The Prince of the Mist by Ruiz Zafón

The Prince of Mist is the first success of the well-known author Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is a work written in 1993 and that shows the reality of a family that tries to flee from the war and hides in a small town, but things will not go as they believed.

The play is set in the year 1943 in an unknown town on the shores of the Atlantic. In this lesson from a TEACHER we want to explain the synopsis of the book and give you a summary by chapters of The Prince of Mist.

Max and his family move to a small beach town fleeing the Second World War and all the problems of living in a big city. That town is full of mystery and immediately the protagonist will realize that they are happening strange events and even somewhat paranormal.

The people are still shocked by the death of one of the youth who lived there, Jacob, who was also the son of the former owners of the house where Max and his family now live. In the town there are many doubts to be resolved and they only begin to be clarified when a devilish character called the prince of mist

The play begins on summer 1943 and tells the stories that the protagonist, Max, lives. This is the summary by chapters from The Prince of Mist.

Chapter 1

Max he is a boy who lives with his parents and his two sisters. On the day of his 13th birthday, his parents inform him that the next morning they will leave for the town to leave the city behind and with it, the war. Max doesn't think it's good at all, but he can't resist, so the next day, after many hours on the train, they arrive at the small town near the Atlantic.

The first thing Max sees is the sea, which fascinates him and the smallness of this town, he even thinks it is made in miniature. His sister becomes fond of a cat and his parents allow her to keep it. At the train station is where Max sees his first strange event, it is a watch that works perfectly, but exactly the other way around.

Episode 2

On the way to his new house, Max's father explains that the former owners of the house They were a happy family with a son, but that one day this child drowned and misfortune came to his house. Years later the house was put up for sale and that is why they are buying it. At that very moment Max thought he saw a shadow on the beach. When they get home everyone starts cleaning.

Chapter 3

While sleeping, Max is the same shadow appears in dreams that he has seen in the sea, so he decides to stand up at dawn and go out to investigate that town. He finds strange figures and returns home with a couple of bicycles that he has found.

Chapter 4

Already in the morning, Max takes his bicycle and goes towards the town, when he passes by the lighthouse meet roland, a boy who explains his story to him and invites him to dive with him the next day and he accepts. Roland was raised by the lighthouse keeper because his parents died when he was little.

Chapter 5

When they get home, the family decides to look at some Video tapes of the previous tenants of the house. In them they meet Jacob and Max recognizes the strange figures that he had seen that same sunrise, but these were arranged differently.

Chapter 6

The next day, Roland comes looking for Max to go diving and his sister Alicia also signs up for the plan. Max realizes that they like each other so he lets them ride the same bike. They are going to dive to an area where there is a sunken ship which has a shipwreck story that Roland tells the two children.

Meanwhile, in the house, Max's other sister, Irina, hears voices coming from the closet and she tries to lock it even though she can't, she finally sees how the cat is inside her with someone she has the dark face but very bright smile. While trying to escape, Irina falls down the stairs and is knocked unconscious.

Chapter 7

When Max, Alicia and Roland return home, the ambulance is about to leave with their sister for the hospital, so they are scared and decide to go for a bath on the beach. Finally, the two children confess that they see that shadow with a big smile and that it scares them a lot.

Chapter 8

Irina is getting better at the hospital and Roland can't stop thinking about her. When the boy is at the lighthouse with the man who made him his grandfather, Víctor, he tells him about the shadow man with the smile and Víctor tells him that he is also there waiting for you to come back.

Chapter 9

Max and Alicia go to meet Victor and he tells them that formerly there was a kind of demon in the city that helped people in exchange for very evil favors. He was called the Prince of mist or Cain.

We will continue this summary of The Prince of Mist speaking, now, of the second part of the novel: the one that goes from chapter 10 to the final epilogue. Here you have a review of the most outstanding facts of this literary work.

Chapter 10

Victor explains to them that when they were young, his friend Richard (the former owner of Max's family house) liked a girl named Eva and that to get her he made a pact with Cain. In exchange for her loving him, he had to give him her first child. The couple married and had no children for many years until the shipwreck of the ship where Cain was supposed to be traveling occurred.

Believing that the Prince of Mist was dead, Richard decided to have a son, Jacob, but after a while this he drowned.

Chapter 11

That same night, after dinner, Max watches the movies of the old landlords and discovers that the shadow Man He had the same smile that his sister had seen, that the cat rested at her feet and that in her hand she had the clock that worked in reverse.

Chapter 12

Roland and Alicia are kissing on the beach so he decides to go visit Jacob's grave. When he arrives he begins to see strange things and the figures begin to move from their place. Quickly, the boy goes to tell everything to Victor who tells him to stop meddling in the subject and burn the tapes. It is there when Max discovers that Victor has something to do with this whole story.

Chapter 13

The next day they decide to go diving again and this time they find the shadow in the sea. This shadow drags Roland into the deep and he does not let go until he is unconscious and Max rescues him.

Chapter 14

Max goes home and decides to play the movie again, but this time all the images have changed and Roland appears in them. Suddenly there is a knock on the door and it's victor that he desperately asks Max to let him in.

Chapter 15

The lighthouse keeper tells Max that he actually he saved jacob just before he died and gave him a new life by inventing the name Roland, but the Prince of Mist kept coming for him. Meanwhile, Cain kidnaps Alicia and has her in the middle of the sea telling Roland that if he wants to save her, she surrenders by swimming out to sea.

Chapter 16

Just as Roland starts swimming to go rescue Alicia, Max hits the beach and goes after him. The three of them engage in a good fight with Cain.

Chapter 17

Finally, the Prince of Mist tells Roland that the only way to save Alice is to giving his life and he accepts. So when Cain lets go of Alicia, her lover begins to sink without her being able to help him in any way. This is how the Prince of Mist collected his debt to Jacob.

Chapter 18

The next day, Victor decides to leave town because his life there no longer makes sense, so he gives the keys to the lighthouse to Max, who becomes the next lighthouse keeper in town.

Epilogue

After a few years, when the war is about to end, the family has already structured itself again and they can live in peace, although Max goes every day to take care of the lighthouse and Alicia remembers Roland in his her hut. At the moment there is no trace of the Prince of Mist.

This is the summary by chapters of The Prince of Mist. If you found this lesson interesting and you want to continue learning about the topic or other similar topics, do not hesitate to consult our reading section.

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Zafón, C. R., & Gatagán, T. (2007). The Prince of Mist. Planet.

Ramos Nogueira, L. C. (2017). The translation of the phraseology in the work of Carlos Ruiz Zafón in the Spanish-Portuguese language pair.