera, sceptical of the ghost until it costs them money and dignity.

• Mme. Giry, box-keeper

  The keeper of Box Five, who serves the ghost and hears his voice.

• La Carlotta, prima donna

  The Spanish star soprano whom Erik humiliates to clear the stage for Christine.

• Joseph Buquet, scene-shifter

  A stagehand who describes the ghost's face and is found hanged.

Lessons

• The angel and the voice

  Christine's father told her that every great artist is visited by the Angel of Music. Erik uses that childlike faith to make himself her teacher and master. The novel shows how a gift and a hope can be turned into a means of control, and how hard it is for Christine to separate the beauty of the music from the man who sings it.

  • Why does Christine believe the voice is the Angel of Music?
  • What does Erik give Christine, and what does he take from her?
  • When does Christine first understand who the voice really is?

• Mask and face

  Erik's mask hides a face like a skull, and when Christine tears it away he cries that she can never leave him now. Leroux makes Erik both frightening and pitiable: rejected by his own parents, shown at fairs as a living corpse, he wants nothing more than an ordinary life. Leroux sets his loneliness side by side with the deaths and terror he causes, and leaves the reader to weigh the two.

  • Why is Erik so angry when Christine removes his mask?
  • What does Erik's wish to take a wife out on Sundays tell us about him?
  • Does knowing Erik's past change how you judge Buquet's death or the fall of the chandelier?

• Compassion that changes a heart

  Erik is finally moved not by force or threats but by Christine's free kindness: she lets him kiss her forehead and weeps with him. In the last chapter Erik tells the Persian that no one, not even his mother, had ever let him do this. The climax turns from mechanical traps to a single act of pity.

  • Why does Christine's kiss mean so much to Erik?
  • Why does Erik let Christine and Raoul go?
  • Is Christine's promise to bury Erik with the ring an act of love, pity, or duty?

• Courage in the dark

  Raoul is rash and often foolish, but he descends into the cellars knowing he may not come back, and the Persian, who could stay safe, goes with him. Their friendship under the Opera gives the novel its adventure-story courage.

  • Why does the Persian help Raoul?
  • How do Raoul's mistakes put Christine in greater danger?
  • What kind of courage does Christine show when she turns the scorpion?

Context

The Palais Garnier, designed by Charles Garnier and opened in 1875, was the grandest theatre of Second Empire and Third Republic Paris, with a great staircase, a vast auditorium chandelier, layers of cellars and a water reservoir built beneath the foundations because of the high water table. Construction was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris and the Commune of 1871, events the novel uses to explain how Erik could build his hidden house. Leroux mixes real features of the building with legends told by its staff.

Composition

Leroux, already known for the Rouletabille detective novels, published Le Fantôme de l'Opéra as a serial in the Paris daily Le Gaulois from September 1909 to January 1910; Pierre Lafitte issued it as a book in 1910. The framing device of the researcher who has consulted documents and the Persian's manuscript borrows from the newspaper investigations Leroux knew as a reporter. A counterweight of the real chandelier fell in 1896, killing a woman, an incident often cited as one of his sources. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos's English translation was published in 1911.

Reception

The novel sold modestly in France at first. Its fame grew through adaptation: the 1925 American silent film with Lon Chaney, whose unmasking scene became famous, later films and, above all, Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical of 1986, one of the longest-running productions in theatre history. Erik has become one of the best-known figures of Gothic fiction, and the book is now widely read in schools and in many translations.

Comparisons

• the-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde

  Stevenson's and Leroux's tales both hide a monstrous figure inside a respectable city, Hyde in the London streets and Erik in the cellars of the Opera, and both are pieced together from witnesses' papers.

• frankenstein

  Like Shelley's creature, Erik is rejected for his appearance, learns brilliantly in solitude, and turns his longing for love into violence, though Erik is finally moved to release the woman he loves.

• dracula

  Both novels build Gothic terror from documents, a mysterious foreign expert (Van Helsing, the Persian) and a young man who must descend into the monster's dwelling to rescue the woman he loves.

• the-count-of-monte-cristo

  Dumas's Edmond Dantès and Leroux's Erik both live in hidden places, wield secret knowledge and wealth, and play the role of an invisible providence over Paris society, one for justice and the other for love.

• the-woman-in-white

  Collins's sensation novel also tells its story through testimonies and turns on a young woman controlled by a powerful older man with a gift for manipulation.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How the narrator claims to prove the ghost was real, in the Prologue and the Epilogue.
• Every time the Angel of Music is mentioned, from Daddy Daaé's tales to Christine's lessons.
• The managers' comic battle over Box Five and the twenty thousand francs, and how it contrasts with the dark scenes.
• Erik's mask, and the two moments when it is taken off or described.
• The gold ring: who gives it, who wears it, and where it is found.

Key terms and names

Box Five

The opera box that the ghost demands be kept empty for him; Mme. Giry serves him there.

Angel of Music

The spirit Daddy Daaé said visits every great artist; Christine believes Erik's voice is this angel.

Daroga

A Persian word for a chief of police; Erik's name for the Persian.

Punjab lasso

The silk cord Erik uses to strangle his victims; the Persian tells Raoul to keep his hand raised to guard against it.

Don Juan Triumphant

The opera Erik has been composing for twenty years and finishes while holding Christine captive.

Perros-Guirec

The Breton seaside town where Christine and Raoul met as children and where her father is buried.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the ghost demand from the new managers, and what happens when they refuse?
2. Comprehension Where does Erik live, and how does Christine first get there?
3. Comprehension What are the scorpion and the grasshopper, and which one does Christine choose?
4. Interpretation Why does Erik pretend to be the Angel of Music instead of simply introducing himself to Christine?
5. Interpretation Why does Leroux tell part of the story through the Persian's written account?
6. Interpretation Why is Christine's kiss on Erik's forehead stronger than all his traps and threats?
7. Big Question Can a person who has been cruelly rejected still be held responsible for doing wrong?
8. Big Question Is it possible to love someone you fear, or to pity someone without loving them?

Faith Connections

• 1 Samuel 16:7 (Scripture)

  The Lord looks not on the outward appearance but on the heart. Erik is judged by his face from birth, yet the novel also shows that his heart has grown twisted; Christine's pity sees past both.

• 2 Corinthians 11:14 (Scripture)

  Paul warns that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Erik's disguise as the Angel of Music shows how something beautiful can be used to deceive.

• Romans 12:20-21 (Scripture)

  Paul urges overcoming evil with good. Christine, a prisoner, conquers Erik not by force but by a kiss and tears of compassion.

• Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) (Great Conversation)

  Hugo's Quasimodo, the deformed bell-ringer who loves Esmeralda from the towers of the cathedral, is the great French ancestor of Erik, hidden in another of Paris's monuments.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Erik has genius but no love, and he tries to win Christine by deception, fear and force. These means only make her more afraid of him. When she freely shows him compassion, he discovers the love he wanted and gives up his claim. Therefore the novel suggests that love cannot be compelled, and that mercy can do what threats cannot.

Rhetorical device: pseudo-documentary frame. The Prologue's opening sentence, quoted above, and the Epilogue's identification of the skeleton by the gold ring present the novel as a researched true history, making the ghost seem real.

Debate: Resolved: that Erik deserves more pity than blame.

Memory Work

The Opera ghost really existed.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Christine is caught between Raoul and Erik. Argue what each man offers her and why she chooses as she does.

Comparison with Frankenstein: Erik and Frankenstein's creature are both rejected for their appearance. Compare how each responds to rejection and what finally happens to each.

Medical Lens

Erik's congenital disfigurement, described by Buquet and Christine as a face without a nose and with skin like yellow parchment, is central to the novel, which traces how his parents' horror, his exhibition at fairs as a living corpse and his concealment shaped his life; Leroux gives no medical explanation, and attempts to name a condition are speculative. His fixation on Christine is drawn in the language of romantic passion and genius rather than of psychiatry, though the narrator and the Persian speak of him as a monster of madness and pride. Christine's trances, pallor and fits of terror while under the voice's influence are described in the period's vocabulary of nervous strain. Erik's own death is attributed by him to love, a literary rather than clinical cause.

• Chapter I

  Buquet's description of the ghost's skeletal face and the discovery of Buquet hanged in the cellar.

  Disability Deformity Death Dying
• Chapter XII

  Christine's account of unmasking Erik and his despairing reaction.

  Disability Deformity
• Epilogue

  Erik's childhood rejection by his parents and exhibition at fairs as a living corpse.

  Disability Deformity

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write Mme. Giry's own account of the night the chandelier fell, as if she were one of the narrator's witnesses.

• Essay

  Is Erik a villain, a victim, or both? Use the unmasking in Chapter XII and the kiss in Chapter XXVI to argue your case.

• Adaptation

  Compare the scene in which Christine chooses between the scorpion and the grasshopper with a stage or film adaptation, and explain what the adaptation changes.

• Classroom

  Draw a cross-section of the Opera from the roof to the lake, marking where each major scene takes place, using details from the text.

Further Reading

• The Mystery of the Yellow Room, Gaston Leroux

  Leroux's locked-room detective novel of 1907.

• The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe

  The tale Erik's costume at the masked ball recalls.

• Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  The source of Gounod's opera, performed at key moments in the novel.

• The Annotated Phantom of the Opera, Leonard Wolf