Throughout the novel, various characters shed one identity and assume another. Edmond assumes multiple identities: the Count of Monte Cristo, Abbé Busoni, Lord Wilmore, and the unseen Sinbad the Sailor. Fernand, Benedetto, Albert, Eugénie, and Caderousse also change their names and assume aliases.

The ease and frequency with which characters reinvent themselves imply these shifts are not just a practical device to move the plot along but an exploration of the nature of identity. People are, essentially, who they say they are, a situation Monte Cristo readily takes advantage of (as do others). Within the novel, identity seems acquired, rather than innate, a function of the titles and roles people are assigned or that they assign themselves. Rather than fixed, identity is presented as malleable and not inherent to societal standards, as characters switch between social status and gender norms. At the end of the novel, Edmond sails away from his identity as Monte Cristo in order to reinvent himself yet again.

The novel often frames this process of reinvention in terms of death and resurrection. A series of characters undergoing death-like experiences and then returning to life establishes the pattern: These include the newborn Benedetto, dug up by Bertuccio after being buried alive, Villefort, whom Bertuccio believes he has killed and who narrowly survives, Noirtier, whose stroke has given him the appearance of a “frozen corpse” while he retains his intelligence and will, Valentine, for whom a funeral is actually held after Monte Cristo drugs her in order to rescue her from her stepmother, and Maximilien, who swallows what he believes to be a fatal poison before being reunited with Valentine. 

These literal brushes with death contextualize the symbolic death Edmon Dantès undergoes when he is imprisoned in the Chateau d’If and his ultimate “resurrection” as the Count of Monte Cristo. Besides highlighting the fantastical—near miraculous—quality of his return to society, these comparisons speak to the ambivalence that surrounds reinvention. As a “man who [has] come back from the next world” (149), Monte Cristo is depicted sometimes as a frightening revenant and sometimes as a Christ-like figure. To the objects of his vengeance, he is a kind of ghost, and more than one character notes the extreme coldness of his hands. Others, such as the members of the Morrel family, see him as a savior and protector. In a society with strict (if shifting) hierarchies of class, gender, ethnicity, etc., the ability to shed one’s old identity and take on a new one is both powerful and threatening.