A Reaction Paper

“The Phantom of the Opera”

Gemuel Santos

The Phantom of the Opera is the musical story of a disfigured, angry man who lives
beneath a Paris opera house and terrorizes its cast and crew so that his student, a young woman
named Christine, can have a chance to sing the lead part. The Phantom gets his way, but the
acclaim that Christine receives from her singing brings the attention of Raoul, a rich young
nobleman and a childhood sweetheart of Christine. Their budding relationship pains the
Phantom, who himself is in love with Christine.

There are many themes Gaston Leroux, the author of the said novel, showed. To mention a
few, he showed the readers many emotions, particularly anger and how it drives a person. Leroux
also showed how very important a family is. Christine has a very dear relationship with her
father, and when her father talked about the angel of music she unhesitatingly believed it, which
Erik, the Phantom used to his own advantage to control Christine and manipulate her. While, on
the other hand, Erik ran away from his family at a very young age, because his family could not
bear his ugliness, because of that, he chose to live a life as a drifter.

Watching and reading this story brought me lots of realization and somehow strengthened
some of my psychological views. I have heard of this opera before but it never piqued my
interest. I’ve watched a few theatrical plays like Les Miserables, The Waitress, and Miss Saigon
but not an opera.

I would like to highlight a scene. The scene where Raoul and Christine went on the rooftop
and he proposed his love towards Christine and they kissed dearly, without knowing Erik was
there, watching their love story happen. I find it very brutal on Erik’s part. Just how cruel fate is.
He just wanted to be loved for Pete's sake! His life was full of misery, why is that? And then the
scene, where he took the rose on the floor that he gave Christine. It was heartbreaking for me. He
just loved Christine, was that wrong? Because of that, anger took over and revenge, drove him
and he became the monster, people thought of him.

In the film as well as in the novel, Erik kidnapped Christine and told her his name and
expressed how he feels towards Christine, and then out of curiosity, she took off his mask and
his ugliness shocked her. He decided to keep Christine a prisoner for the rest of her life, but then
he allowed her to leave after she promised to wear his ring and remain faithful to him. Christine
later told Raoul that she was kidnapped. Raoul promised to run away with her, both unaware that
Erik has been listening to their conversation. During the production of Faust, Erik kidnapped
Christine again and gave her an ultimatum: marry him or he will blow up the entire opera house.
Christine refused, but then she found out that Erik has kidnapped Raoul as well as the Persian,
Erik's old acquaintance, and had trapped them inside a torture chamber. In order to save them, as
well as the occupants of the opera house, Christine agreed to marry Erik.

Love and despair. These two battled inside Erik and eventually despair won. Erik used a
mask to cover his ugliness all his life. Some say it’s not really his appearance that scares the
people, it is his violent and murderous behavior that makes the people around him shiver in
disgust. However in my point of view, after studying different theories of personality, I can’t
accept that point and I don’t beg to differ why is that. I just have one question for you, and come
to think of it carefully. “What makes a man, the person he is today?” I will just leave it like that,
untouched and unanswered, it is for you to make the judgment and solve the mystery of the
Phantom.