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| 7 December 2000 | ||||||||
| The character of Julien Sorel in Stendhal's Red and Black is many things to many people. To his family, he is a weak, oddball son who deserves derision; to Mme. R�nal, he is a passionate lover who has led her from God; to M. Valenod, he is a peasant unworthy of both the fellowship of the upper-class and their mercy. To the modern-day reader, however, Julien stands apart as a product of the Enlightenment. Embodied in the character of Julien are the glories of the Enlightenment and its impact on society as a whole as well as its shortcomings and mistakes. Red and Black is by no means a work of post-modernism; it falls more in line with Romanticism than any other genre. Yet this work highlights many of the same faults of the Enlightenment as the post-modern critics, namely, that the Enlightenment disparaged minorities, valued reason over spiritualism and emotion, and helped fuel the empiricist nature of the countries that developed it. At the same time, Julien is a character who would not have existed before the Enlightenment; his ideas of social structure and religion - his very nature - would have been dictated by a completely different set of ideas. The saga of Julien's life was a byproduct of the age preceding it, and by examining his nature, his motivations and ambitions, and his place in society, some of the implications of Enlightenment thought can be assessed. | ||||||||
| Julien Sorel is a complicated character, made more so by Stendhal's semi-sporadic infusion of Julien's thoughts throughout the novel. But from Julien's own actions, some assessments about his character can be made. First, Julien appears to follow Locke's way of learning: sensation first, then reflection. For instance, Julien had not begun to think of women in the romantic sense until his hand brushed against Mme. R�nal's. After that first touch, Julien was absorbed with the thought of touching her hand again. Julien continues to learn in this method: for instance, he could not understand his happiness at Vergy until after he had left, and he had no way to grasp the implications of shooting Mme. R�nal until after the deed was done. In each instance, sensation came first, then reflection. But reflection is not always a godsend for Julien. In each instance, reflection brings only misery; Julien may be wiser but he is not as happy as he was before he made his errors. Yet according to the Enlightenment, he should be, if for no other reason than that Julien is the paragon of reason. He has had plans for his future since he was young; "Julien had scarcely passed an hour without reminding himself that Bonaparte, starting as a poor and obscure lieutenant, had made himself master of the world" (Stendhal 19). To this end, Julien fantasizes about being in the military, but realizes that in post-Napoleonic France, the military is not the place for a young man of ignoble birth to make his mark. For this reason, Julien, though feeling no particular affinity for God and never really revealing that he even believed in a god, decides to make his career in the Church. Reason and logic dictated his path; the same "reason" that Voltaire says Isaac Newton cultivated so well in England was cultivated in a different way in France by Julien. Julien's affection for reason and logic makes itself most apparent in his veneration of the great strategist Napoleon. It is Napoleon, and not women or kings or God, that fills Julien's thoughts in his youth, so much so that Julien admits to keeping a "portrait of Napoleon" with "phrases written in my own hand which leave no doubt of the depth of my admiration!" (Stendhal 48). As such, Julien sees this part of his life as a war, with every social interaction a battle that must be fought and won. It was his "duty" to make Mme. R�nal hold his hand throughout the evening; it was his "duty" to make love to her. He looks to Napoleon's M�moires dictated at Saint Helena to direct his dealings with Mathilde: "The enemy will obey me only if I make him afraid, then he won't dare to despise me" (Stendhal 343). Even taking the first steps to the R�nals' home required Julien to utter "To arms!" before he could muster the courage to go (Stendhal 20). For Stendhal, this cold, calculating way of viewing the world - as a battlefield that could be won through superior strategy - was not enough to fulfill Julien's ambitions, and, more importantly, his happiness. Julien, as a product of the Enlightenment, had been taught that reason above all else was to be cherished, but it was only when he got away from reason, when he embraced his irrational love of Mme R�nal, whose letter to the Marquis de la Mole ended all of his chances of attaining fame and fortune and thus negated his life-long dreams, that Julien found himself content. And lo and behold, Mme. R�nal herself, a recent convert to extreme religiosity and the receiver of the bullet to the back, unreasonably, inconceivably still loves Julien. In this respect, the post-modern critics of the Enlightenment strike the right note; by ignoring the spiritual and emotional side of humans, Enlightenment philosophers had neglected the spirit and the emotions, the things that bring humans above idle contentment to misery or happiness. | ||||||||
| Had Julien relied more on emotion rather than rationality, his life would have surely been different, but not necessarily better. In fact, Julien may have achieved more in life if he had been more cold-blooded and more calculating (witness John D. Rockefeller). In essence, Julien's logic was inherently flawed. He expected to rise through the ranks of priesthood to a reputable position, but he detested the characters of the upper-class and abhorred the actions of many of the Catholic church hierarchy, particularly Abb� Castan�de, whom Julien once thought of as "one of [the earth's] lowest scoundrels" (Stendhal 315). In Julien's scheme, happiness would somehow come from attaining a high level position in the Church. | ||||||||
| Yet his motivations and ambitions, flawed though they may have been, were not without merit. The mere fact that Julien, the son of a carpenter will little formal education, could rise through the ranks was a direct result of Enlightenment thought and Napoleon's reign. Julien, like so many after him, was attempting to establish himself as someone worth something, regardless of his low birth. In this sense, Julien has a lot in common with Olaudah Equiano.� When Equiano is finally given his manumission by his owner, the Captain, he writes, "Heavens! Who could do justice to my feelings at this moment? Not conquering heroes themselves, in the midst of a triumph" (Equiano 136). The passage in Red and Black when Julien takes the title of lieutenant of hussars echoes this sentiment: "His joy knew no bounds. It can be estimated from the ambition of his whole life, and from the passion he was now feeling for his new son. The change of name struck him with wonder" (Stendhal 359). For both of these men, success meant rising above what society had relegated to them. But Julien's success had none of the altruistic aspects of Equiano's; Equiano, kidnapped into slavery, had gained his freedom, which he promptly used to glorify God and work against slavery through his writings. For Julien, this success that made him so rapturous was the obtaining of a title, something he could use to set himself apart from the untitled masses. In this respect, Julien is like a leader of the French Revolution, one of those who Madame de Sta�l characterized as having a "craving for ephemeral applause" (Sta�l 163). This was not the first time Julien had fallen prey to vanity; when the King visited Verrieres at the beginning of the novel, Julien, as an honor guard with brand-new epaulets, was "the center of attention" where he was "in his glory" (Stendhal 81). Napoleon's principle of merit-before-birth had given young Julien Sorel the hope of leaving the sawmill to join the leagues of the military; Mme. R�nal, through her love of Julien, stoked this fantasy. And what could be more splendid than seeing a man in uniform, conjuring up images of immense bravery and awesome courage and daring feats and so many close calls! It is no wonder that Napoleon realized glory for the lower classes could only be found in war. How unfortunate that glory for one means defeat for another; France could not have its empire without taking land and men that did not belong to her. But Napoleon used the military to give men their opportunity, and the opportunities could only come through declarations of war. The Enlightenment may not have spawned the ideas that led nations to become empiricists by the beginning of the twentieth centuries, but one of the few outlets to exercise the rights of equality that the Enlightenment proposed was the military.� | ||||||||
| One of the other outlets, at least in Julien's mind, was the Catholic Church. While lacking the more masculine attributes of the military, the Church spared nothing on grandeur and ceremony. As Abb� Castan�de said about priesthood, "The priest is number one and no rivals" (Stendhal 150). This man is a prime example of Voltaire's idea of priestcraft, where the job of educating people about God has become more about lining one's own pockets. Castan�de himself is discovered to be part of the secret Jesuits who are aiming to take power of France. In this context, Julien's own apathy, or at least skepticism, toward God can be understood; even priests themselves could be dangerous. According to the character of Philo in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, skepticism is necessary to be a spiritually healthy Christian. The reader is not made privy to Julien's most intimate thoughts about religion, nor is it made apparent whether Julien has really turned to God in the final pages of the book. What is known is that Julien had presented an image of himself to the world that projected piety and devoutness, even if that image was seen through at times (Abb� Ch�lan [Stendhal 36], Abb� Pirard [Stendhal 158], and the Marquise de La Mole [Stendhal 356]). Julien, even to the people who knew him best, never presented his true self, his military ambitions, his love of Napoleon, his scorn for the clergy. This was in part because he was skeptical of anyone's ability to understand him without being judgmental. Julien's entire world rests on illusion and skepticism. The latter was probably in large part shaped by Julien's reading of Voltaire, who was an ardent defender of atheism and supported a break from the established churches (see especially "Atheism Section 1" of the Philosophical Dictionary). In fact, Julien seems to be quite a fan of Voltaire (Stendhal 257). But Julien had much of his own skepticism before he ever opened a book by Voltaire, perhaps indicative of the popularity of Voltaire's ideas, perhaps because Stendhal wants to reader to think of Julien as being innately enlightened. Whatever the reason, Julien is a suspicious fellow; like Voltaire, he does not think that humankind is capable of living up to Rousseau's standards. This is most apparent in Julien's social interactions. | ||||||||
| If Rousseau is correct in saying that there exists a general will of the people, chances are that Julien's will would be contrary. Julien is almost totally alienated in a society where his keen ambition cannot come to fruition: growing up relatively poor, he lacks the right manners; his feat of learning the Latin Bible is reduced to a parlor trick; being frail of body, he has no outlet for his military strategies. Like Rousseau's savage man, for whom "to will, and not to will, to desire and to fear" are the "only operations of his soul," Julien feels that society has disempowered him somehow, leaving him only to desire but never to achieve. Had he been born of nobility, had he been of age to serve for Napoleon - Julien lives in a world of conditional situations. And more than that, he feels that his place in society is constantly being thrust upon him by the higher classes, who lord their superiority over him. Prince Korasoff even tell Julien that Julien's "gloomy air" is "admitting your inferiority" (Stendhal 317-8). Jane Austen would have had a time inserting Julien's character in her light and carefree novels. But, like Jane Austen herself, he is painfully aware of his status in society. When anyone behaves the slightest bit cold to him, he immediately assumes that her aristocratic disposition has taken control; he never realizes that Mme. R�nal's cold glances had less to do with her feeling socially superior than with her being confused about her feelings toward him. Yet Julien himself is a snob of sorts. He considers his intelligence greater, his bravery in more abundance, and his stratagem superior. More importantly, he never thinks of people beyond himself; he is entirely self-centered. Much of this has to do with Enlightenment philosophy. For all its cultural relativism, the Enlightenment focused more on reason and logic. Julien was convinced that his logic was superior, so he had no need to consider others' opinions. In his search to obtain a social status that he deemed worthy, he had to focus his attention on himself; never did he look beyond his own surroundings to muse about what fortunes could have awaited him outside of France's borders. This is one of the major pitfalls of the Enlightenment; it attempted to empower men with an appeal to their reason and logic, yet not all men, and especially such men of youth as Julien, have the tools necessary to make sound decisions. Julien's education was limited, his home life in Verrieres was a disaster, and these experiences jaded him in his subsequent travels, leaving him cynical and suspicious. Julien could not make a fair assessment of his ambitions since he was missing so much information; at the beginning of the book, Julien has been exposed to little beyond Napoleon, Rousseau, the bulletins of the Grande Arm�e, and the religious readings the priest Ch�lan had given him. With Rousseau's and Jefferson's ideas that men were innately equal, Julien did not feel the need to seek guidance from any of his more experienced companions such Fouqu� or Abb� Pirard. In fact, whenever they did try to help him or give him opportunities for a more limited success in life, Julien ignored them. The Enlightenment gave him power to make his own decisions, but it did not give him the wisdom to make the right decisions. | ||||||||
| In the end, Julien was led more by passions than by reason, though it is difficult to assess which course of action ultimately brought him death. As a product of the Enlightenment, Julien was subject to the same follies as the philosophers of that age: overambition, impractical pragmatism, and unwarranted certitude in his ideas. Yet his character consisted of so much more than the Enlightenment could explain. In short, Julien's experiences in Red and Black illustrate the failure of the Enlightenment to provide a course of living that is worth living for. Becoming a bishop, becoming a general, becoming a man of society - all the things that Julien thought that mattered - were rendered pointless beside his love for Mme. R�nal. Enlightenment philosophy could not support him. In Julien's words, "The duty I assigned myself, whether wrong or right...has been like the trunk of a solid tree, on which I supported myself during the storm; I wavered, I was shaken. After all, I was only a man" (Stendhal 402). | ||||||||
| Works Cited | ||||||||
| Stendhal. Red and Black. Trans. Robert M. Adams. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1969. | ||||||||
| Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. | ||||||||
| Voltaire. The Philosophical Dictionary. Trans. H. I Woolf. New York: Knopf, 1924. http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volindex.htm | ||||||||
| Sta�l, Germaine de. Major Writings of Germaine de Sta�l. Ed. Vivial Folkenflik. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992. | ||||||||