The Truth of The Red and the Black

When you want to imitate whom, envy whose good fortune, first reflect on whether you have the capital he has. Adoration, envy, and imitation sometimes bring bad luck. Jullien can be admired by Madame Drena, and Jullien has capital. He could recite any page of the Bible, and it was a Latin version unfamiliar to many; he had a handsome appearance, though he was of humble origin and so poor that he could not wear enough underwear. From the perspective of today's novelists, the plot of "The Red and the Black" certainly lacks reasonable logic, and the driving force for any initial plot to move forward cannot withstand careful scrutiny. But this is a novel, a fiction, and it can be forgiven, not to mention that it was the 1830s. "The Red and the Black" is reasonable in designing the relationships between the characters, for example, writing about Mr. Valerno's jealousy and the jealousy of the maid Alyssa, which is the foreshadowing of their later whistleblowing. Although Mrs. Drena had shown such admiration in a hurry four months after becoming a governess, perhaps too quickly, without sufficient foreshadowing, especially the initiative to accompany Yulian to a bookstore run by a liberal, it was too reckless. Maybe it shows that she is tired of her husband.

Jullien's self-esteem and vanity were sustained by two of his abilities, one of which was the ability to recite the New Testament in Latin, and the other of which was his contemplation of the psychology of women and the mastery of the skill of devotion to women, and the latter ability seemed to be the standard of the hero of French literature. Published in 1830, the romantic novel of male and female love has the same mental effect on the protagonist as In the time of Madame Pouvelli emma, so that Madame Dreena, who is the mayor's wife, and the maid Alyssa become incredible love enemies. Madame Dreena almost voluntarily delivered the door herself, casting her own emotional net, which is very similar to the scene of Madame Bovary madly falling in love with Leon, the intern!

"Red and Black" represents two options. Jullien had no idea what his heart needed, he simply set his future according to glory, dignity, status, fame and the glitzy pursuits of the world, oscillating between priests and soldiers. After attending a ceremony to welcome the emperor, seeing the emperor creeping at the feet of the bishop, developing infinite reverence for the bishop and yearning for the status of bishop, he decided to enter the seminary. Originally, he was in good luck, Father Serand taught him, recommended him, cared for him, and helped him in times of difficulty. However, he was half-hearted, and his status as a priest hid Napoleon. Bonaparte's portrait uses daydreaming to offset incompetence in reality and escape loss in reality. Didn't he once aspire to be a bishop? Now, when he was on this path, he was tired of it.

When Madame Bovary and Leon go mad, Madame Dreena falls into lust for Lian, Madame Bovary and Madame Drena are the same person. "When women are in love for each other, they love people, and after that they only love love"; "We can find some women who have never had private affairs, but it is difficult to find women who have only had one private affair." "Women are often decent because they love their fame and serenity.". Flaubert and Stendhal's understanding of women may have been inspired by La Rochefoucco's Moral Proverbs. Half-heartedness, in French literature, is not only the virtue of men, but also the virtue of women.

Jullien's respect for Serand or Father Pilar, who was flexible and well-behaved, understanding, and sincerely promoted by the two priests shows that Jullien did not succeed by luck and beautiful faces. He was a man of ingenuity, and although his true talent was to memorize the New Testament in Latin, Jullien succeeded because he was mentally undeveloped. Great works are not only vain, Yulian still has a strong sense of reality and substitution in today's era, the most typical example is the Rui Chenggang who "represents Asia". The Marquis of Larmor was heavier than Lennon, and Jullien succeeded in gaining a foothold in the Marquis's house. Before the increase in the role of Miss Lamore, a large account of Jullien's relationship with the Marquis and the process of learning in high society is extensive. This enhances the logic of plot development. The relationship between Jullien and Miss La moore, Mathille, became a model for the love stories of young men and women in later generations, and was imitated by men and women in love. Madame Drena, Miss Larmor and Madame Bovary were related by blood. Apparently, Madame Bovary had read "The Red and the Black", pursued the extraordinary earth-shattering love of the gods, and broke free from the dull and boring real life. All three women think that their lives are yawning, not called love, but part of the passion of the times. The legends of the great ancestors of the French Revolution, coupled with crazy love daydreams, inspire young people. Because of the rich and passionate life experience of the ancestors, the young people in real life feel bleak. The novel does not specifically explain the political background, social background and historical background, but uses the dialogue of the characters in the novel to form the background of the times by evaluating the historical figures and stating their positions.

Jullien's love was not love at all; he, in Madame Dreena, in Miss Larmor, was based only on emotions other than love, such as revenge and ambition, driven by self-esteem and vanity. He even passively accepts the seduction or hints of these two women. He is not even agitated by lust, but the inner contradictions and conflicts are not a struggle between lust and flesh; it is a struggle between his ambition, self-esteem, vanity, delusions and his own lowliness and cowardice. The love between Jullien and Miss Larmor began not with love, but with curiosity, with luck. The impetus for their emotional development comes from the inner self-esteem and jealousy of the two people, without jealousy there is no love. This is the same as the love between Swann and Odette in "Remembrance of the Watery Years". Once Mathil confirmed that Jullien had fallen into the vortex of adoring herself for love, she was left with contempt for him. Although Jullien never tried to realize his ambitions through women, he never became the master of his own destiny, he could have had the conditions and opportunities to enter the high society, but because of the lack of wisdom, the lack of experience lost the opportunity, he never chose the possibility of fate arrangement, he could not break free from the shackles of character and spirit caused by his origin.

"The Red and the Black" may be the first time that men and women torture each other in love, tear each other apart, demean each other, and suppress each other's entanglements. This is the truth of love. After that, Dante's lyricism, the sad and melancholy Hamlet, Keats's outpouring, and Romeo and Juliet, who are dedicated to love, are no longer in love.

The plot of the nineteenth-century classics cannot stand up to scrutiny, and modern writers have discovered this shortcoming, adopting absurd and magical techniques to increase the attractiveness of plot development. Classic works lack the logic of determining the fate of characters according to character and human nature. Jullien confesses his crime or exaggerates his crime for the sake of self-esteem and vanity, for the sake of an imaginary "what others think", and he proudly swears that he is not afraid of death, perhaps he has illusions. Only at the last moment did Jullien bow his head in the face of death, and he was waiting for a pardon. This is weak, but it is a rare truth. Jullien and Madame Bovary ended up the same, Jullien was also a suicide, and the cruelty was to let his father come to see him. Jullien told his father, "I saved some money," and thus sent his father away, and the father no longer blamed him, but instead rushed to get his son's will, which was too cruel. That's the passion or brutal truth of money! The two truths at the end of "The Red and the Black" are the truths of literature and the truths of human nature.