"The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas.

Hope is a wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment. After being thrown in jail, Edmund Dantes keeps his hope corked in a bottle for as long as he could keep it bottled up. However, after waiting for years in a dark dungeon having no social interaction with other humans, he slowly lets his hand fall from the bottle. Dantes finally lets go and all his hope vanishes into the air that …

…in and suffering back to those who handed it to him unfairly. Dantes had every right to a full and prosperous life - he was going to have a beautiful wife, he was going to be captain of his own ship, and all this at a young age. After finishing up with getting his revenge, Dantes was last seen sailing on the calm ocean towards the big, red sunset that was just over the horizon.