Five-minute digest

The Red and the Black

Stendhal

Summary

The Red and the Black, subtitled A Chronicle of 1830, is Stendhal's great novel of ambition in France after the fall of Napoleon. This text is the 1916 English translation by Horace B. Samuel, with his introduction. Julien Sorel is the clever, sensitive son of a brutal carpenter in the small town of Verrières. He secretly worships Napoleon, but since the career of arms is closed to a poor young man in Restoration France, he decides that the Church, the black of the title, is now the path to success, and he memorizes the New Testament in Latin to impress others. He becomes tutor to the children of the town's vain mayor, Monsieur de Rênal, and, half from calculation and half from passion, seduces the mayor's gentle wife, Madame de Rênal, who falls deeply in love with him. When anonymous letters threaten scandal, Julien leaves for the seminary at Besançon, where he finds hypocrisy and intrigue but wins the protection of the stern director, the Abbé Pirard. Through Pirard he becomes secretary to the Marquis de La Mole in Paris. There he learns the manners of high society and is drawn into a contest of pride with the marquis's proud, romantic daughter, Mathilde, who becomes his lover. When Mathilde is pregnant, the marquis reluctantly gives Julien a title, money and an army commission. Then a letter from Madame de Rênal, dictated by her confessor, describes Julien as a hypocrite who seduces women to advance himself. The marquis forbids the marriage. Julien rides to Verrières and shoots Madame de Rênal during Mass. She survives, but Julien is tried and, after a defiant speech accusing the jury of punishing him for rising above his class, condemned to death. In prison he realizes that he truly loves Madame de Rênal, who visits him. He is guillotined; Mathilde buries his head, and Madame de Rênal dies three days later. The novel is a penetrating study of ambition, hypocrisy and class.

Top Lessons

Ambition
Julien plans his life like a campaign, measuring every act against Napoleon.
Related across the library
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  Work for women. Caroline longs for meaningful occupation; the novel argues for women's useful work.
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Hypocrisy
The novel shows a society in which success demands pretense.
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Class
Julien's trial speech turns his crime into an accusation against the class system.
Related across the library
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- John Anderson, My Jo, Stanza 1
  But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo. She blesses her husband's white head.
- The Road to Wigan Pier, Lesson: Class prejudice
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Verified Quotes

“a novel is a mirror which goes out on a highway. Sometimes it reflects the azure of the heavens, sometimes the mire of the pools of mud on the way”

— Stendhal, The Red and the Black, Book II, Chapter XLIX, The Opera Bouffe, trans. Horace B. Samuel (1916).Quote card

My Life and Work, Lesson: Men and machines
Men and machines. Ford describes the moving assembly line and admits that much factory work is repetitive. He argues that most workers prefer simple tasks and that high wages and low prices repay them. Students should weigh his claims against what workers and later historians said.
The Man in the Iron Mask, Chapter X, Crown and Tiara
Lead me to where the crown of France is to be found. After ten minutes alone under the night sky at the edge of the forest, the prisoner gives his answer.
Little Women, Lesson: Women's work and ambition
Women's work and ambition. Jo wants to be a writer and earn her own living, and the novel takes that ambition seriously while also steering her toward marriage. Readers continue to debate whether the ending fulfils or betrays her.
Oliver Twist, Full Text
forehead passed her hands over her face gazed wildly round shuddered fell back and died They chafed her breast hands and temples but the blood had stopped forever They talked of hope and comfort They had been strangers too long It s all over Mrs Thingummy said the surgeon at last Ah poor dear so it is said the nurse picking up the cork of the green bottle which had fallen out on the pillow as she stooped to take up the child Poor dear You needn t mind sending up to me if the child cries nurse said the surgeon pu...
The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, Lesson: The Psychology of Dementia Praecox links evidence and authority
The Psychology of Dementia Praecox links evidence and authority. The work shows how observation becomes authority through cases, examples, institutional setting, or aphoristic force. It asks readers to notice who gets to define suffering and what counts as proof.

“The word hypocrisy surprises you?”

— Stendhal, The Red and the Black, Book I, Chapter V, trans. Horace B. Samuel (1916).Quote card

The War of the Worlds, Book Two, Chapter VIII (Dead London)
By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers The narrator explains that humanity's resistance to bacteria was won through ages of natural selection.
Philosophy of Natural Science, Medical lens
The book is philosophy of science, but its most famous chapter is a case study in clinical epidemiology: Semmelweis's comparison of mortality from puerperal fever in two maternity divisions of the Vienna General Hospital (1844–1848), his elimination of rival explanations, the inference from Kolletschka's death after an autopsy wound, and the trial of handwashing with chlorinated lime. Hempel reports the yearly death rates and the later extension of the hypothesis to putrid matter from living patients after a cas...
Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter XI: Proofs in continuation, extracted from St. John's Gospel. The Gospels are four in number,
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. Book III, chapter 11, beginning Irenaeus's argument for exactly four Gospels.
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chapter I: That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with the
The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. Book I, chapter 1, the opening principle that God cannot be fully grasped by any creature.
The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, Chapter II.
brothers have regard to your mother and your aunt have regard to your son who will not be able to live after you Lay aside your courage and do not bring us all to destruction for none of us will speak in freedom if you should suffer anything These things said my father in his affection kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet and with tears he called me not Daughter but Lady And I grieved over the grey hairs of my father that he alone of all my family would not rejoice over my passion And I comforted him...

The Red and the Black

Summary

Top Lessons

Ambition

Hypocrisy

Class

Verified Quotes