Analysis
The Phantom of the Opera is a melodrama in the great French tradition, full of theatrical flourishes; it seems to have been written with the cinema in mind, although it was not until 1913 that any of Leroux’s works reached the screen. Oddly enough, although a dozen of Leroux’s novels were filmed in France during his lifetime, it was left to Hollywood to produce a version of The Phantom of the Opera in 1925, with Lon Chaney in the lead.
Making the most of the scenes where the phantom appears as the Red Death and the scene where Christine first snatches away the mask, the silent film became a classic. It was remade several times, most effectively in 1943, with Claude Rains in the lead. These film versions gave the phantom a more powerful motive than Leroux had, transforming him into an ambiguously tragic figure. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway musical, first staged in 1987, followed suit and provided quasi-operatic music to match.
The film and stage versions deemphasize the subplot in which Firmin and Moncharmin try to thwart the Ghost, although they do exploit its comic aspects for the sake of light relief. In the book, the Ghost’s ability to make things disappear (including himself) is so frequently invoked as to become tedious, and few readers can be surprised by the eventual revelation that it was all done with mirrors and trapdoors. Leroux had built his career on the presentation of seemingly impossible events that he then explained rationally; his greatest success was the pioneering “locked room” murder mystery Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (1904; The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1908). He seems to have regarded narrative moves of this kind as his chief stock-in-trade and never bothered overmuch if they became frankly preposterous, as the “torture chamber” scenes of The Phantom of the Opera unfortunately do. The book makes no pretense, however, to be anything other than pure entertainment. The fact that the implausibilities strain the credulity of the reader far more than any frankly supernatural tale could have done may well be attributable to the fact that Leroux was making up the serial version as he went along, under the pressure of a daily deadline, but it is by no means inappropriate to the kind of story that resulted.
Beneath its flamboyant surface, The Phantom of the Opera does have one serious element. The plot turns on the observation that a man might have great talent in his chosen profession and sing like an angel and yet be an abhorred outcast from society simply by virtue of his looks. It observes, too, that a man regarded as a monster has little alternative but to become one—but that no extreme of monstrousness can contrive to redeem his situation. Unlike those who rewrote the story, Leroux does not compromise in the matter of Erik’s monstrousness, but that approach makes the tragedy all the more brutal. It is not only the happy ending vouchsafed to Raoul and Christine that is withheld from Erik; he cannot even make his fatal exit with dignity.
Get Ahead with eNotes
Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.
Already a member? Log in here.