Summary of The Phantom of the Opera!
 | One night in the Opera House, Annie Sorelli bursts into the dancers’ room. She had just seen the Opera ghost or the phantom. All the dancers talk excitedly about the ghost. |
 | Meg Giry warn them not to talk about the ghost. Then, her mother Madame Giry informs them of Joseph Buquet’s death. |
 | The new directors of the Opera House, Messieurs Armand and Firmin, do not believe that the phantom is real and decide to ignore his letter. Christine Daaè to sing Margaritá in Faust since La Carlotta is ill. |
 | On Tuesday night, Paris like Christine’s singing. Raoul goes to meet her in her dressing-room, but she denies knowing him. Raoul goes out, but hears a man’s voice in her room. When she leaves, however, there is no one in the room. |
 | The next day, the directors receive a second letter from the phantom demanding Box 5, 20 000 francs and that Christine sing Margarita again. Madame Giry warns them about the phantom but they refuse to listen. |
 | On the same day, Raoul receives a letter from Christine and they meet in the Tuileries Garden. She explain everything to him and says that the voice in her dressing-room was her angel of music. |
 | On Friday morning, La Carlotta receives a letter ordering her to stay at home, but she ignores the threats. Back in the Opera House, the directors sit in Box 5 and find flowers in it. |
 | Faust is being shown and la Charlotta is to sing Margarita. When she starts singing, her voice sounds like a toad. The directors hear a voice say that the chandelier will fall and it does, killing a women and injuring many people. |
 | Raoul and Christine see each other everyday for a week but she suddenly disappears. She asks him to meet her on the tenth floor of the Opera House, where she tells him everything that had happened to her and about the ghost. |
 | Eric took her to his house on a lake near the Opera House where he confessed his love for her and told her his real name. |
 | Eric, the Opera Ghost, revealed himself to her. He has the face of a dead man. He has no nose, two black holes for eyes and a yellow face. Christine tells Raoul that Eric threatened to kill Raoul is she does not marry him. |
 | Raoul then plans to run away with Christine on Saturday night. |
 | Suddenly, they hear a strange voice. Then, a Persian man appears and tells them to use the front stairs out of the building. |
 | On Saturday night, Christine sings Margarita again. Suddenly, the lights go out and when it comes on, Christine has disappeared. After that, Raoul and the Persian disappear. |
 | The Persian leads Raoul into a secret passage to find Christine. They accidentally enter a torture room full of mirrors and are trapped. Eric and Christine can see them dying in the room. He threatens to kill them if she does not be his wife. |
 | Christine agrees to marry hi and kisses him. Eric is so touch; he releases the three of them. After that, Christine and Raoul disappear from Paris and Eric is found dead by the Persian. Source: |
Themes (The Phantom of the Opera)
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This is the best themes of literature in 'The Phantom of the Opera'.
Appearance and Reality
The fact that The Phantom of the Opera takes place behind the scenes of the opera almost automatically draws readers' attention to the disparity between reality and appearances. Leroux gives backstage details, starting with the dancers who line up in the first chapter, gossiping, and continuing on to point out the backdrops and the business arrangements that few opera goers are allowed to see. Un-like most backstage stories, though, this novel also goes into details about the Paris opera house that few of the average workers would be aware of, such as the complicated system of tunnels underneath the building, with furnaces and prisons and hoards of rats and even a lake. Some of these details might be exaggerated from reality, but they are plausible as the reality of the novel. They clearly indicate that, as much as the sets and costumes create a false world on the stage, the opera house that visitors enter only reveals part of the story regarding what it takes to put on a grand spectacle.
The phantom himself is also used as a symbol to represent the ways that reality and appearance differ. The most obvious example of this is, of course, the mask that he wears. When he is wearing his mask, Christine can believe that he is a poor, misunderstood man who has just not been given the attention he deserves. When he represents himself to her as the Spirit of Music, she responds to his musical gift and really does see him as angelic. Once she sees Erik without his mask, however, she is so horrified that she can never think fondly of him again.
In addition to the phantom's looks, however, his whole existence is one big charade. He is greatly gifted, but his talents are in making voices seem to appear where no one is actually talking; in coming and going without being seen; in overhearing conversations that seem to be private; and in making people think that they see things that are impossible, as in when his torture chamber turns out to be a hall of illusions. He is known as a phantom for a reason: no one is ever really sure that he exists.
Innocence
The phantom's anger with the society that has rejected him is balanced in this novel with the simple innocence of the love between Christine Daaé and Raoul de Chagny. Christine's life story is surrounded by the sort of heartwarming and fantastic details that are common in fairy tales. Her father, for instance, is a kindly old soul and an incredibly talented musician. He fills her childhood with the sweet view of the world that is found in folk stories. Before he dies, he tells Christine that she will be watched over by the Spirit of Music, which at first serves to give her comfort but later, as is common with innocence carried into adulthood, causes her to fall victim to Erik, who uses his talent for ventriloquism to make her loyal to him. Mme. Valerius is another example of the innocence that surrounds Christine's life. She never questions that the younger woman is doing the right thing even when others doubt her, supplying a level of sweetness and naiveté that reflects on Christine's under-standing of the world.
The romance between Christine and Raoul is particularly untouched by the harsher elements of reality. From their first meeting as children, when Raoul puts his life at risk in service to her as he swims out into the ocean to retrieve her scarf, to their chance meeting years later at the opera house when they recognize each other, they are true to each other. A few times, Raoul questions Christine about her purity, but he always accepts her word that such questions are misguided. Readers believe so firmly in the couple's innocence that, when the narrator has bystanders remark that it is scandalous for them to go into her dressing room together and close the door, it is the bystanders who seem ignorant of the reality of true love.
Horror
This book uses several standard horror elements to make the phantom threatening and mysterious. The most obvious of these is the opera house itself, with its high, shadowy ceilings and miles of tunnels beneath. When Raoul and Christine go up to the roof, they are among the swooping gables and heavy statuary that set the ominous mood in other works, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In its cellars readers are introduced to fantastic sights that are hard to believe: legions of forgotten workers who never see the light of day or swarms of rats that are at the command of the Rat Catcher.
The most distinct horror device is Erik's face. Though he is described as having a skin disease, its manifestation gives him the exact semblance of a skull, so that even as a young man he was able to travel to county fairs and bill himself as the living dead man. His eyes, too, are described as glowing in the dark, like a cat's. These details might be unlikely in the real world, but they are not at all out of place in a horror story.
The Phantom of the Opera
Have you watched the movie? I am sure you have read the novel. 'The Phantom of the Opera' novel was written by Gaston Leroux. He was born in France in 1868. According to his family, each time he completed a novel he would fire his pistol into the thin air. The Phantom of the Opera is considered his best work by many. This story has been adapted for both stage and screen many times. The most famous adaption is probably Andrew Lloyd Webber's. Gaston Leroux died in 1927.