Essay Questions

The book is titled ‘the Red and the Black’. What does these colors represent in the story?

Throughout the story, we see Julien struggle between two options to reach his goals, ( which is, to get power and glory ) he can either stick with the clergy or try to join the army with the help of nobility. The ‘Black’ represents the color of the clergy and their outfits while the ‘Red’ represents the army and their uniform. At the beginning of the book, Julien wants to climb up the ranks by becoming a soldier but realizes that it’s nearly impossible to do without a trace of nobility attached to his name. He then decides to try his hand at becoming a priest, but he fails because he doesn’t believe in God, therefore he can’t commit to it. Alternatively, these colors can also be said to represent love and death, two themes which are also prominent in the story.

Analyze Julien’s relationships with Madame de Renal and Mathilde de la Mole.

Right from the beginning, we know that Madame de Renal is older than Julien. In fact, she calls him “my boy” when they first meet each other. She was expecting to see a mean, wrinkled old man and was relieved when she instead found a young, shy lad who looked like a young girl. They fell in love and compared to his affair with Mathilde, their love was “pure”. When Monsieur de Renal was absent, Julien almost took the role of a husband, showing affection towards the children because Madame de Renal cared about them. The only problem was that Madame de Renal was very religious due to her upbringing and she believed that her child became sick because of her “sinful affair”. At the end of the novel, Julien realized that it was Madame de Renal whom he truly loved. It can be said that Madame de Renal brought out Julien’s more emotional, romantic side due to her calmer, sweeter nature.

However, Julien’s relationship with Mathilde de la Mole was much more turbulent. The daughter of a parisian aristocrat, Mathilde was spoiled, bored all the time and belittled everyone around her, even people from the same class as her. Stendhal even very clearly mocks her throughout the novel, calling her a passionate romantic but also mentally unstable. When Julien met her for the first time, he compared her to Madame de Renal and found Mathilde “cold and bleak”. Their relationship was often based on ambitions and pride, both sides acted on their pride rather than their true emotions. It can be said that Mathilde brought out Julien’s ambitious, cold and manipulative side.

Explain the aspects of the novel which make it a psychological novel.

Throughout the novel, Stendhal excessively explains the inner thoughts of his three main characters, Julien, Louise and Mathilde. Stendhal considered himself a scientist of love and he believed that love could be explained in four different ways: vanity love, physical love, passion love and stylish love. We see that Julien’s love towards Madame de Renal starts as a “vanity love”, her status and wealth piques his interest. Julien also plays a variety of mind games to make Mathilde fall in love with him. Stendhal usually focuses on the way the characters feel and then compares it to facts. For example, Julien considers himself to be a skilled seducer multiple times in the novel and his thoughts reflects his confidence, but in reality, he can only get Madame de Renal to be with him after he awkwardly cries while hugging her knees. Or when Mathilde is attacked by Julien with an antique sword, we see that Mathilde is actually aroused by this action, because she finds the act ‘very chivalrous’ despite the fact that Julien literally threatens her. These kinds of long descriptions delving into the thoughts of the characters are abundant in the novel, making it one of the finest examples of a psychological novel.

Explain the ideals behind Julien’s defense at his own trial and the consequences of his speech.

When Julien is given the chance to defend himself at the trial, rather than asking for mercy, Julien uses this opportunity to denounce the aristocracy. According to him, the reason why he is going to be condemned to death is not because he attempted to murder someone, but because he dared to climb the social ladder. The aristocracy is judgmental and according to him, they never truly accepted him, because he was not born noble, he only managed to earn a title after his hard work. He also remarks that there is not one single peasants on the jury benches and that he’s judged by ‘the indignant bourgeois’, which he finds unjust. He hopes that others will also start to see this corruption and warns the aristocracy, because a revolution is coming. By the end of his speech, the crowd is astounded and there are even people who starts to weep. Julien himself is proud of himself and he tells Mathilde that this was his finest speech. He is finally relieved because he states his thoughts without any boundaries. However, the jury finds him guilty and executes him. It is implied ( although not confirmed ) that he would have gotten away with his crime if it wasn’t for his speech.