Characteristic of julienne red and black. The image of Julien Sorel (detailed description of the hero of the novel "Red and Black")

The image of Julien Sorel in Stendhal's novel "Red and Black"

The protagonist of the novel "Red and Black" is a young, ambitious youth Julien Sorel. He is a simple carpenter's son, living with brothers and a father. The main goal of a nineteen-year-old young man is the idea of ​​climbing the church career ladder and getting as far away from the everyday life of the world in which he grew up. Julien does not find understanding on the part of society. Stendhal notes that "all the household despised him, and he hated his brothers and father ..." Stendhal Selected Works: In 3 volumes. T1: Red and Black: Roman / Per. with fr. N. Chuiko. - M .: Literature, World of books, 2004. - P.20. The young man is endowed with a rare mind, is able to quote the Holy Scripture in Latin from memory. In his idea of ​​becoming a priest, the young man sees nothing wrong, for him this is the only way to escape from the gray, monotonous and gloomy everyday life of his existence.

The formation of his character was greatly influenced by two people: the regimental physician, a participant in the Napoleonic campaigns and the local abbot Shelan. The first taught Julien history and Latin, and with his death bequeathed to the young man respect for Napoleon, the Cross of the Legion of Honor and books, as well as the concept of honor and nobility. The second instilled in Sorel a love for Scripture, for God, encouraged his aspirations for intellectual and spiritual growth.

It is these qualities that separate Julien from the deceitful, stingy people of the town of Verrière. He is talented and generously endowed with intelligence, but was born at the wrong time. An hour like him has passed. The young man admires Napoleon, and it is his era that is close to the young man.

Due to his incompatibility with time, the young man is forced to pretend. He pretends to achieve something in life, but it turns out to be not so easy. With its own rules, the era of the Restoration began, in which honor, nobility, courage and intelligence are worthless. These qualities were important in the era of Napoleon, then an ordinary person could achieve anything in the military sphere. Under the Bourbon rule, a dignified background was required to advance the career ladder. For the lower class, the path to the military is closed.

Realizing the political situation of the era, Sorel understands that the only way to achieve spiritual and class growth is to become a priest. Julien decides that even in a cassock he will be able to achieve a good position in the "high society".

The young man behaves unnaturally for himself: he pretends to be a believer, although he himself does not believe in God in the classical sense; he serves those whom he considers deservingly inferior to himself; looks like a fool, but has a great mind. Julien does this, not forgetting who he really is and why he is striving for this or that thing.

“Julien occupies a central place among all heroes, the author not only reveals the foundations of his personality, but also shows the evolution of the hero under the influence of circumstances. He has many faces "Reizov BG Stendhal: artistic creation. - L .: Hood. literature. Leningrad department, 1978.

The writer describes his hero with tenderness: “He was a short young man of eighteen or nineteen years of age, rather fragile in appearance, with irregular, but delicate features and a chiseled nose with a crooked nose. Large black eyes, which in moments of tranquility sparkled with thought and fire, now burned with the most fierce hatred. His dark brown hair grew so low that it almost covered his forehead, which made his face look very angry when he was angry. Among the innumerable varieties of human faces, it is hardly possible to find another such face that would be distinguished by such a striking originality. The slender and flexible body of the young man spoke more of dexterity than strength. From an early age, his unusually pensive appearance and extreme pallor made his father think that his son was not a lodger in this world, and if he survived, it would only be a burden for the family. ”Stendhal Selected Works: In 3 volumes. T1: Red and Black : Novel / Per. with fr. N. Chuiko. - M .: Literature, World of books, 2004. - P.28 ..

Again, for the first time, Stendhal takes an analytical approach to describing the feelings and emotions of his hero. This makes obvious a fact that was new for that era: it is the low social status that allows Julien to develop in himself a colossal will, hard work and pride. Unlike Lucien, he is not inclined to conformism and is not ready to sacrifice dignity in the name of achieving goals. However, Sorel's notions of honor and dignity are also peculiar. For example, Julien is not ready to accept additional rewards from Madame de Renal, but easily seduces her in his own interests.

Gradually, everyone in the house begins to respect this quiet, modest, intelligent young man who speaks excellent Latin. In this way, Stendhal almost for the first time illustrates the advantage of education over origin with the example of Julien. Not practical, of course, but intellectual. It is not surprising that Louise and Matilda see him as a revolutionary, a certain new romantic Danton. Julien in spirit is really close to the revolutionary leader of the late 18th century.

Julien, the carpenter's son, is able to tell his master the count: “No, sir, If you decide to drive me out, I will have to leave.

A commitment that only binds me and does not bind you to anything is an unequal deal. I refuse". And the more intensive the development of the hero goes, the more he comprehends, the more negative his attitude towards the world around him becomes. In many ways, young Sorel is the embodiment of growing pride and contempt, the abyss of which sucks in his brilliant mind and brilliant dreams. And now he already hates all the inhabitants of the Verrier for their stinginess, meanness and greed.

Stendhal illustrates in every possible way the duality of his hero's nature. That is why, I suppose, in his love relationship with Louise there is not even a confrontation, but rather a complex of mercantile interests and sincere romantic feelings.

The contrast between real life and Sorel's voluminous fantasy world confronts him with the need to constantly wear a certain mask. He wears it at the curé, in the house of De Renal and in the mansion of De La Moley. What comes so easily to Balzac's Lucien plagues and oppresses Sorel. “The eternal pretense eventually drove him to the point where he couldn't feel free even with Fouquet. Resting his head in his hands, Julien sat in this little cave, reveling in his dreams and a sense of freedom, and felt as happy as never before in his life. He did not notice how the last reflections of the sunset burned out one by one. Among the immense darkness that surrounded him, his soul, dying away, contemplated the pictures that arose in his imagination, the pictures of his future life in Paris. First of all, he drew a beautiful woman, as beautiful and sublime as he had never met in the provinces. He is passionately in love with her, and he is loved ... If he was separated from her for a few moments, then only in order to cover himself with glory and become even more worthy of her love.

A young man who grew up in the dull reality of Parisian light, even if he had Julien's rich imagination, would involuntarily chuckle, catching himself in such nonsense; great feats and hopes of becoming famous would instantly disappear from his imagination, supplanted by the well-known truth: "He who leaves his beauty - woe to that! - three times a day he is cheated" ...

Ultimately, Julien is not even able to explain to himself whether he is in love, say, with a young marquise, or the possession of her flatters his painful vanity. Confused in his own feelings and thoughts, in the finale of the novel he departs from deeply personal experiences and deep social pathos is heard in his speech:

“... This is my crime, gentlemen, and it will be punished with the greater severity that, in essence, I am judged by no means equal to me. I don't see here on the jury a single rich peasant, but only one indignant bourgeois ... "Stendhal Selected works: In 3 volumes T1: Red and Black: Roman / Per. with fr. N. Chuiko. - M .: Literature, World of books, 2004. - P.35 ..

He spends his last days with Louise de Renal. Sorel realizes that he loved only her and she is his happiness.

Thus, Julien Sorel is a young, educated, passionate man who entered the struggle with the society of the Reformation era. The struggle of inner virtues and natural nobility with the inexorable demands of the surrounding reality is both the main personal conflict of the hero and the ideological opposition of the novel as a whole. A young man who wants to find his place in life and know himself.

Sorel evaluates all his actions, thinks about what Napoleon would do in this situation. Julien does not forget that if he was born in the era of the emperor, his career would have developed completely differently. The hero compares the life of Napoleon to a hawk flying over him.

For Sorel, as for Stendhal, Napoleon became one of the most important mentors in their lives.

This comparison is not accidental. Frederic Stendhal is recognized as the best researcher of the Napoleonic era. He was one of the first to become interested in such a famous person. A person who cannot but focus on. Stendhal gave a realistic and detailed description of the mood of the era and the events taking place in it. His works such as "The Life of Napoleon" and "Memories of Napoleon" are called by historians of our time the best biographical and research materials dedicated to Bonaparte.

Julien Sorel (fr. Julien Sorel) - the hero of the novel by F. Stendahl "Red and Black" (1830). The subtitle of the novel is "Chronicle of the XIX century". The real prototypes are Antoine Berté and Adrienne Lafargue. Berthe is the son of a rural blacksmith, a pupil of a priest, a teacher in the family of the bourgeois Misha in the town of Brang, near Grenoble. Ms Misu, Berte's mistress, upset his marriage with a young girl, after which he tried to shoot her and himself in the church during the service. Both survived, but Berthe was tried and sentenced to death, executed (1827). Lafargue is a cabinetmaker who killed his mistress out of jealousy, repented and asked for the death penalty (1829). The image of J.S. - a hero who commits a criminal offense motivated by love passion and at the same time a crime against religion (since the attempted murder took place in the church), repentant and executed - was used by Stendhal to analyze the paths of social development.

Literary type Zh.S. characteristic of French literature XIX "Sw. - a young man from the bottom, making a career, relying only on his personal qualities, the hero of an educational novel on the topic of "loss of illusion." Typologically Zh.S. are related to the images of romantic heroes - "higher personalities" who in pride despise the world around them. Common literary roots can be observed in the image of the individualist from the "Confession" by J.-J. Rousseau (1770), who declared a person with a subtle feeling and capable of introspection (noble soul) "an exceptional person" (1′homme different). In the image of J.S. Stendhal comprehended the experience of rationalist philosophy of the 17th-18th centuries, showing that a place in society is obtained at the cost of moral losses. On the one hand, J.S. is a direct heir to the ideas of the Enlightenment and the Great French Revolution, three key figures of the beginning of the “bourgeois century” - Tartuffe, Napoleon and Rousseau; on the other - an extrapolation of the moral throwings of romantics - his talent, individual energy, intellect are aimed at achieving a social position. In the center of the image of Zh.S. is the idea of ​​"alienation", opposition "against all" with the final conclusion about its absolute incompatibility with any way of life. This is an unusual criminal who daily commits crimes to establish himself as a person, defending the "natural right" to equality, education, love, deciding to kill in order to justify himself in the eyes of a beloved woman who doubted his honesty and loyalty, a careerist guided by the idea of ​​his chosenness ... The psychological drama of his soul and life is constant fluctuations between a noble sensitive nature and the Machiavellianism of his sophisticated intellect, between devilish logic and a kind, humane nature. The phenomenon of the personality of Zh.S., emancipated not only from age-old social foundations and religious dogmas, but also from any principles, caste or class, reveals the process of the emergence of individualistic ethics with its egoism and egocentrism, with its neglect of means in achieving the set goals. J.S. he fails to kill his noble soul to the end, he tries to live guided by inner duty and the laws of honor, at the end of his odyssey, having come to the conclusion that the idea of ​​affirming “nobility of spirit” through a career in society is erroneous, to the conclusion that earthly hell is more terrible than death ... He renounces the desire to rise "above all" in the name of an unbridled feeling of love as the only meaning of existence. The image of J.S. had a tremendous impact on the further understanding of the problem of "exceptional personality" in literature and philosophy. Immediately after the release of the novel, the critic named J.S. "Monster", guessing in him the type of future "plebeian with education." J.S. became the classic ancestor of all the failing lonely conquerors of the world: Martin Eden J. London, Clyde Griffith T. Dreiser. Nietzsche has notable references to searches from the author J.S. The “missing features” of a new type of philosopher, who declared that the “higher personality” had a superiority of some “will to power”. However, Zh.S. served as a prototype for heroes experiencing catharsis and repentance. In Russian literature, his successor is Raskolnikov F.M. Dostoevsky. In the words of Nicolo Chiaromonte (The Paradoxes of History, 1973), “Stendhal is not teaching us self-centeredness, which he proclaimed as his credo. He teaches us to give a merciless assessment of the delusions in which our feelings are guilty, and all the fables that the world around us is full of ”. The famous performer of the role of Zh.S. in the French film adaptation of the novel was Gerard Philippe (1954).

Lit .: Fonvieille R. Le veritable Julien Sorel. Paris et Grenoble, 1971; Remizov B.G. Stendhal. L., 1978; Gorky A.M. Foreword // Vinogradov A.K. Three colors of time. M., 1979; Timasheva O.V. Stendhal. M., 1983; Andrie R. Stendhal, or Masquerade Ball. M., 1985; Esenbaeva P.M. Stendhal and Dostoevsky: Typology of the Novels Red and Black and Crime and Punishment. Tver, 1991.

Introduction.

Henri Bayle (1783-1842) came to literary work through the desire to know himself: in his youth he was carried away by the philosophy of the so-called "ideologists" - French philosophers who sought to clarify the concepts and laws of human thinking.

Stendhal's artistic anthropology is based on the opposition of two human types - "French" and "Italian". The French type, burdened with the vices of bourgeois civilization, is distinguished by insincerity, hypocrisy (often forced); the Italian type attracts with its "barbaric" impulsiveness, frankness of desires, romantic lawlessness. Stendhal's main works of art depict the conflict between the protagonist of the "Italian" type and the "French" way of life that fetters him; criticizing this society from the point of view of romantic ideals, the writer simultaneously shrewdly shows the spiritual contradictions of his heroes, their compromises with the external environment; Subsequently, this feature of Stendhal's work forced him to be recognized as a classic of 19th century realism.

In 1828, Stendhal came across a purely modern plot. The source was not literary, but real, which corresponded to Stendhal's interests not only in its social meaning, but also in the extreme drama of events. Here was what he had been looking for for a long time: energy and passion. The historical novel was no longer needed. Now something else is needed: a true portrayal of modernity, and not so much political and social events as the psychology and state of mind of modern people, who, regardless of their own desire, prepare and create the future.

“Young people like Antoine Berthe (one of the prototypes of the protagonist of the novel“ Red and Black ”),” wrote Stendhal, “if they manage to get a good upbringing, are forced to work and struggle with real need, which is why they retain the ability to have strong feelings and terrifying energy. At the same time, they have an easily vulnerable pride. " And since from the combination of energy and pride, ambition is often born. Once upon a time, Napoleon combined the same characteristics: a good upbringing, a fiery imagination and extreme poverty.

Main part.

The psychology of Julien Sorel (the protagonist of the novel "Red and Black") and his behavior are explained by the class to which he belongs. This is the psychology created by the French Revolution. He works, reads, develops his mental faculties, carries a pistol to defend his honor. Julien Sorel at every step shows daring courage, not expecting danger, but warning it.

So, in France, where reaction prevails, there is no room for talented people from the people. They choke and die like in a prison. One who is deprived of privileges and wealth must for self-defense and, even more so, in order to succeed, adapt. Julien Sorel's behavior is determined by the political situation. She linked into a single and inseparable whole the picture of morals, the drama of the experience, the fate of the hero of the novel.

Julien Sorel is one of the most difficult characters in Stendhal, who pondered over him for a long time. The son of a provincial carpenter became the key to understanding the driving forces of modern society and the prospects for its further development.

Julien Sorel is a youth of the people. In fact, the son of a peasant who has a sawmill must work on it, like his father, brothers. According to his social status, Julien is a worker (but not hired); he is a stranger in the world of the rich, well-mannered, educated. But even in his family, this talented plebeian with a “strikingly peculiar face” is like an ugly duckling: his father and brothers hate the “puny”, useless, dreamy, impetuous, incomprehensible young man. At nineteen, he looks like a frightened boy. And in him lies and seethes tremendous energy - the power of a clear mind, proud character, unbending will, "fierce sensitivity." His soul and imagination are fiery, in his eyes there is a flame. In Julien Sorel, the imagination is subordinated to violent ambition. Ambition itself is not a negative quality. The French word "ambition" means both "ambition" and "thirst for glory", "thirst for honor" and "aspiration", "aspiration"; ambition, as La Rochefoucauld said, does not exist with mental lethargy; it contains "the liveliness and ardor of the soul." Ambition makes a person develop their abilities and overcome difficulties. Julien Sorel is like a ship equipped for a great voyage, and the fire of ambition in other social conditions, providing room for the creative energy of the masses, would help him overcome the most difficult voyage. But now the conditions are not favorable for Julien, and ambition forces him to adapt to other people's rules of the game: he sees that to achieve success, tough selfish behavior, pretense and hypocrisy, militant distrust of people and the conquest of superiority over them are necessary.

But natural honesty, generosity, sensitivity, elevating Julien above the environment, come into conflict with what ambition dictates to him under existing conditions. Julien's image is "true and modern". The author of the novel boldly, unusually clearly and vividly expressed the historical meaning of the topic, making his hero not a negative character, not a sneaky careerist, but a gifted and rebellious plebeian, whom the social system has deprived of all rights and thus forced to fight for them, regardless of anything ...

But many were embarrassed by the fact that Stendhal consciously and consistently opposed Julien's outstanding talents and natural nobility to his "ill-fated" ambition. It can be seen what objective circumstances caused the crystallization of the militant individualism of the talented plebeian. We are also convinced of how destructive the path turned out to be for Julien's personality, to which he was pushed by ambition.

The hero of Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, Herman, a young ambitious "with the profile of Napoleon and the soul of Mephistopheles," he, like Julien, "had strong passions and a fiery imagination." But the internal struggle is alien to him. He is calculating, cruel and with all his being is directed towards his goal - the conquest of wealth. He really does not reckon with anything and is like a naked blade.

Perhaps Julien would have become the same, if he himself did not constantly arise in front of him - his noble, ardent, proud character, his honesty, the need to surrender to immediate feeling, passion, forgetting about the need to be calculating and hypocritical. Julien's life is the story of his unsuccessful attempts to fully adapt to social conditions in which base interests prevail. The "spring" of drama in the works of Stendhal, whose heroes are young ambitious, is entirely in the fact that these heroes "are forced to rape their rich nature in order to play the vile role that they have imposed on themselves." These words accurately characterize the drama of the inner action of "Red and Black", which is based on the spiritual struggle of Julien Sorel. The pathos of the novel is in the twists and turns of Julien's tragic single combat with himself, in the contradiction between the sublime (Julien's nature) and the base (his tactics dictated by social relations).

Julien was poorly guided in a new society for him. Everything there was unexpected and incomprehensible, and therefore, considering himself an impeccable hypocrite, he constantly made mistakes. “You are extremely careless and reckless, although it’s not immediately noticeable,” Abbot Pirard told him. “And yet, to this day, your heart is kind and even magnanimous, and you have a great mind.”

“All the first steps of our hero,” Stendhal writes on his own behalf, “who were quite confident that he was acting as carefully as possible, turned out to be, like the choice of the confessor, extremely reckless. Fooled by the presumptuousness of imaginative people, he took his intentions for accomplished facts and considered himself an unsurpassed hypocrite. "Alas! This is my only weapon! he mused. "If it were a different time, I would have earned my bread by deeds that would speak for themselves in the face of the enemy."

Education came to him with difficulty, because it required constant self-abasement. So it was in Renal's house, in the seminary, in Parisian secular circles. This affected his attitude towards his beloved women. His contacts and breaks with Madame de Renal and Matilda de La Mole indicate that he almost always did as the moment's urge, the need to show his personality and rebel against any real or perceived insult, told him. And he understood every personal insult as a social injustice.

Julien's behavior is determined by the idea of ​​nature, which he wanted to imitate, but in the restored monarchy, even with the Charter, this is impossible, so you have to “howl with wolves” and act as others do. His "war" with society is going on in secret, and making a career, from his point of view, means undermining this artificial society for the sake of another, future and natural.

Julien Sorel is a synthesis of two seemingly opposite directions - philosophical and political of the 19th century. On the one hand, rationalism combined with sensationalism and utilitarianism is a necessary unity, without which neither one nor the other could exist according to the laws of logic. On the other hand, there is the cult of feeling and the naturalism of Rousseau.

He lives as if in two worlds - in the world of pure morality and in the world of rational practicality. These two worlds - nature and civilization - do not interfere with each other, because both together solve one problem, to build a new reality and find the right ways for this.

Julien Sorel strove for happiness. As his goal, he set the respect and recognition of the secular society, which he penetrated thanks to his diligence and talents. Climbing the ladder of ambition and vanity, he seemed to be approaching a cherished dream, but he tasted happiness only in those hours when, loving Madame de Renal, he was himself.

It was a happy meeting, full of mutual sympathy and sympathy, without rationalistic and class barriers and barriers, a meeting of two people of nature - such as should be in a society created according to the laws of nature.

Julien's double perception of the world manifested itself in relation to the mistress of the house, Renal. Madame de Renal remains for him a representative of the class of the rich and therefore an enemy, and all his behavior with her was caused by class enmity and a complete lack of understanding of her nature: Madame de Renal completely surrendered to her feelings, but the home teacher acted differently - he kept thinking about their social status.

"Now, to fall in love with Madame de Renal for the proud heart of Julien has become something completely unthinkable." At night in the garden it occurs to him to take possession of her hand - only to laugh at her husband in the dark. He dared to put his hand next to hers. And then a thrill seized him; not realizing what he was doing, he showered passionate kisses on the hand that was outstretched to him.

Julien himself now did not understand how he felt, and apparently forgot about the reason that made him risk these kisses. The social meaning of his relationship to a woman in love disappears, and love that began long ago comes into its own.

What is civilization? This is what interferes with the natural life of the soul. Julien's reflections on how he should act, how others relate to him, what they think of him - this is all far-fetched, caused by the class structure of society, something that contradicts human nature and the natural perception of reality. The activity of the mind here is a complete mistake, because the mind works in emptiness, not having a solid foundation under it, not relying on anything. The basis of rational cognition is an immediate sensation, not prepared by any traditions, coming from the depths of the soul. The mind must check sensations in their entire mass, draw correct conclusions from them and build conclusions in general terms.

The history of the relationship between the plebeian conqueror and the aristocrat Matilda, who despises spineless secular youth, is unparalleled in originality, accuracy and subtlety of the drawing, in the naturalness with which the feelings and actions of the heroes are depicted in the most extraordinary situations.

Julien was madly in love with Matilda, but he never forgot for a moment that she was in the hated camp of his class enemies. Matilda is aware of her superiority over the environment and is ready for "madness" in order to ascend over it.

Julien can take possession of the heart of a rational and wayward girl for a long time only by breaking her pride. To do this, you need to hide your tenderness, freeze your passion, prudently apply the tactics of the highly experienced dandy Korazov. Julien rapes himself: again he must not be himself. Finally, Matilda's arrogant pride is broken. She decides to challenge society and become the wife of a plebeian, confident that only he is worthy of her love. But Julien, no longer believing in the constancy of Matilda, is now forced to play a role. And pretending and being happy is impossible.

Just as in his relationship with Madame Renal, Julien was afraid of deception and contempt on the part of a woman in love with him, and Matilda sometimes thought that he was playing a fake game with her. Doubts arose often, "civilization" interfered with the natural development of feelings, and Julien feared that Matilda, along with her brother and admirers, would laugh at him like a rebellious plebeian. Matilda knew perfectly well that he did not believe her. “You just need to catch a moment when his eyes light up,” she thought, “then he will help me lie.”

Beginning love, growing throughout the month, walks in the garden, Matilda's shining eyes and frank conversations, obviously, lasted too long, and love turned into hate. Left alone with himself, Julien dreamed of revenge. “Yes, she is beautiful,” Julien said, eyes flashing like a tiger, “I will take possession of her, and then I’ll leave. And woe to the one who tries to detain me! " Thus, false ideas, instilled by social traditions and sick pride, caused painful thoughts, hatred of the beloved creature and killed common sense. “I admire her beauty, but I’m afraid of her intelligence,” says the epigraph to the chapter entitled “The Power of a Young Girl,” signed by Merimee's name.

Matilda's love began because Julien became an argument in her struggle against modern society, against a false civilization. He was for her a salvation from boredom, from a mechanical salon existence, psychological and philosophical news. Then he became an example of a new culture, built on a different beginning - natural, personal and free, as if even a leader in search of a new life and thinking. His hypocrisy was immediately understood as hypocrisy, as a necessity in order to hide a genuine, morally more perfect, but unacceptable world outlook for modern society. Matilda understood him as something related, and this spiritual unity aroused admiration, real, natural, natural love that captured her entirely. This love was free. “Julien and I,” Matilda reflected, as usual, alone with herself, “no contracts, no notaries anticipating the bourgeois rite. Everything will be heroic, everything will be left to chance. " And chance is understood here as freedom, the ability to act as required by thought, the need of the soul, the voice of nature and truth, without the violence invented by society.

She is secretly proud of her love, because she sees heroism in this: to fall in love with the carpenter's son, to find in him something worthy of love and to disregard the opinion of the world - who could have done such a thing? And she contrasted Julien with her high society admirers and tormented them with offensive comparisons.

But this is a "fight against society." Just like the well-bred people around her, she wants to win attention, impress and, oddly enough, appeal to the opinion of the high society crowd. The originality, which she achieves explicitly and secretly, her actions, thoughts and passions, flaring up when conquering the "exceptional being who despises all others" - all this is caused by resistance to society, the desire to take risks in order to distinguish herself from others and rise to heights that no one else achieve. And this, of course, is the dictate of society, and not a requirement of nature.

This self-love is associated with love for him - at first unaccountable and not very clear. Then, after a long painful analysis of the psychology of this incomprehensible and attractive personality, doubts arise - maybe this is just a pretense in order to marry a rich marquis? And, finally, as if without great grounds, the conviction triumphs that it is impossible to live without him, that happiness is not in himself, but in him. This is the victory of the natural feeling pulsating in an alien, hostile society. The threat of losing everything that was conceived, everything she was proud of, made Matilda suffer and even, perhaps, truly love. She seemed to understand that it was her happiness. The "addiction" to Julien finally triumphed over the pride "which, since she remembered herself, reigned supreme in her heart. This arrogant and cold soul for the first time was seized with a fiery feeling. "

If Matilda's love reached the point of insanity, then Julien became reasonable and cold. And when Matilda, in order to save him from a possible attempt on his life, said: “Farewell! Run! ”, Julien did not understand anything and was offended:“ How inevitably it happens that even in their best moments these people always manage to hurt me with something! ” He looked at her with cold eyes, and she burst into tears, which had never happened before.

Having received vast lands from the Marquis, Julien became an ambitious person, as Stendhal says. He thought about his son, and this also, obviously, reflected his new passion - ambition: this is his creation, his heir, and this will create a position for him in the world, and perhaps in the state. His "victory" turned him into a different person. “My romance has ended in the end, and I owe it only to myself. I managed to make this monstrous proud woman fall in love with myself, - he thought, looking at Matilda, - her father cannot live without her, and she without me ... ”His soul was drunk, he barely responded to the ardent tenderness of Matilda. He was gloomy and silent. " And Matilda began to fear him. “Something vague, something like horror crept into her feelings for Julien. This callous soul has known in its love everything that is only available to a human being, nurtured among the excesses of civilization, which Paris admires. "

Upon learning that they wanted to make him the illegitimate son of some high-ranking de la Verne, Julien became cold and arrogant, as he assumed that he was indeed the illegitimate son of a great man. He only thought about fame and about his son. When he became a lieutenant in the regiment and hoped to be promoted to colonel soon, he took pride in what had previously annoyed him. He forgot about justice, about a natural duty and lost everything human. He stopped even thinking about revolution.

Conclusion.

Among the many assumptions about the meaning of the novel "Red and Black", one can find the version according to which Stendhal disguised two feelings under the secret colors, raging and possessing the spirit of Julien Sorel. Passion - a spiritual impulse, a moral thirst, an unbridled, unaccountable attraction, and ambition - a thirst for ranks, fame, recognition, action not out of moral convictions in striving for a goal - these two feelings fought in Julien, and each had the right to own his soul. The author divided the hero into two parts, into two Juliens: passionate and ambitious. And both of them achieved their goals: Julien, inclined to natural feelings, with an open mind, achieved the love of Madame de Renal and was happy; in another case, ambition and composure helped Julien conquer Matilda and his position in the world. But Julien did not become happy with this.

Bibliography.

Reizov B.G. "Stendhal: artistic creation". "Fiction". L., 1978

Stendhal "Red and Black". "Truth". M., 1959.

Timasheva O.V. Stendhal. M. 1983

Fried J. "Stendhal: an outline of life and work." "Fiction". M., 1967

Esenbaeva R.M. Stendhal and Dostoevsky: Typology of the Novels Red and Black and Crime and Punishment. Tver, 1991

Stendhal gave a brilliant confirmation of the correctness of his aesthetic program in the novel Red and Black, on which he worked in 1829-1830. The novel appeared in November 1830 and bore the subtitle "Chronicle of the 19th Century". This subtitle already testifies to the fact that Stendhal attached the broadest, epochal meaning to the fate of his hero.

Meanwhile, this fate - due to its singularity, extraordinary - at a superficial glance may seem private, isolated. This understanding seems to be facilitated by the fact that Stendhal borrowed the plot of the novel from the court chronicle. In 1827, in his hometown of Grenoble, public opinion was stirred up by the trial of a certain Antoine Berthe, a young man who was a home teacher in the family of a nobleman. He fell in love with the mother of his pupils and, in a fit of jealousy, tried to shoot her. In early 1828, Berthe was executed. This story, in many ways, formed the basis of Standal's novel.

So, as if an exceptional case, a newspaper sensation, almost material for a detective or tabloid novel. However, Stendhal's very appeal to that source was far from accidental. It turns out that he had long been interested in the "judicial newspaper" because it seemed to him one of the most important documents of his era. In private tragedies like Berthe's tragedy, Stendhal saw a tendency essential for society.

Stendhal was one of the first to grope one of the most painful nerves of his century, his social system, based on the suppression of the individual and therefore naturally giving rise to crime. The point is not that a person has crossed the line, but what line he has broken, what law he has broken. From this point of view, the novel "Red and Black" in the sharpest form demonstrates the opposition between the natural right of the individual and the framework that the law provides for the realization of these rights.

Stendhal sharpens this problem to the limit by taking as a hero an outstanding personality of plebeian origin. His Julien Sorel is the son of a carpenter, but at the same time a man obsessed with ambitious aspirations. His ambition, if not alien to vanity, is completely alien to greed. First of all, he wants to take his rightful place in the social system. He is well aware that not only is not worse than others, successful, but also smarter, more serious than them. Julien Sorel is ready to use his energy, his forces for the good of society, and not only for his personal good. But at the same time, he knows very well that his plebeian origin hangs on his dreams with a heavy burden.

It is very important to understand this socio-psychological basis of Julien's behavior. If he tries for a very long time to adapt to the official morality, then this is not just an elementary calculation of hypocrisy; yes, he quickly understood how he needed to behave, but in all his feats of hypocrisy there is always bitterness because fate left him no other path, a plebeian, and the belief that this is only a necessary temporary tactic, and also proud pride: here he is, a plebeian, so easily and quickly, no worse than others, he mastered the laws of light, the rules of the game. Successes in hypocrisy hurt his soul, his sensitive, basically sincere nature, but also amuse his plebeian pride! The main thing for him is not to break through to the top, but to prove that he can break through if he wants to. This is a very important nuance. Julien does not become a wolf among wolves: it is no coincidence that Stendhal never places his hero in such a situation that he "gnaws at others" - as, for example, Balzac's Lucien about "Lost Illusions" is ready to do it. Julien Sorel, in contrast to him, does not play the role of a traitor anywhere, nowhere goes over corpses, over the fates of other people. the critical moment always triumphs over reason, the heart over the cold logic of opportunism.

It is no coincidence that Stendhal pays so much attention to Julien's love affairs; they are like a litmus of his true human value. After all, at first he calculatedly falls in love with both Madame de Renal and Matilda - seemingly by the very logic to which Balzac's heroes always remain faithful. The love of a secular woman for them is the surest path to success. For Julien, of course, the main thing here is the self-affirmation of the plebeian, but outwardly he is also inclined to regard love affairs as steps to achieving his goals.

I would call the image of Julien Sorel a triumph of Standal's psychologism and democracy at the same time. Julien's entire psychology, as we have seen, is marked by a consciousness of plebeian pride, a constantly infringed sense of his own human dignity. This restless soul, this proud man perishes because he strives for happiness, and society offers him to achieve his goal only such means that are deeply repugnant to him; disgusting because he "is not a wolf by his blood." And Stendhal clearly associates this inner honesty with his plebeianism. The idea that in the bourgeois age true passion and true greatness of the soul are possible only among commoners is Stendhal's favorite, cherished thought. It is here that Standal's theme of passion takes on a distinctly democratic character.

It is no coincidence, of course, that on the pages of the novel, in connection with the image of Julien, various people often associate with the leaders of the French Revolution - Danton and Robespierre. The image of Julien Sorel is all fanned by this atmospheric breath of revolution, rebellion - namely, plebeian rebellion.

Outwardly, this conclusion as applied to Julien may seem a stretch, because outwardly his path throughout the novel is like the path of a hypocritical ambitious and careerist (ill-intentioned critics even called Stendhal's book "a textbook of hypocrisy"). Climbing from step to step on the social ladder of the era of the Restoration, from the humble position of a home teacher in a provincial provincial town to the position of secretary of the all-powerful Marquis de la Molle in Paris. Julien is a hypocrite everywhere. True, we have already found out that such behavior is imposed on him by society itself. Already in Verrieres - at the first stage of his biography - Julien understands what is required of him. The slightest suspicion of liberalism, of freethinking can instantly deprive a person of his social position: please, Sorel declares La Fontaine's fables immoral; worshiping Napoleon in his soul, he scolds him in public, because in the era of the Restoration this is the surest path. No less successfully he is a hypocrite in Paris, in the scrap of the Marquis de la Mol. In the image of the clever demagogue de la Mole, critics see features of similarity with Talleyrand - one of the most cunning politicians in France of that time, a man who managed to remain in government posts under all the numerous French political regimes of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Talleyrand elevated hypocrisy to the level of public policy and left France with brilliant, French-honed formulas for this hypocrisy.

So, in Julien's story, two layers, two dimensions must be distinguished. On the surface in front of us is the story of an adapting, hypocritical, careerist, who is not always making his way upward by impeccable paths - one might say, the classic role of French realistic literature of the 19th century, and Balzac's novels in particular. At this level, in this dimension, Julien Sorel is a variant of Eugène Rastignac, Lucien Chardon, later Maupassant's "dear friend". But in the depths of the plot in Julien's story, different laws operate - there is a parallel line, there unfold the adventures of the soul, which is structured “in Italian”, that is, it is not driven by calculation, not hypocrisy, but by passion and those very “first motives”, which, according to Talleyrand, should be feared, because they are always noble. ”Against this primordial nobility, I repeat, everything that seems to be impeccably built and calculated strategic dispositions of Julien is shattered.

At first, these two lines are not even perceived by us, we do not even suspect about their presence and about their secret work, secret interaction. We perceive the image of Julien Sorel in strict accordance with the model: he crushes in himself all the best impulses for the sake of a career. But in the development of the plot there comes a moment when we stop in confusion. The logic of the "model" gives a sharp breakdown. This is the scene when Julien shoots Madame de Renal for her “denunciation.” Up to this point, according to the plot, Sorel has risen to another very important step: he is already in Paris, he is the secretary of the influential Marquis de la Mola and he falls in love with his daughter ( or rather, makes her fall in love with herself.) Madame de Renal, his former love, remained somewhere there, in the Verrière, she is already forgotten, she has already passed the stage. la Mole, writes a "denunciation" to Matilda's father to warn her father against this "dangerous" person, whom she herself has become a victim of. church and shoots Madame de Renal, who is, of course, immediately arrested as a murderer.

All this external "detective" outline is described clearly, dynamically, without any emotion - Stendhal communicates only "bare facts" without explaining anything. He, so meticulous in motivating the actions of his hero, it was here, in the motivation for his crime, that he left a gaping gap. And this is exactly what amazes readers - and not only readers, but also critics. The scene of Julien's assassination on Madame de Renal gave rise to a lot of interpretations - because it did not fit into the "model", into logic.

What's going on here? From the most superficial, factual point of view, Julien Sorel takes revenge on the woman who ruined his career with her denunciation, that is, about the seemingly act of a careerist. But the question immediately arises: what kind of careerist is this if it is clear to everyone that he is completely ruining himself here - not only his career, but life in general! This means that even if we have a careerist in front of us, then he is very imprudent, impulsive. And to put it even more precisely, at this moment Julien actually already makes a choice, preferring death, sure suicide to a career, its further humiliations. This means that the element of those very inner motives that Julien had previously suppressed in himself finally burst into the external picture of the role, into the role of a careerist. The inner dimension, the latent, parallel line, came to the surface here. And now, after this dimension has entered the plot, Stendhal can give an explanation, reveal the riddle of Julien's shot.

Sitting in prison, Sorel reflects: "I was insulted in the most cruel way." And when he finds out that Madame de Renal is alive, he is seized with a storm of joy, relief. Now all his thoughts are with Madame de Renal. So what happened? It turns out that in this obvious crisis of consciousness (in "semi-madness") Julien instinctively acted as if he was already aware of his first love for Madame de Renal as the only true value of his life - only value. "displaced" from consciousness, from the heart under the influence of the requirements of an external, "masked" life. Julien seemed to have thrown off all this external life here, forgot about it, forgot everything that happened after his love for Madame de Renal, as if he had purified himself - and without the slightest embarrassment he considers himself insulted, he, who has changed Madame de Renal, in his "disguised" life, acts in these scenes as if he considers Madame de Renal a traitor; it was she who turned out to be a "traitor", and he punishes her for it!

Julien then finds his true self, returns to the purity and spontaneity of emotional impulses, his first true feeling. The second dimension won in him, his first and only love is still Madame de Renal, and he now rejects all attempts by Matilda to free him. Matilda put into play all her connections - and she is, in general, almost omnipotent - and achieved success: Julien is required only one thing - to make a speech of repentance at the trial. It would seem that he should do this - lie just one more time and thus save his life - after all, everyone has already been bribed! But now he does not want to save his life at such a price, does not want to take on a new lie - after all, this would mean not only returning to the world of universal corruption and hypocrisy, but also taking upon himself, of course, a moral obligation to Matilda, whom he already does not love. And so he pushes away the help of Matilda - and at the trial, instead of a speech of repentance, he utters an accusatory speech against modern society. This is how the primordial moral principle, which was originally laid in Julien's nature, triumphs, and so his non-conformism is fully revealed.

The novel ends with the physical death and spiritual enlightenment of the hero. This harmonious balance in the finale, this simultaneous recognition of the bitter truth of life and hovering over it gives Stendhal's tragic novel a surprisingly optimistic, major sound.

Julien Sorel's talent lies in the fact that he easily recognizes the true nature of things and phenomena, which in real life is usually hidden behind ideological and other screens. Julien Sorel is forced to assert himself, his "I" in the general mass of human mediocrity; around him - people who have ceased to develop internally, consciously embarking on the path of natural degradation. So, even in Verrieres, in a closed provincial society, which is based on a pyramidal system of privileges, Julien himself is initially perceived as an outcast - after all, he rushes upward and tries to occupy a worthy place in the structure of city management, which is already occupied by someone by right birth. For him, the "upper world" is an antagonistic class, a hostile social stratum that resists any invasion (and, accordingly, destruction) from the outside.

The author took a long time to write the novel. An officer of the Napoleonic army, Marie-Henri Beyle took part in the capture of Moscow in 1812, he had experienced a lot and seen a lot. The idea of ​​the work arose from him, most likely, already in 1821, after moving to Paris. The sensational police story with a young man who shot his mistress, most likely, served as the first impetus for the creation of the work. However, Henri Bayle was in no hurry to implement his plan. At that time, the retired officer turned into a successful journalist, was active in public and political life. A versatile creative activity helped the aspiring writer to deeper feel the atmosphere characteristic of the French society of the era of the restoration. Great writers are not born, they are made. How did the author live in those years, how did he develop as a writer and a creative person, what life circumstances accompanied the beginning of work on such a large-scale work? To answer this question, let us turn to authoritative foreign sources.

“In 1821, at the age of 38, Henri Bayle, living in Paris, after a seven-year voluntary exile in Milan, earned from 1600 to 1800 francs a year and even received a tiny military pension. Judging by his letters, Stendhal's contacts with the outside world were limited, and only gradually, over the years, he began to establish contacts with such publications as le Journal de Paris and le Mercure de France, which gave him the opportunity to replenish his life impressions and, while maintaining independence, lead a respectable existence, to which Henri Bayle accustomed to Italy. ”After a while, through his intermediary, an Irish lawyer and journalist named Streetsch, he became the French correspondent for New Monthly Magazine, then edited by the poet Thomas Campbell, and two years later correspondent for London Magazin. As early as January 1822. a number of his articles, among which were the first two chapters of Racine and Shakespeare, began to appear in French or English translation in Paris Monthly Review. The New Monthly, however, continued to be his main source of income, which thus increased to £ 200 a year. This was facilitated, for example, by the publication of 55 pages of short articles in London Magazin, and, in the same month, the publication of ten newspaper columns in New Montly. De la Cruz in his "Memoirs of the Sixties" said that Beyle listened to the arguments and chatter of famous politicians and thinkers in Madame d'Anbernon's salon (maybe this particular salon served as a prototype for the salon of the Marquis de la Mole - V.T.), was exposed to influence of their ideas and had good reason to exclaim one day: "My articles are healthy and stuck together!" The agreement with London Magazin lasted for 5 years, almost until 1827, when Andrew Colborne, the owner of New Monthly, began to delay payment - just as Baile's military pension was cut in half. Like Charles Lamb before him (the exclamation of that: "Probably Colborn was born in coal!" Colborne is extremely dubious in business .... At the same time, the Athenaeum published a number of other articles by Beyle. However, his position was now almost hopeless and he was unable to continue the life of a free-thinking journalist. Bayle's last article in the English press was probably the one that appeared in the New Monthly Magazine in August 1829. , two months before he began the first chapters of Red and Black. The July Revolution gave him a chance to advance and, with the assistance of his liberal friends, in September 1830 Beyle was appointed French consul in Trieste. "

Now, when, in a nutshell, you can get an idea of ​​the conditions under which the author began work on the work, it is time to turn to the novel itself, or rather to the image of its protagonist. Let us take the liberty to express a subjective point of view on some of the key points of "Red and Black" that characterize Julien Sorel as a social type.

Throughout the entire narrative, the main character is tormented by one question: why does he live, what is his role? Everything that surrounds him - what is it all for? For love, for love? He learns about what true love is not in a loving embrace, but only when he is in prison, where he suddenly clearly understands that the connection with Matilda flattered his pride, and nothing more. Julien Sorel, who grew up without a mother, knew true happiness only with Louise de Renal.

Let's take a closer look at everything with which, in one way or another, the main character comes into contact with in the surrounding reality. What could interest Julien Sorel in this life? Money, career? Everything is saturated through and through with a deadening lie, which the living soul of a young man does not accept. By the way, Julien understands this even in Verrier ... Literary fame? Already in Paris, tormented by loneliness in a cold and alien aristocratic mansion, Sorel sees how they treat those who "want to talk about everything, but they themselves do not even have a thousand ecu of rent." (Let us recall the special meaning Abbot Pirard puts into these words of the Duke de Castries when he reminds Julien of them. what he saw and partly experienced in Verrier, Besançon and Paris, burns his only literary work - a commendation to the retired staff doctor.) Well, what about the revolution? She attracts Julien's attention, but he cannot help but feel in the depths of his soul that he hates to overthrow the existing system for the sake of the uncouth village guys with whom fate brought him in the hostel of the Besançon seminary, whose ignorance and stupidity, backed up by power, is unlikely to serve the prosperity of France. .. Note also that as the plot unfolds in the second part of the novel, Julien Sorel's attitude towards Count Altamira, the notorious Italian revolutionary nationalist, is transformed and skeptical and mocking notes begin to prevail in it. (For a joke, Stendhal called this professional aristocrat-conspirator a name very similar to the name of one of the heroes of the famous play by Beaumarchais.) Without realizing it, Julien Sorel does not want to become a subversion of the foundations - neither for himself, his goal in itself, nor for the sake of the downtrodden, dark people, whose stupidity and self-righteous savagery causes disgust in him (he does not want to break his fate because of those who mocked him in Verrieres and Besançon - remember, for example, the "reason" due to which Julien was severely beaten by his older brothers ). Why would he have such a fate? Did he dream of her? The formation of the character of the hero can be traced within the narrow framework of circumstances imposed on him from the outside; all the time he grabs at some invisible thread that holds him in this life; he is saved in this world by the human dignity of those whom fate has sent him: the kindness of the Abbot Shelan, the love of Louise de Renal, the severity of the Abbot Pirard, the tolerance of the Marquis de la Mole. Communication with each of these extraordinary people becomes a stage in Julien's life. But Matilda's initial contempt for her father's secretary, and then her passionate uncontrollable "love", based on a static, instinctive, animal desire to become a "slave" of someone else's inner strength, psychologically breaks Julien Sorel. He begins to understand that in a privileged class, human dignity does not solve anything, on the contrary, more often they harm their owner ...

Gradually gaining life experience, learning what life can teach in an oligarchic society built on class inequality, the hero of the novel "Red and Black" brilliantly masters the skill of court hypocrisy, begins to benefit from human weaknesses, stops believing in people, but in the end, he cannot withstand this rise, breaks down from the career ladder, acts according to his conscience (even if it is a shot at his former mistress, who allegedly cheated on him), and not on the mind, and as a result ends up on the scaffold. Skillfully constructing the collision of the final chapters of the novel, the author leads the reader to the idea that Julien Sorel himself pushes himself to death, does not resist it, is looking for it.

There is an interesting episode in the novel. Having perfectly mastered the art of pretense, Julien strikes up a close acquaintance with Madame de Fervac, to whom he is completely indifferent, but who should arouse jealousy in Matilda de la Mole - and suddenly discovers that now he is no different from those whom he previously despised, who live in idleness at the expense of the people. (Here we should not forget: at the very least, Julien Sorel works, earns his living as an intellectual proletarian. After all, he is the secretary of an important dignitary and nobleman. This is his difference from aristocrats who live on everything ready.)

The degenerate inhabitants of the capital of the once mighty state need Julien's sharp mind, his magnificent memory, decency, which is not so easy to find in the "high society", "elite", etc. protein mass). This explains the appearance of the carpenter's son at a secret gathering of opposition-minded aristocrats, the description of which the author devoted several chapters.

(Note: finishing the novel, Stendhal certainly foresaw the next Parisian "revolution." "Chronicle of the XIX century" - VT, which attracts our attention, does not confuse us and only persistently reminds us that the author wanted to say: this is 1830 and nothing happened ").

Indeed, Stendhal is in a hurry to warn his readers: "politics is a stone around the neck of literature." The author changes his perspective in time, switches the reader's attention from heated conspirators to Julien, who memorizes the main theses of the debate and retells it in the form of a "secret note" to an important person ... Summarizing his rich personal experience, the author gradually hints: any of his young readers may turn out to be in the position of Sorel - failures in life will force him to look for someone to blame for the existing inequality of property and go to the crowd of "dissatisfied", to seriously engage in politics.

Well, what other choice in life could the era of restoration offer Julien Sorel (that is, the transitional period, the time of the forcible introduction "from above" of the former, thoroughly rotten economic relations and ineffective, discredited social institutions inherent in absolute monarchy)? Stendhal puts this two-pronged choice in the title of the novel. Moreover, the transformation that the title of the book underwent in the process of its creation corresponded to a gradual change in the author's position in relation to the main character. "We can see the dualism of the title in its essence:" red and black "- an attempt to look from different angles at the flow of things. The two-fold structure persists in one of Stendhal's headlines Seduction and Repentance ... a joke for Stendhal: Julien seduces and he repents ... But we will see that his seduction is not seduction, but his repentance is something else. Red is the army, black is the church. "

The tragedy of the protagonist of the novel "Red and Black" lies, first of all, in the impossibility of realizing his ideals in the surrounding reality. Julien does not feel like one among the aristocrats, nor among the bourgeois, nor among the clergy, nor, even more so, among the peasants. He is in despair all the time: he has absolutely nothing to rely on in a life that he does not want to live. His daring actions, filled with mind-blowing courage, over and over again camouflage his own invented way: to force himself to live, feeling the risk and danger, saving himself. The news of Louise de Renal's "betrayal" seems to cut the thread he held on to, unwinding the ball of fate. Julien Sorel no longer resists the life imposed on him and deliberately shoots his former mistress in order to quickly part with the hateful earthly existence.

Let us add: the fatal shot at Louise de Renal is not only Julien Sorel's last attempt to "break free" from the tangle of the cruel material world that enmeshed him, but also his only and tragic chance to return to the ideals of youth again, that is, to find the soul lost in the capital ...

Throughout the entire novel "Red and Black", its protagonist flaunts his loneliness before himself, which becomes for him a synonym for personal decency. It is no coincidence that when the plot is nearing its denouement, the successful hero (who secretly married Matilda de la Mole and shortly before the fatal shot received a patent from the hands of the frustrated Marquis, giving the right to bear the aristocratic name "Lieutenant de la Vernet") recalls Napoleon again. Julien Sorel perceives the deposed emperor, first of all, as a person who lived his life according to his conscience, that is, the way he wanted to live it. And with disgust he feels that he himself, Julien de la Vernet, is already being sucked in by the nobility's well-being, in which his lovely wife feels so comfortable: this world of rentals, civil sheets, order ribbons, mansions, personal lackeys, etc., the world "lower" and "higher". Julien de la Vernet in the depths of his soul cannot but understand: this was not what he dreamed of in his youth. He is disgusted to lay his life on the altar of the ruling, possessing class, to devote it to the intellectual service of a tangle of idle people living at the expense of the people of superfluous people.

So, who is Julien Sorel - a failed priest, revolutionary, officer, nobleman? .. No, he is a tragic type of the era of accelerated development of industrial relations, when people, involuntarily included in these relations, are forced to were irretrievably forgetting about the moral categories that had been laid down for centuries by folk, traditionalist education (it was not for nothing that Stendhal's congenial contemporary P.Ya. ").

The impossibility of performing a moral deed compatible with success in life is what torments Julien Sorel throughout the novel. The futility of moral asceticism in the emerging society of universal consumption forces the protagonist of "Red and Black" to brush aside the impulses of his own soul. The soul is not needed where power prevails. This brings Julien Sorel to a dramatic ending.

Having traced the fate of his hero, Stendhal seems to suggest to the reader a logical conclusion: it is impossible to achieve true justice in society neither through a social revolution, that is, the destruction of dead bureaucratic structures, nor through a personal career in these structures. When a struggle for political power between power groups unfolds, the people, the main producer of material goods, inevitably remain the loser. A conclusion that is very relevant for our country, which, almost falling apart, entered the 21st century with a creak.

2. The vanity of Julien Sorel

What does vanity mean? According to V. Dahl's dictionary, vanity means “to look for vain or vain, absurd, false glory, external honor, brilliance, honor or praise; to boast, to boast, to ascend, being jealous of external signs of honor in general; to boast of merits, dignity, and one's wealth, brag, boast. " And the vain one is one who "who greedily seeks worldly or vain glory, strives for honor, for praise, demands recognition of his imaginary merits, does good not for the sake of good, but for the sake of praise, honor and external signs, honors."

In the case of the protagonist of Stendhal's novel, Julien Sorel, Dahl's definition is as fair as it is unfair. Indeed, in life, as well as in this novel, unsurpassed in its deepest psychologicalism, everything is much more complicated. Stendhal is inexhaustible, showing the reader all the unimaginable shades of vanity generated by pride, pride, jealousy, self-conceit and other human passions and vices.

Julien Sorel is the son of a carpenter. But unlike his two brothers, stupid giants with pound fists, he is ambitious (here is another synonym for vanity, usually taken in a positive sense), he is literate, intelligent and talented. His idol is Napoleon, whose memoirs, written on the island of St. Helena, he avidly reads at his sawmill, while a power saw saws through huge trees. Julien Sorel knows everything about his hero. He raves about his glory, greatness, military successes, strength of personality. But, unfortunately, Napoleon is defeated. His heroic era is over. The era of the Restoration is in the yard, that is, the aristocrats again took power into their own hands. People from the common people who, during the reign of Napoleon, could make their way with courage, intelligence and talent, now, in the post-Napoleonic age of hypocrisy and flattery, have no road. They must die.

Julien Sorel hates his cunning and illiterate peasant, his father, brothers, the sawmill and everything that makes it impossible for him to be like Napoleon - in a word, to do great things, to become famous among people, to be the first among equals. Fate gives him a chance: the mayor of the city of Verrieres, Monsieur de Renal, wants to take him into his house as a teacher of his children. This is the first step on the path to Napoleonic glory that Julien Sorel dreams of. He immediately falls from the most seedy society of commoners, among whom he was born and lived, into the circle of local provincial aristocrats.

However, Julien Sorel is secretly obsessed with a particular kind of vanity. It is this that is the source of stormy passions in his soul. This is the "Napoleonic complex" of the hero, the essence of which is that at all costs he must realize any of his thoughts or desires, no matter how extravagant they may seem. He shows a monstrous will to be worthy of his hero Napoleon and then not to regret that he missed his chance, did not do what could then torment his soul, because he was not at the height of his idol. Here is the beginning of the novel.

And from the very beginning of the novel, Stendhal consistently shows the reader this monstrous gap in the hero's soul: his proud desire to become an extraordinary hero, like Napoleon, his nobility and dignity, on the one hand, and the need to hide his ardent soul, make his way through hypocrisy and cunning, to deceive narrow-minded provincial townsfolk, saints-tartuffe or Parisian aristocrats, on the other hand. In him, in his ardent soul, two principles seem to be fighting: "red and black", that is, true greatness generated by good impulses of the heart, and the blackest hatred, a vain desire to rule and command a crowd of rich and envious scum, who happened to be richer and more noble than him, Julien Sorel.

So, this nineteen-year-old boy, in whose soul a volcano of passions is boiling, approaches the grate of the brilliant house of the mayor of his city and meets Madame de Renal. She speaks to him affectionately and with love, so that for the first time he feels sympathy from a human being, especially such an unusually beautiful woman. His heart melts and is ready to believe in all the best that can be in a person. At the same time, this is prevented by Sorel's second nature - his Napoleonic complex, the measure of his own actions in relation to people, which sometimes becomes his evil demon and torments him endlessly. Stendhal writes: “And suddenly a daring thought occurred to him - to kiss her hand. to my advantage and to bring down a little bit of contemptuous arrogance with which this beautiful lady must be treating the poor artisan who has just left the saw. "

The only merit that Julien Sorel possesses is his intelligence and extraordinary memory: he knows the whole Gospel by heart in Latin and can quote it up and down from any place for as long as he pleases. But poverty sharpens his pride and scruples about his human dignity, which is so easy to infringe or hurt.

That is why, when Madame de Renal, herself not knowing how already in love with a handsome young man, wants to give him money for linen, he rejects her gift with proud indignation, and after that “to love Madame de Renal for Julien's proud heart became something completely unthinkable "(p. 44). On the contrary, Madame de Renal is increasingly interested in the noble and distinctive nature of Julien Sorel. And here Stendhal gives the first examples of love-vanity: Madame de Renal, dying of happiness, makes her servant Eliza repeat several times the story of how Julien Sorel refused to marry her, and, in order to please herself, to hear this refusal again from her lips Julien himself, she assures the maid that she will personally try to convince the intractable tutor to marry Eliza. She sews toilets with short sleeves and deep cuts, changes her dresses two or three times a day so that her lover will pay attention to her amazing skin. “She was very well built, and such outfits suited her perfectly” (p. 56).

In turn, Julien, having read once again some of Napoleon's sayings about women, decided "that he must ensure that this pen does not withdraw from now on when he touches it" (p. 58). Moreover, he supported his vanity, which he took for true willpower, by reading Napoleon, so that this book would “temper his spirit” (p. 59). Such is the strength of the Napoleonic complex in the hero's soul that he is ready to kill himself, just not to drop his opinion of himself in the spirit of "heroic duty", which he imagined to himself: "As soon as the clock strikes ten, I will do what I promised myself ( ...), - otherwise I go to my place, and a bullet in the forehead "(p.60). When in the darkness of the night he does what he has planned, his love victory does not bring him any pleasure, only endless physical fatigue, so that he falls asleep "dead sleep, completely exhausted by the struggle that shyness and pride waged in his heart during the whole day." (p. 61).

The way up, where Julien planned to get to at any cost, almost broke off at once, at the first steps of the career ladder, because he sewed the portrait of his idol Napoleon into a mattress, and the royalist Monsieur de Renal, who hates Napoleon, decided to re-fill all the mattresses in the house with corn straw. If not for Madame de Renal, to whom Julien turned for help, the true face of Julien Sorel would have been revealed. Julien burns the portrait in the fireplace and learns that the wife of his employer is in love with him. At first, in this intrigue, he is again driven not by love, but by petty vanity: "... if I do not want to lose respect for myself, I must become her lover" (p. 86). “I also have to succeed with this woman,” his petty vanity continued to whisper to Julien, “that if later someone decides to reproach me with the pitiful title of tutor, I can hint that love pushed me to this” (p.87) ...

The essence of vanity is that it completely deprives Sorel of his natural impulses of feeling. He keeps himself in the iron grip of his idea of ​​how a man should achieve the love of a woman. Napoleonic sudden march-dash, cavalry charge - and here he is the winner on the battlefield. He tells Madame de Renal that he will be in her room at two in the morning. An incredible fear seizes him, he feels deeply unhappy, not at all wanting this meeting, but as soon as two struck on the big clock of the castle, he, like a condemned to death, like the Apostle Peter, who heard the cock crow, begins to act: "... I can be an ignoramus and rude, as it is, of course, befitting a peasant's son (...), but at least I will prove that I am not a nonentity "(p. 93). Only gradually Julien, having mastered the soul and will of Madame de Renal, gets rid of vanity, which served as the primary cause, as well as the driving cause of this love: "His love was still largely nourished by vanity: he was glad that he, a beggar, an insignificant despicable creature , possesses such a beautiful woman "(p.99). Her reciprocal passion "sweetly flattered his pride" (p. 99).

Stendhal sees the origins of vanity in pride. And pride, as you know, can be as much as there are people inhabiting the globe. By chance, Julien Sorel, during the meeting of the king in Verrieres, witnesses how the young Bishop of Agda (he is slightly older than Julien) rehearses in front of the mirror for the distribution of blessings to believers. During the service, he manages to seem old, which delights Julien Sorel: "Everything can be achieved by skill and cunning" (p. 117). Here vanity lies in the creation of the image of an old man wise with holiness, the king's mediator before the Lord God himself.

Before fate lifts Julien Sorel upstairs, to Paris, to the salons of the highest Parisian world, where ministers, dukes and bishops govern politics, he must pass the art of the seminary, where three hundred seminarians hate him, want to destroy him, spy on him. If they could win and break the will of Julien Sorel, their vanity would be satisfied. These little people in the seminary care only for a full stomach and a lucrative vicar's place, where they gather with the help of a hypocritical sermon to squeeze all the juices out of their flock and prosper. Such petty vanity abhorrent to the lofty soul of Julien Sorel.

The world that Stendhal paints seems to be an eerie bunch of freaks and scoundrels. To this whole world, the pride, pride of Julien Sorel is challenging. His belief in his own uniqueness and originality helps him survive.

The Parisian world of moneybags, aristocrats, ministers - this is another circle of Dante's hell of vanity, into which Julien Sorel plunges. The patron of the hero, the Marquis de La Mole, is extremely polite, exquisitely polite, but in this politeness there is a deep vanity. It consists in the fact that, in addition to the desire to become a minister (in the end, this is carried out), the Marquis de La Mole dreams of becoming a duke, becoming related through the marriage of his daughter with the Duke de Retz. A material sign of his vanity is a blue ribbon over his shoulder. The Marquis de La Mole hates the rabble. He becomes the soul of a royalist conspiracy, the meaning of which, with the help of the allied countries, is to establish the power of the king, to return all the advantages of the tribal aristocracy and the clergy, to remove the bourgeoisie from the power that it received as a result of Napoleon's policies. Julien Sorel, just personifying the rabble that the Marquis de La Mol hates so much, becomes a witness and even a participant in the conspiracy of "talkers", as he mentally calls him.

Immeasurable vanity is also motivated by the daughter of the Marquis de La Mol, Matilda. Her full name is Matilda-Margherita, in honor of the French queen Margot, whose lover was Boniface de La Mole, the famous ancestor of the La Mole family. He was beheaded as a conspirator on the Place de Grève on April 30, 1574. Queen Margot bought the head of Boniface La Mola from the jailer and buried it with her own hand. Since then, every year on April 30, Matilda de La Mole has mourned for Boniface de La Mole. In other words, her vanity has heroic roots.

Matilda falls in love with Julien Sorel, too, out of vanity: he is a commoner and at the same time unusually proud, independent, intelligent, possesses remarkable willpower - in a word, he sharply differs from those seemingly brilliant and at the same time faceless aristocratic gentlemen who surround the beautiful Matilda ... She thinks, looking at Julien, what will happen to him and her admirers if the bourgeois revolution begins again: "... what role will Croisenois and my brother have then to play? She is already predetermined: majestic obedience to fate. These will be heroic rams, who will allow themselves to be cut without the slightest resistance (...) And my little Julien, if he has any hope of escape, will put a bullet in the forehead of the first Jacobin who comes to arrest him "(pp. 342-343).

The love of Matilda de La Mole and Julien Sorel is a struggle of vanities. Matilda falls in love with him because he does not love her. What right does he have not to love her if everyone else adores her ?! Not in the least loving, Julien climbs up the stairs to her room, mortally risking his life, because she is afraid to be reputed "in her eyes as the most contemptible coward" (p. 364). However, as soon as Julien really fell in love with Matilda, her vanity tells her that she, in whose veins almost royal blood flows, has surrendered to a commoner, "the first person she meets" (p. 379), and therefore meets her beloved with fierce hatred, so that he , in turn, almost kills her with the old sword La Molay, which again flatter Matilda's pride and again pushes her towards Julien, so that soon he will reject him again and torment him with icy coldness.

The Russian prince Korazov successfully enters the battle of vanities, who advises Julien Sorel to look after another (the widow of Marshal de Fervac) in front of the one he loves. Male vanity here crosses swords with female: who will win in this duel of pride? Julien Sorel wins, but at what cost! It seems that now his vanity can rest on its laurels. Matilda herself invites him to marry her. The Marquis de La Mole is forced to give Julien a lieutenant patent for an elite regiment. And suddenly fate in an instant shakes the ladder of vanity leading upward. Madame de Renal sends the Marquis de La Mole a letter that mixes Julien Sorel with mud. He goes to Verrieres and shoots his former lover. The "red" (true, present) won the "black" (vanity) in Julien's soul: he unpredictably, refuting all former calculations, with his own hands destroys the ladder of vanity that he had erected. It is the direct person who wins in him, and not the established calculating mechanism that elevates him to the pinnacle of power.

Matilda de La Mole, on the contrary, at this turning point gets the opportunity to indulge her vanity with might and main: while Julien Sorel is awaiting execution in the prison tower and must be beheaded, like the hero of Matilda Boniface de La Mole, she nurtures the dream of saving her beloved, bringing him to the name of his salvation is such incredible sacrifices that everyone around will be amazed and many decades later will talk about her amazing love passion. Julien is executed - and Matilda, like Queen Margot, kisses his decapitated head, buries it in a cave with his own hand and throws thousands of five-franc coins into the crowd of people. Thus, the incredible heroic vanity of Matilda de La Mole triumphs to be imprinted in the memory of people forever.

The finale of the novel is the finding of the truth by Julien Sorel. In the face of death, vanity finally leaves his ardent soul. All that remains is love for Madame de Renal. Suddenly, he realizes that his thorny road upward is a mistake, that the vanity that he was driven by for so many years did not allow him to enjoy the true life, or rather love for Madame de Renal. He did not understand the main thing - that it was for him the only gift of fate, which he rejected, chasing the chimeras of vanity. The last meetings with Madame de Renal are moments of happiness, high love, where there is no place for vanity and pride.

So, the novel "Red and Black" is an encyclopedia of vanity and at the same time a warning novel, the educational role of which in Stendhal's attempt to show the 19th century reader the paths of love that always lie far away from the seductive and disastrous road of vanity. In the XX and XXI centuries, this goal of the novel remains relevant: the forms of vanity have changed, but vanity itself, alas! - still owns people and makes them deeply unhappy.

conclusions

So, we can say that Julien Sorel is a real character in all respects, and this is reflected in his thoughts, and in his actions and fate.

Julien Sorel's behavior is determined by the political situation.

She linked into a single and inseparable whole the picture of morals and the drama of experiences, the fate of the hero of the novel.

Julien Sorel is a talented plebeian with a "strikingly distinctive face." In his family, he is like an ugly duckling: his father and brothers hate the "puny", useless young man. At nineteen, he looks like a frightened boy.

And in him lies and seethes tremendous energy - the power of a clear mind, proud character, unbending will, "fierce sensitivity." His soul and imagination are fiery, in his eyes there is a flame. This is not a portrait of a Byronic hero opposed to real life, everyday life. Julien is a youth from the people, in which the "sacred fire" of ambition is increasingly flaring up. He stands at the foot of the social ladder. And he feels that he is able to perform great deeds and rise above the rich. But circumstances are hostile to him.

Julien knows for sure: he lives in the camp of enemies. Therefore, he is embittered, secretive and always wary. No one knows how much he hates the arrogant rich: he has to pretend. No one knows what he enthusiastically dreams of, rereading his favorite books - Russo and "Memorial of St. Helena Island" Las

Kaza. His hero, deity, teacher is Napoleon, a lieutenant who became an emperor. If Julien had been born earlier, he, a soldier of Napoleon, would have won glory on the battlefields. His element is heroic deeds. He appeared on earth too late - no one needs exploits. And yet he, like a lion cub among wolves, lonely, believes in his own strength - and nothing else.

Literature

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2. Jean Prevost "Stendhal: an experience in the study of literary skill and the psychology of the writer." "Fiction" M.-2007. - 129 p.

3. Müller-Kochetkova, Tatiana Volfovna. Stendal: meetings with the past and the present / T. V. Müller-Kochetkova. - Riga: Liesma, 2007 .-- 262

4. Prevost, J. Stendhal. Experience in the study of literary skill and the psychology of the writer: trans. with fr. / J. Prevost. - M.-L .: Goslitizdat, 1960 .-- 439 p.

5. Reizov B.G. "Stendhal: artistic creation". "Fiction". - SPb .: "Peter", 2006. - 398 p.

6. Stendhal. Red and black. - M, "Fiction" (series "Library of World Literature"), 1969, p. 278.

7. Chadaev P.Ya. Articles. Letters. - M., "Contemporary", 2007, p. 49.

8. Fried Ya.V. Stendhal: an outline of life and work / Ya. V. Fried. - 2nd ed., Revision. and add. - M .: Fiction, 1967 .-- 416 p.