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Review: The Red and the Black (Le Rouge et le Noir) by Stendhal (1830)
This was a pretty short book. I read it over the course of a few days, while I had down time at work (shh!!).
It was interesting, and is one of those books that I would've liked to study with a group because thera are definitely a lot of things I missed. I read it over here.
Spoilers.
Sorry for the lack of accents in this writeup. I was writing in notepad and not in MS Word so I didn't have access to the accent shortcuts ^^;;
Story
The gist of the story was simple. Julien came from a poor background but had studied Latin with the local priest. Thus, he was deemed suitable to serve as a tutor at the de Renal family. While working there, Julien and Mme. de Renal had a love affair.
The affair was made known, and Julien was sent to study at a seminary. He was doing well there, and was subsequently sent to be a secretary to the Marquis de la Mole.
At the de la Mole household, Julien had a love affair with Mathilde, the Marquis' daughter. She was originally engaged to a nobleman but had gotten pregnant by Julien. The Marquis' options were to kill Julien or to make him a noble (thus fit to be his daughter's husband).
All was going well for Julien until the Marquis received a letter from Verriere stating that Julien was an immoral man who had a habit of having affairs with his employers. Julien went to Verriere and shot Mme. de Renal as revenge for writing the letter, though it was later revealed that she was forced to do so by her confessor.
Mathilde had bribed as many people as possible to get Julien a not-guilty verdit, but he was still found guilty as one of the men holding the trial had a personal grudge against him.
Julien was sentenced to death. Mathilde and Mme. de Renal both visited him daily. Julien found himself falling back in love with Mme. de Renal. After being executed via guillotine, Mathilde buried Julien's head just as Queen Margot had done for her husband. Mme. de Renal died three days after Julien did.
I'm goign to leave most of the discussion to the characters and themes sections below.
Translation
The translation I read was the 2006 version by Burton Raffel. It was relatively easy to follow. I admit I did skim some passages, usually when there was a lot of small talk. So there are probably tons of nuances that I have missed.
What I really liked about this translation was that it included footnotes for historical references, as there were many throughout this book.
Characters
My write up for the character section and the themes section is going to be very amateur. In an ideal situation, I think I'd be studying this book as part of a literature class where I'd get more detailed takes on certain nuances on the book. But it's just me here, so I'm going to just try my best.
Julien Sorel
Julien Sorel was many things. He was an ambitious young man who learned that the people he despised had become the way that they were because of their circumstances. I did also think he was a bit arrogant and snobbish, and ended up being a hypocrite.
Julien started off the book with a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude. Remember, he was quite young when he started tutoring the de Renal children, and by the time he died, I believe he was only twenty years old. Julien idolized Napoleon and viewed life as a battle. When Julien first entered the world of aristocracy, I think he was super judgmental of how everybody around him was kind of fake and ingenuine. He himself was also a radical Liberal and did not agree with the aristocratic conservative view on politics.
Julien did not fall in love with Mme. de Renal immediately. Instead, he saw that she was a little attracted to him, and he saw it as a challenge. He treated Mme. de Renal's attraction as something to be conquered. He only fell in love with her later on. Though whether he truly loved her, or loved her aristocracy, I'm still not sure about.
Julien was later sent to the seminary after Elisa exposed his affair. Things were rocky at first, and his fellow students at the seminary would tease him. But over time, he built up a reputation and became well respected. I'm not quite sure why Julien decided to leave the seminary. He'd been inspired by a young bishop, and saw that he could achieve greatness through the clergy. As long as he kept with his studies, it was possible for him to gain power. So I wasn't sure why he decided to go to the de la Mole household to be a secretary.
The de la Mole family was higher class than the de Renal family. The mother especially came from a long line of powerful people. Perhaps Julien was always drawn to the aristocracy, and he only used the clergy as a means to go up the social ladder, which he did by ending up at the de la Mole family.
Again, the attraction between Julien and Mathilde was not immediate. Like Mme. de Renal, Julien noticed Mathilde's advances first, before he decided to return the feelings. However, with Mathilde, it was more of a game than it was with Mme. de Renal. There was a lot of drama, but that was partially due to the fact that Mathilde was seen as emotionally unstable. I'm not certain whether Julien got Mathilde pregnant on purpose, but it's clear that he gained a lot due to her obsession. Mathilde made it known to her father that she couldn't live without Julien so he ennobled Julien. He gave him money, he gave him land, and he gave him a title.
At that point, M. de la Mole and Mathilde stopped and realized that they didn't really know who Julien was. My interpration was that Julien was literally whatever they wanted him to be. He was a cameleon, willing to put on whatever performance he needed to win his battle. After all, winning battles was just a matter of faking appearances.
By the way, while at the de la Mole house, Julien had done a few errands for M. de la Mole relating to conservative politics circles. Right from the beginning, Julien had cemented himself as a radical Liberal, so he was here being a hypocrite for the sake of being in M. de la Mole's good graces. I also remember there being a scene in which Julien had met up with some radical Liberals, but actually didn't enjoy hanging out with them. Perhaps it was because he had the wrong impression of what radical Liberalism was like, or perhaps it was a sign of Julien becoming more and more conservative.
Mme. de Renal's letter took away everything that M. de la Mole gave to Julien. Julien had wanted to become aristocracy so badly and he got it, only to have it taken away from him immediately. So it made sense that at that moment, Julien was extremely angry at Mme. de Renal. After this ordeal, and finding out that Mme. de Renal had not died, Julien started to fall out of love with Mathilde and back in love with Mme. de Renal. He encouraged Mathilde to marry her betrothed (who'd later died), and to have their child watched over by Mme. de Renal, because he felt that Mme. de Renal would love his child, whereas Mathilde would've looked back on this love with embarrassment.
At his trial, Julien said that the society he was living in was not built for those of lower class. Basically he was bitter that someone like him could not fulfill his career aspirations. While his sentiments were true, he also had a part in his own downfall. I think he could've achieved power if he'd stayed with the clergy, rather than getting socially involved with aristocracy. Maybe his goal wasn't exactly to achieve power, but rather, to become aristocracy. But his past came to haunt him, and that was something of his own doing.
I don't know if I can say that Julien had a healthy relationship with love, whether he know how to love at all. He initially saw Mme. de Renal and Mathilde's love as challenges, and he only felt that he'd fallen in love with them after he saw how much their love for him absolutely broke them. He was only willing to commit to the relationship when he was sure that the other party was mad about him. But after a while, it seemed he'd get bored of them, like he did with Mathilde when she started visiting him in prison.
I can't say that I'd necessarily blame Julien for everything that he did, because he couldn't have seen the consequences down the road. But his actions mirrored those of reckless youths. As a young man, he had radical views, and he did things without thinking. He didn't love Mme. de Renal, and only engaged with her because he thought it was a battle. He didn't think about whether there'd be any consequences of having the affair. He should've been more experienced by the time he arrived at the de la Mole family, but perhaps it was a habit for him to bite at every challenge.
Maybe Julien's tragic flaw was that he didn't know when to yield. He'd gotten to the top (achieving aristocracy) in record time. But if he'd done more careful planning before, then maybe his old faults wouldn't come back to bite him.
I think there is a lot more about Julien's character that could be analyzed, but this is what I have for now.
M. Sorel
Julien's father (and brothers) treated him poorly. From what I remember, I think it was because he wasn't exactly a strong kid who could do manual labour. M. Sorel did advocate on Julien's behalf when he was first being hired as a tutor, but that can't be mistaken for kindness. If Julien was paid, that would eventually trickle down to his father.
At the end of the book, M. Sorel showed little sympathy for his son, telling him that he needed to pay his debts. It's no wonder Julien had such a warped sense of love.
M. de Renal
M. de Renal was not the smartest guy, precisely the kind of aristocrat that Julien probably scoffed at. The only reason M. de Renal even hired a Latin tutor was because he wanted M. Valenod to be jealous. His children's education was never a factor.
When M. de Renal learned of his wife's affair, I think he was definitely more worried about how others viewed him. I don't think he cared about whether his wife loved him anymore, nor what her reputation would become.
Mme. de Renal
Mme. de Renal was raised in a convent and married M. de Renal at a young age. She had no experience with love and thought that all men were like her husband (brutish and insensitive). So obviously seeing a man like Julien who was shy and even a little more sensitive would pique her attention.
I remember reading an analytical piece saying that Mme. de Renal had truly fallen in love with Julien when she saw him crying, despite Julien trying to have gone about his courtship in a macho and manly way. Mme. de Renal had written letters to Julien while he was at the seminary but they were intercepted by her husband. Later, it was said that she became very devout (when Julien went to serve the de la Mole family).
Mme. de Renal had been forced to write the letter smearing Julien's reputation. Even though Julien shot her, she didn't hate him (and Julien felt remorse for what he'd done too). While Julien was in jail, he fell back in love with her.
An analysis I read said that Julien associated Mme. de Renal with maternal love. It appears that all he wanted in life was unconditional love, which maternal love often is. He got that in the end from Mme. de Renal, and it was probably also why he was comfortable asking her to take care of his child.
Mme. de Renal died three days after Julien was executed, in the arms of her children. Mme. de Renal did often say that she loved Julien more than her own children, so it made sense that she couldn't go on without him.
While I did believe that Mme. de Renal sincerely thought that she loved Julien, I also think she was in love with the idea of being in love with someone like Julien. She'd never been shown much love by her husband, and I think she was hanging on to the thought of a Julien who truly did love her for who she was (or so she thought).
Father Pirard
Father Pirard was Julien's mentor at the seminary, and later referred him to the de la Mole household. He also helped Julien out when Julien's affair with Mathilde came to light. As many analyses have pointed out, he was one of the only clergymen who were portrayed in a good light in this novel.
M. de la Mole
M. de la Mole was a Marquis, and he was aristocratic in nature. In particular, he was very focused on appearances. One event that stood out was that when Julien was wearing a particular uniform, M. de la Mole would treat him as a peer, and when he was in his normal clothes, they'd revert back to their employer-employee relationship. Basically, M. de la Mole looked at the badge and cared not for the person.
When Mathilde wanted to run away with Julien, the biggest issue was that he was not even a noble. Mathilde's betrothed was a Duke, which I believe would elevate her status as a member of a Marquis' household.
Mathilde de la Mole
Mathilde was apparently portrayed as emotionally unstable. I admit I didn't catch this because sometimes I couldn't tell what was just the style of storytelling/teenagers being dramatic and what was actually Mathilde acting crazy.
Mathilde was well educated, and bonded with Julien through their intellectual pursuits. Like Mme. de Renal, Mathilde was the one who made advances on Julien. Again, Julien saw Mathilde's love as something to be conquered. But this time, he use Mme. de Fervaques as a tool to make her jealous and to fall even more for him.
I think it was implied that Mathilde was the kind of person who craved drama. I remember reading that Mathilde was "bored" with her life. And we saw how she drew Julien in with her overdramatic ways. Her eloping with Julien was also dramatic.
Then when Mathilde started regularly visting Julien in prison, he started getting bored with her. Specifically, I remember Julien feeling that her love was too performative, and she liked doing things for others to see, which made her just like the rest of aristocracy. At that point, Julien moved back to loving Mme. de Renal, whose love he thought was more unconditional, all-encompassing, and non-performative.
The de la Mole family in general was very proud of their ancestor Joseph Boniface de la Mole. In Julien's death, Mathilde reenacted Queen Margot's deed of kissing the decapitated head of her lover. So I think this furthers the theory that Mathilde was very into the drama and performance.
Themes
Romance and Jealousy
The Sparknotes page for this book constantly brought up the idea of "triangle romances," in which characters fell in love with someone through another character.
The first example of this happening was when Elisa was in love with Julien. Mme. de Renal then fell in love with Julien through hearing from Elisa about him. By the time Julien got to the de la Mole household, he seemed adept at using this triangle style of wooing, and made Mathilde jealous but pretending he had feelings for Mme. de Fervaques.
Hypocrisy
In climbing to the top of the ladder, Julien slowly turned on his values. The most obvious one to me was his political values, moving from radically Liberal, to working as an agent for the Conservative circle.
Julien had also accused the upper class of hypocrisy and being materialistic, but he eventually took on these qualities as he rose in the ranks.
History
There were a lot of historical references throughout this book. It might just have been that those references would be widely known by French readers. In any case, I did spend a lot of time skimming the footnotes about historical figures or literature.
There were instances of history repeating itself in this book.
Julien was obsessed with Napoleon, to the point that he wished he'd been born earlier so he could've fought in the war (and earned access to the upper class via military accomplishments). In any case, he wanted to replicate Napoleon's conquests in his everyday life.
The de la Mode family seemed to revere Joseph Boniface de la Mole quite a bit, and in Julien's death, Mathilde reenacted the actions after his death.
Falling in Love
Julien always fell in love after he was sure that the other party was completely devoted to him. I think this way of falling in love was a bit suspect. Of course, it is totally reasonable for people to fall in love for someone who has shown kindness to them. However, I don't think that Julien was ever attracted to them. Rather, he loved the idea of their devotion.
I also wonder whether Julien viewed love from married and unmarried women differently. Perhaps Mme. de Renal's love technically belonged to her husband, and the fact that he'd managed to steal it away was an accomplishment. And on the other hand, Julien had Mathilde's love, but since she was unmarried, that love could be stolen because she wasn't attached to anyone yet. Just some musing. I was just wondering whether there was a conscious purpose behind the fact that Mme. de Renal was a married woman and Mathilde was unmarried, other than the fact that it made sense considering their characters' ages/backgrounds.
Boredom
During the book, I recall that Julien and Mathilde had been described as being bored. I can imagine Mathilde being bored in her big house. She was always surrounded by extravagance, so she probably needed some drama to spice things up for her.
As for Julien, he was described as being bored by Mathilde around the time he started seeing Mme. de Renal again. Maybe he started to see that he was not Mathilde's only audience anymore. She was also performing their love for others, and so it wasn't a love that was tailored for him anymore.
The Red and the Black
The Wikipedia explanation said that the red and the black represented the struggle between aristocracy and the clergy. I think it's pretty clear that Julien chose aristocracy. He'd only considered the clergy for a short while, first when he learned Latin with his local church, and later when he had to escape the de Renal family. But the moment he got an opportunity to leave the clergy, he did so.
I'd also thought that maybe red and black could refer to a checkerboard, that Julien saw life as a set of battles to be won. But I don't know whether red and black are the canonical checkerboard colours, and whether checkers/chess was popular at this point in time.
Appearances
The aristocracy was very obsessed with appearances. Since Julien aspired to have high status, perhaps he was obsessed with appearances too, and was aristocratic at heart.
M. de Renal had only hired a tutor to look good in front of his rival. In fact, anything he did was for his reputation in front of others. He didn't even care about his family's happiness or even his own happiness. He constantly let himself be cheated out of money in order to maintain appearances.
The de la Mole family was from old aristocracy and they were definitely obsessed with appearances as well. M. de la Mole could not let Mathilde marry Julien in his current state because he was not a noble. He had to give him land, money, and a title, just so it would make his daughter's marriage look legitimate and appropriate to outsiders.
As mentioned, Mathilde was very performative in her acts. She was doing a bit of a performance for Julien at first, playing hot and cold. And then later on Julien noticed that she started showing off her love to others, which made Julien uncomfortable because then the love was now shared with everybody.
Leader vs. Follower
Is Julien a hero or a pawn? He tried to strike out on his own, gaming the system to become aristocracy. In the end, he claimed that the system did not make it possible for lower class people to achieve high ambitions. He was born a poor man's son, and he would die a poor man.
Obviously there was heavy political commentary in this book, but I won't get into it too much because I'm not very well-versed in politics and frankly there are too many things I know I missed in this book for me to put together a good argument.
Spontaneity
I think it was during his trial that Julien said he'd improvised for the first time in his life. Like the aristocracy, it seems Julien was memorizing and reciting lines his whole life, depending on what he thought the situation called for. Julien probably never spoke sincere words, truly from the heart, which makes him hypocritical for judging the aristocracy for being fake.
Overall
This was an interesting book. If I had a reading group, I think I'd like to go through this book with a fine tooth comb to get more out of the reading experience.
The character of Julien was interesting exactly because it was shown that he was the kind of man he vowed not to be, but showed signs of possibly always having been that man. The characters on this book are not numerous, and most of them either cast commentary on Julien's character or the general society at the time.
I think this kind of book would be fun for a reread because I think I'd get a new experience out of reading it a second time.
It was interesting, and is one of those books that I would've liked to study with a group because thera are definitely a lot of things I missed. I read it over here.
Spoilers.
Sorry for the lack of accents in this writeup. I was writing in notepad and not in MS Word so I didn't have access to the accent shortcuts ^^;;
Story
The gist of the story was simple. Julien came from a poor background but had studied Latin with the local priest. Thus, he was deemed suitable to serve as a tutor at the de Renal family. While working there, Julien and Mme. de Renal had a love affair.
The affair was made known, and Julien was sent to study at a seminary. He was doing well there, and was subsequently sent to be a secretary to the Marquis de la Mole.
At the de la Mole household, Julien had a love affair with Mathilde, the Marquis' daughter. She was originally engaged to a nobleman but had gotten pregnant by Julien. The Marquis' options were to kill Julien or to make him a noble (thus fit to be his daughter's husband).
All was going well for Julien until the Marquis received a letter from Verriere stating that Julien was an immoral man who had a habit of having affairs with his employers. Julien went to Verriere and shot Mme. de Renal as revenge for writing the letter, though it was later revealed that she was forced to do so by her confessor.
Mathilde had bribed as many people as possible to get Julien a not-guilty verdit, but he was still found guilty as one of the men holding the trial had a personal grudge against him.
Julien was sentenced to death. Mathilde and Mme. de Renal both visited him daily. Julien found himself falling back in love with Mme. de Renal. After being executed via guillotine, Mathilde buried Julien's head just as Queen Margot had done for her husband. Mme. de Renal died three days after Julien did.
I'm goign to leave most of the discussion to the characters and themes sections below.
Translation
The translation I read was the 2006 version by Burton Raffel. It was relatively easy to follow. I admit I did skim some passages, usually when there was a lot of small talk. So there are probably tons of nuances that I have missed.
What I really liked about this translation was that it included footnotes for historical references, as there were many throughout this book.
Characters
My write up for the character section and the themes section is going to be very amateur. In an ideal situation, I think I'd be studying this book as part of a literature class where I'd get more detailed takes on certain nuances on the book. But it's just me here, so I'm going to just try my best.
Julien Sorel
Julien Sorel was many things. He was an ambitious young man who learned that the people he despised had become the way that they were because of their circumstances. I did also think he was a bit arrogant and snobbish, and ended up being a hypocrite.
Julien started off the book with a bit of a holier-than-thou attitude. Remember, he was quite young when he started tutoring the de Renal children, and by the time he died, I believe he was only twenty years old. Julien idolized Napoleon and viewed life as a battle. When Julien first entered the world of aristocracy, I think he was super judgmental of how everybody around him was kind of fake and ingenuine. He himself was also a radical Liberal and did not agree with the aristocratic conservative view on politics.
Julien did not fall in love with Mme. de Renal immediately. Instead, he saw that she was a little attracted to him, and he saw it as a challenge. He treated Mme. de Renal's attraction as something to be conquered. He only fell in love with her later on. Though whether he truly loved her, or loved her aristocracy, I'm still not sure about.
Julien was later sent to the seminary after Elisa exposed his affair. Things were rocky at first, and his fellow students at the seminary would tease him. But over time, he built up a reputation and became well respected. I'm not quite sure why Julien decided to leave the seminary. He'd been inspired by a young bishop, and saw that he could achieve greatness through the clergy. As long as he kept with his studies, it was possible for him to gain power. So I wasn't sure why he decided to go to the de la Mole household to be a secretary.
The de la Mole family was higher class than the de Renal family. The mother especially came from a long line of powerful people. Perhaps Julien was always drawn to the aristocracy, and he only used the clergy as a means to go up the social ladder, which he did by ending up at the de la Mole family.
Again, the attraction between Julien and Mathilde was not immediate. Like Mme. de Renal, Julien noticed Mathilde's advances first, before he decided to return the feelings. However, with Mathilde, it was more of a game than it was with Mme. de Renal. There was a lot of drama, but that was partially due to the fact that Mathilde was seen as emotionally unstable. I'm not certain whether Julien got Mathilde pregnant on purpose, but it's clear that he gained a lot due to her obsession. Mathilde made it known to her father that she couldn't live without Julien so he ennobled Julien. He gave him money, he gave him land, and he gave him a title.
At that point, M. de la Mole and Mathilde stopped and realized that they didn't really know who Julien was. My interpration was that Julien was literally whatever they wanted him to be. He was a cameleon, willing to put on whatever performance he needed to win his battle. After all, winning battles was just a matter of faking appearances.
By the way, while at the de la Mole house, Julien had done a few errands for M. de la Mole relating to conservative politics circles. Right from the beginning, Julien had cemented himself as a radical Liberal, so he was here being a hypocrite for the sake of being in M. de la Mole's good graces. I also remember there being a scene in which Julien had met up with some radical Liberals, but actually didn't enjoy hanging out with them. Perhaps it was because he had the wrong impression of what radical Liberalism was like, or perhaps it was a sign of Julien becoming more and more conservative.
Mme. de Renal's letter took away everything that M. de la Mole gave to Julien. Julien had wanted to become aristocracy so badly and he got it, only to have it taken away from him immediately. So it made sense that at that moment, Julien was extremely angry at Mme. de Renal. After this ordeal, and finding out that Mme. de Renal had not died, Julien started to fall out of love with Mathilde and back in love with Mme. de Renal. He encouraged Mathilde to marry her betrothed (who'd later died), and to have their child watched over by Mme. de Renal, because he felt that Mme. de Renal would love his child, whereas Mathilde would've looked back on this love with embarrassment.
At his trial, Julien said that the society he was living in was not built for those of lower class. Basically he was bitter that someone like him could not fulfill his career aspirations. While his sentiments were true, he also had a part in his own downfall. I think he could've achieved power if he'd stayed with the clergy, rather than getting socially involved with aristocracy. Maybe his goal wasn't exactly to achieve power, but rather, to become aristocracy. But his past came to haunt him, and that was something of his own doing.
I don't know if I can say that Julien had a healthy relationship with love, whether he know how to love at all. He initially saw Mme. de Renal and Mathilde's love as challenges, and he only felt that he'd fallen in love with them after he saw how much their love for him absolutely broke them. He was only willing to commit to the relationship when he was sure that the other party was mad about him. But after a while, it seemed he'd get bored of them, like he did with Mathilde when she started visiting him in prison.
I can't say that I'd necessarily blame Julien for everything that he did, because he couldn't have seen the consequences down the road. But his actions mirrored those of reckless youths. As a young man, he had radical views, and he did things without thinking. He didn't love Mme. de Renal, and only engaged with her because he thought it was a battle. He didn't think about whether there'd be any consequences of having the affair. He should've been more experienced by the time he arrived at the de la Mole family, but perhaps it was a habit for him to bite at every challenge.
Maybe Julien's tragic flaw was that he didn't know when to yield. He'd gotten to the top (achieving aristocracy) in record time. But if he'd done more careful planning before, then maybe his old faults wouldn't come back to bite him.
I think there is a lot more about Julien's character that could be analyzed, but this is what I have for now.
M. Sorel
Julien's father (and brothers) treated him poorly. From what I remember, I think it was because he wasn't exactly a strong kid who could do manual labour. M. Sorel did advocate on Julien's behalf when he was first being hired as a tutor, but that can't be mistaken for kindness. If Julien was paid, that would eventually trickle down to his father.
At the end of the book, M. Sorel showed little sympathy for his son, telling him that he needed to pay his debts. It's no wonder Julien had such a warped sense of love.
M. de Renal
M. de Renal was not the smartest guy, precisely the kind of aristocrat that Julien probably scoffed at. The only reason M. de Renal even hired a Latin tutor was because he wanted M. Valenod to be jealous. His children's education was never a factor.
When M. de Renal learned of his wife's affair, I think he was definitely more worried about how others viewed him. I don't think he cared about whether his wife loved him anymore, nor what her reputation would become.
Mme. de Renal
Mme. de Renal was raised in a convent and married M. de Renal at a young age. She had no experience with love and thought that all men were like her husband (brutish and insensitive). So obviously seeing a man like Julien who was shy and even a little more sensitive would pique her attention.
I remember reading an analytical piece saying that Mme. de Renal had truly fallen in love with Julien when she saw him crying, despite Julien trying to have gone about his courtship in a macho and manly way. Mme. de Renal had written letters to Julien while he was at the seminary but they were intercepted by her husband. Later, it was said that she became very devout (when Julien went to serve the de la Mole family).
Mme. de Renal had been forced to write the letter smearing Julien's reputation. Even though Julien shot her, she didn't hate him (and Julien felt remorse for what he'd done too). While Julien was in jail, he fell back in love with her.
An analysis I read said that Julien associated Mme. de Renal with maternal love. It appears that all he wanted in life was unconditional love, which maternal love often is. He got that in the end from Mme. de Renal, and it was probably also why he was comfortable asking her to take care of his child.
Mme. de Renal died three days after Julien was executed, in the arms of her children. Mme. de Renal did often say that she loved Julien more than her own children, so it made sense that she couldn't go on without him.
While I did believe that Mme. de Renal sincerely thought that she loved Julien, I also think she was in love with the idea of being in love with someone like Julien. She'd never been shown much love by her husband, and I think she was hanging on to the thought of a Julien who truly did love her for who she was (or so she thought).
Father Pirard
Father Pirard was Julien's mentor at the seminary, and later referred him to the de la Mole household. He also helped Julien out when Julien's affair with Mathilde came to light. As many analyses have pointed out, he was one of the only clergymen who were portrayed in a good light in this novel.
M. de la Mole
M. de la Mole was a Marquis, and he was aristocratic in nature. In particular, he was very focused on appearances. One event that stood out was that when Julien was wearing a particular uniform, M. de la Mole would treat him as a peer, and when he was in his normal clothes, they'd revert back to their employer-employee relationship. Basically, M. de la Mole looked at the badge and cared not for the person.
When Mathilde wanted to run away with Julien, the biggest issue was that he was not even a noble. Mathilde's betrothed was a Duke, which I believe would elevate her status as a member of a Marquis' household.
Mathilde de la Mole
Mathilde was apparently portrayed as emotionally unstable. I admit I didn't catch this because sometimes I couldn't tell what was just the style of storytelling/teenagers being dramatic and what was actually Mathilde acting crazy.
Mathilde was well educated, and bonded with Julien through their intellectual pursuits. Like Mme. de Renal, Mathilde was the one who made advances on Julien. Again, Julien saw Mathilde's love as something to be conquered. But this time, he use Mme. de Fervaques as a tool to make her jealous and to fall even more for him.
I think it was implied that Mathilde was the kind of person who craved drama. I remember reading that Mathilde was "bored" with her life. And we saw how she drew Julien in with her overdramatic ways. Her eloping with Julien was also dramatic.
Then when Mathilde started regularly visting Julien in prison, he started getting bored with her. Specifically, I remember Julien feeling that her love was too performative, and she liked doing things for others to see, which made her just like the rest of aristocracy. At that point, Julien moved back to loving Mme. de Renal, whose love he thought was more unconditional, all-encompassing, and non-performative.
The de la Mole family in general was very proud of their ancestor Joseph Boniface de la Mole. In Julien's death, Mathilde reenacted Queen Margot's deed of kissing the decapitated head of her lover. So I think this furthers the theory that Mathilde was very into the drama and performance.
Themes
Romance and Jealousy
The Sparknotes page for this book constantly brought up the idea of "triangle romances," in which characters fell in love with someone through another character.
The first example of this happening was when Elisa was in love with Julien. Mme. de Renal then fell in love with Julien through hearing from Elisa about him. By the time Julien got to the de la Mole household, he seemed adept at using this triangle style of wooing, and made Mathilde jealous but pretending he had feelings for Mme. de Fervaques.
Hypocrisy
In climbing to the top of the ladder, Julien slowly turned on his values. The most obvious one to me was his political values, moving from radically Liberal, to working as an agent for the Conservative circle.
Julien had also accused the upper class of hypocrisy and being materialistic, but he eventually took on these qualities as he rose in the ranks.
History
There were a lot of historical references throughout this book. It might just have been that those references would be widely known by French readers. In any case, I did spend a lot of time skimming the footnotes about historical figures or literature.
There were instances of history repeating itself in this book.
Julien was obsessed with Napoleon, to the point that he wished he'd been born earlier so he could've fought in the war (and earned access to the upper class via military accomplishments). In any case, he wanted to replicate Napoleon's conquests in his everyday life.
The de la Mode family seemed to revere Joseph Boniface de la Mole quite a bit, and in Julien's death, Mathilde reenacted the actions after his death.
Falling in Love
Julien always fell in love after he was sure that the other party was completely devoted to him. I think this way of falling in love was a bit suspect. Of course, it is totally reasonable for people to fall in love for someone who has shown kindness to them. However, I don't think that Julien was ever attracted to them. Rather, he loved the idea of their devotion.
I also wonder whether Julien viewed love from married and unmarried women differently. Perhaps Mme. de Renal's love technically belonged to her husband, and the fact that he'd managed to steal it away was an accomplishment. And on the other hand, Julien had Mathilde's love, but since she was unmarried, that love could be stolen because she wasn't attached to anyone yet. Just some musing. I was just wondering whether there was a conscious purpose behind the fact that Mme. de Renal was a married woman and Mathilde was unmarried, other than the fact that it made sense considering their characters' ages/backgrounds.
Boredom
During the book, I recall that Julien and Mathilde had been described as being bored. I can imagine Mathilde being bored in her big house. She was always surrounded by extravagance, so she probably needed some drama to spice things up for her.
As for Julien, he was described as being bored by Mathilde around the time he started seeing Mme. de Renal again. Maybe he started to see that he was not Mathilde's only audience anymore. She was also performing their love for others, and so it wasn't a love that was tailored for him anymore.
The Red and the Black
The Wikipedia explanation said that the red and the black represented the struggle between aristocracy and the clergy. I think it's pretty clear that Julien chose aristocracy. He'd only considered the clergy for a short while, first when he learned Latin with his local church, and later when he had to escape the de Renal family. But the moment he got an opportunity to leave the clergy, he did so.
I'd also thought that maybe red and black could refer to a checkerboard, that Julien saw life as a set of battles to be won. But I don't know whether red and black are the canonical checkerboard colours, and whether checkers/chess was popular at this point in time.
Appearances
The aristocracy was very obsessed with appearances. Since Julien aspired to have high status, perhaps he was obsessed with appearances too, and was aristocratic at heart.
M. de Renal had only hired a tutor to look good in front of his rival. In fact, anything he did was for his reputation in front of others. He didn't even care about his family's happiness or even his own happiness. He constantly let himself be cheated out of money in order to maintain appearances.
The de la Mole family was from old aristocracy and they were definitely obsessed with appearances as well. M. de la Mole could not let Mathilde marry Julien in his current state because he was not a noble. He had to give him land, money, and a title, just so it would make his daughter's marriage look legitimate and appropriate to outsiders.
As mentioned, Mathilde was very performative in her acts. She was doing a bit of a performance for Julien at first, playing hot and cold. And then later on Julien noticed that she started showing off her love to others, which made Julien uncomfortable because then the love was now shared with everybody.
Leader vs. Follower
Is Julien a hero or a pawn? He tried to strike out on his own, gaming the system to become aristocracy. In the end, he claimed that the system did not make it possible for lower class people to achieve high ambitions. He was born a poor man's son, and he would die a poor man.
Obviously there was heavy political commentary in this book, but I won't get into it too much because I'm not very well-versed in politics and frankly there are too many things I know I missed in this book for me to put together a good argument.
Spontaneity
I think it was during his trial that Julien said he'd improvised for the first time in his life. Like the aristocracy, it seems Julien was memorizing and reciting lines his whole life, depending on what he thought the situation called for. Julien probably never spoke sincere words, truly from the heart, which makes him hypocritical for judging the aristocracy for being fake.
Overall
This was an interesting book. If I had a reading group, I think I'd like to go through this book with a fine tooth comb to get more out of the reading experience.
The character of Julien was interesting exactly because it was shown that he was the kind of man he vowed not to be, but showed signs of possibly always having been that man. The characters on this book are not numerous, and most of them either cast commentary on Julien's character or the general society at the time.
I think this kind of book would be fun for a reread because I think I'd get a new experience out of reading it a second time.