The Red and the Black

“But then who am I going to have my meals with?”

Sorel may have a keener mind than M. de Rênal, but Julien possesses a keener mind than his father. While Sorel has negotiated good terms for his son’s employ, Julien knows that his father will not tolerate him being treated like a servant. The real victory, both Sorels eventually agree, is not so much the wage but the increased social standing of dining with the de Rênal family.

“At that moment M. de Rênal began to throw stones to drive off a peasant girl who had taken a wrong path and was crossing the corner of the orchard.”

Rather than speak to the girl as though she were a human, M. de Rênal throws rocks to remove her from a path as though she were an animal. The narrator does not linger on the moment, nor do any other characters think this strange, suggesting that this casual violence against peasants is commonplace. Julien’s rage against the unfair social order is thus justified, but rather than seeking to build a more equitable world, he seeks only to elevate himself.

“I’d end up being twenty-eight; but at that age Bonaparte had his greatest achievements behind him.”

Julien’s reverence for Napoleon means that he compares his life to that of his hero. Rather than accepting a well-paid position with his friend, he decides that he cannot sacrifice the time in which Napoleon proved himself. These years are vital if Julien is to achieve his ambition, showing how social mobility and pride are more important to him than money.

“Since Julien obstinately persisted in playing Don Juan despite never having had a single mistress in his life, he was unutterably foolish all day.”

Julien is a proud man and considers himself an intellectual, but he is as naïve and as inexperienced as Mme. de Rênal. He learns about love and seduction from novels and poems, basing his actions on Byron’s titular character Don Juan rather than any sincere emotion. Since he does not know love, Julien must perform love as he understands it from works of fiction, and he views romance primarily as a vehicle for social climbing, illustrating The Tension Between Authenticity and Ambition.

“For there were days when she had the illusion of loving him like her own child.”

The naivety of Mme. de Rênal is shown in the clumsy ways she tries to express her love. Her romance with Julien is so different from her marriage to her husband that she lacks the emotional toolkit to understand her own feelings. When trying to understand her love for Julien, for example, she thinks about loving him as though he were her child. Since her children are her only source of genuine, sincere love, she tries to understand her romantic love through their familial affection. This remains  an illusion, but one which she pursues because it offers the hope of something beyond her dull marriage.

“Am I to put up with her mocking me with her lover as if I were a nobody, or a vagabond?”

Having received the anonymous letter accusing his wife of an affair, M. de Rênal is primarily concerned with his public appearance. He does not truly love his wife, so he cannot truly feel betrayed, but he resents the possibility that the scandal might make him the subject of others’ mockery. He is more hurt by the threat to his reputation than the threat to his marriage.

“Every day, thinking he’s being civil, he pays me exaggerated compliments in poor taste which he learns by heart from some novel.”

M. de Rênal may be obtuse and pompous, but he offers a stinging and accurate critique of Julien’s character. Julien deplores hypocrisy in others, yet he does not recognize his own hypocrisy. He repeats words and phrases from novels, claiming them as his own, to perform the role of an intellectual. In a similar fashion, he memorizes the Bible without actually believing in religion. M. de Rênal diagnoses the hypocrisy and performative nature of Julien’s character that not even Julien is prepared to acknowledge.

“It occurred to Julien, who was already in a hostile frame of mind, that on the other side of the dining-room wall were wretched prisoners whose portion of meat had perhaps been fraudulently skimped to pay for all this luxury in poor taste.”

Julien is aware of social class as it pertains to himself and as it hampers his ambitions. Though he is hardly an activist or an egalitarian, his thoughts show perhaps the most empathetic response to the plight of the peasants in the novel. His moment of empathy adds depth to his heroic character, showing his capacity to think of others (even if he thinks mostly of himself).

“Under Napoleon I’d have been a sergeant; among these future parish priests, I shall be a vicar-general.”

Julien equates the military with the clergy, showing the tension between authenticity and ambition. He plans to use the clergy (the titular Black) as a vehicle for social mobility, as so many people used the army (the titular Red) during the reign of Napoleon. In metaphorical terms, Julien sees himself as waging a military campaign of social conquest, like Napoleon in miniature.

“Julien was so captivated that it did not occur to him to be jealous and to hate him for being richer and nobler than he was.”

Amid the grandeur of Paris, Julien’s politics and class resentment are in danger of being overwhelmed. He is treated respectfully by Norbert (at least at first) and this show of affection is enough for Julien to put aside his class resentment. Rather than being fundamentally a part of Julien, these resentments are something he must remind himself of; Paris and the aristocracy are primed to drown his resentment in splendor and pleasantries.

“Very early the next morning, Julien was writing out fair copies of letters in the library when Mlle. Mathilde came in by a little communicating door very cleverly hidden with book spines.”

The paucity of Julien’s understanding of the aristocracy is made physical by the appearance of Mathilde from a secret passage. There is so much that he does not know about the elite that something as familiar to Mathilde as etiquette or horse riding is, to Julien, as baffling and as hidden as the secret passageway. He is surprised, as he is surprised by so much. To Mathilde, however, the passageway is just another mundane part of life.

“Other provincials who come to Paris admire everything, thought the marquis; this fellow hates everything.”

While Julien’s manners mark him out as a provincial to the other aristocrats, the marquis spends enough time with Julien to see why he is different. Julien is the inverse of the typical provincial tendency to become overwhelmed with admiration; rather than delighting Julien, the splendor of Paris reinforces his loathing for the rigid class structure. Julien schemes not to topple this structure but to climb it, but his hatred suggests his awareness of Social Class as a Violent Struggle.

“His figure and appearance no longer bore any trace of the provincial; this was not the case with his conversation: it was noticeably still far too serious and assertive.”

As Julien ingratiates himself among the aristocracy, he can mimic the aesthetic hallmarks of the elite, but changing his speech and manners is more difficult. He is yet to learn the flippancy and ironic wit that are hallmarks of aristocratic style. From afar, he may look wealthy. Up close, however, he still retains the vestigial marks of his peasant background. Julien’s inability to let go of his seriousness is understandable: for him, this existence is a matter of life, death, and ambition; for the aristocrats, it is just another jape.

“He was a god.”

The prospect of a romance with Mathilde floods Julien’s ego. He does not necessarily love the young aristocratic woman, but he loves what her affection says about him. By writing to him, she has vindicated his ambition and his social mobility. She may not see him as an equal, but she sees him as worthy of her affection. Julien feels this so intently that he feels like “a god” (338), an ironic sentiment for a priest who does not believe in religion.

“So I’ve been on the verge of being killed by my lover!”

Mathilde falls out of love with Julien almost immediately. When she riles him, however, the sight of Julien wielding a sword is enough to rekindle her interest. Like Julien, she is not necessarily interested in Julien as a man, but as a romantic hero. The notion of being killed by her lover appeals to Mathilde’s love of romantic novels and stories. Like Julien, Mathilde thinks of Love as a Mirror of the Self, and her sudden swooning over a near-death experience reflects her desire to be a heroine in a tragic tale.

“Norbert would know how to get himself killed like his ancestors, but that’s a conscript’s privilege too.”

Debating whether he should take Julien along to his conspiratorial meeting, the marquis subtly reveals the way in which he now views Julien as a surrogate son. He never admits as much directly, but he makes an implicit comparison between Julien and his actual son, Norbert. The way in which the thought is structured makes them almost-equals in the marquis’s eyes, though they are equals with very different merits. This tacit admission of affection makes the marquis’s despair later in the novel all the more palpable.

“Julien decided that knowing how to get angry with a footman summed up all the wisdom of this important personage.”

The more time that Julien spends among the aristocracy, the more he studies them. He realizes that their own actions are not necessarily what defines them. Rather, it is their interactions with others that show their elevated status. The utter contempt with which they are able to treat footmen, for example, is a signifier of the aristocratic character. Julien can study this disposition, but he is too self-aware of his own lowly background to ever act in such a fashion. This self-awareness functions as a true boundary between social classes.

“It’s vital, he said to himself on returning home, that I keep a siege diary; otherwise I might forget my attacking moves.”

Earlier in the novel, Julien plotted his career in the clergy like he was Napoleon on the battlefield He has never abandoned this militaristic disposition and, as he plots the seduction of Mme. de Fervaques, he thinks of the seduction in terms of a siege. This cynical attitude toward seduction is perhaps the clearest demonstration of how Julien’s understanding of love is very rarely romantic.

“Vagueness was total. They said everything, yet said nothing.”

The love letters that Julien writes to Mme. de Fervaques contain almost no meaning. Julien is simply copying these letters in a workmanlike fashion, almost as he does for the marquis during the day. This rote replication of a romantic formula denudes the seduction of any actual romance, illustrating the tension between authenticity and ambition. At the same time, however, the efficacy of the letters suggests that any actual romantic content is neither expected nor needed. Like so much of society, romance is a hollowed out, cynical process of blank, meaningless imitation.

“It’s not your position in society that’s the obstacle, it’s unfortunately your character.”

Julien’s critique of Mathilde is, ironically, a reflection of his own flaws. As he discovered in the seminary, many people from similar backgrounds simply did not like his character. Similarly, Mathilde’s problems are not a consequence of her status but of her boredom and her romanticism. In effect, Julien’s lack of self-awareness is an example of dramatic irony, as the audience is aware of his own flaws, even as he points them out in others. The love between Julien and Mathilde is a mirror, reflecting their same flaws at one another.

“Could it really be possible, he wondered, that I might be the natural son of some great lord driven into exile in our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?”

Julien’s delusion peaks when he starts to believe his own lies about his ancestry. He is well-aware that the rumors that he is the illegitimate son of a nobleman are lies; the marquis has told him this directly, admitting that the lies are useful to keep Julien nearby. Julien’s capacity to believe these obvious lies, however, show that he has abandoned the pretense of class mobility. He is now entering a delusional stage where he no longer wants to fight the system of hereditary class privilege, but to enter himself into it at the very top.

“In that solemn moment, he was a believer.”

Throughout his adult life, Julien has been training to be a priest even though he does not believe in religion, illustrating the tension between authenticity and ambition. The lack of belief in his life is evident in his reaction to the news of Mme. de Rênal’s survival. For that “solemn moment” (473), and only for that moment, he is a believer. In the moments previous and the moments ahead, that belief is gone.

“Julien felt himself most unworthy of such devotion; he was in all honesty tired of heroism.”

As his death approaches, Julien is something of a changed man. He now sees himself as unworthy, though his reasoning is that he has grown tired of heroism. Even at his lowest moment, he still shows his arrogance. For him to believe that he is tired of heroism implies that, until this point, he viewed his actions as heroic. Julien credits himself as the hero, even as he preaches modesty.