<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. The dramatic historical changes and the birth of The Red and the Black</h1>
On July 14, 1789, the people of Paris captured the Bastille and the French Revolution broke out.
On the same day, Louis XVI, the last king of the French monarchy, wrote in his diary: "Nothing happened today. ”
On this day when he thinks that there is "nothing to do", the historical process of human society is rewritten, and a new change is about to be launched. Louis XVI and his delicate queen could never have imagined that from now on they would no longer be greeted by a thousand shouts of worship, but a cold and merciless guillotine.
Stills from the movie "The Absolute Queen"
The old era is overthrown, the new era comes, and when the wheel of history turns forward heavy and slowly, there is bound to be a trove.
The French Revolution abolished the absolute monarchy, broke the seal of the feudal era, and after experiencing the baptism of the First French Republic, a generation of legendary Napoleon turned out.
The new world he created gave the people light and hope, and the modern ideas of freedom and equality were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, especially the creation of the Napoleonic Code, which laid the cornerstone for modern thought and law.
However, just as people were cheering and singing for the future, the sky of history suddenly became cloudy.
The first rays of sunlight of the summer of 1815 did not penetrate the dark clouds of Waterloo, and the people were destined to sing a sad song for their Napoleon.
The previously abolished Bourbon dynasty made a comeback, and everything was back to square one.
Confused and angry, confused and disappointed, the people who had experienced the baptism of the Great Revolution once again overthrew the rule of the restored feudal dynasty fifteen years later.
Just as the Restoration Dynasty was drawing to a close, a stunning work came out, which recorded the violent upheavals and changes in post-Napoleonic society in a new form, and opened people's speculation on reality.
This book is the masterpiece of the famous French writer Stendhal, "The Red and the Black".
Red and black, two extreme contrasting colors, mean the opposite of the two extremes.
Dressed in red armor and spilling blood on the battlefield and putting on the black robe of the priest to walk on the altar, it is the fatal impact of ambitious personal ideals and dark reality, and it is also a contradictory life intertwined with resistance and compromise.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. The world of The Red and the Black, the opposition between the military and the priesthood</h1>
The protagonist of "The Red and the Black" is called Jullien, the son of a carpenter in the French border town of Villette, who is talented and handsome. Born in the Napoleonic era, he was full of yearning for the bloody battlefield and infinite glory of soldiers.
With Napoleon as an idol, he aspired to fight on the battlefield from an early age, eager to wear a long sword, gallop on horseback, and look forward to earning a good future for himself with military merit and changing his fate from a humble origin.
However, the beautiful vision of the individual is often defeated by reality, and from the moment the word Waterloo became Napoleon's lifelong regret, the upward passage of the youth at the bottom was blocked.
The Bourbon dynasty was restored and the feudal forces regained power. The era of success through personal struggle has come to an abrupt end, leaving only young people wandering and mourning, and these young people who want to gain hope are once again returning to the way out of being priests and taking the altar.
The French writer Samuel's autobiographical novel Confession of a Century describes the state of youth in this period, in which he writes:
The children looked at all this and kept thinking in their hearts that the shadow of the whisper was going to land on the Ina and cheer them up the larvae, but there was always no movement, and all that was seen in the air was the white lily emblem, and when the children mentioned glory and greatness, people said to them, "Go be a priest"; when the children talked about ambition, people also said to them, "Go be a priest"; when the children talked about hope, love, power. When they live, they still say, "Go be a priest!" ”
Jullien did not actually believe in God, and his lifelong faith came from the freedom that Napoleon brought him.
His heart was conflicted and painful, and in order to survive, in order to climb up to the soaring yellow tengda he wanted, he buried his fanaticism for Napoleon deep in his heart and pretended to live according to the rules.
He memorized the Latin New Testament and the Papal Treatise, but at night he flipped through Napoleon's Memoirs of St. Helena with excitement; he worked in the royalist aristocratic home, boldly carrying Napoleon's head on his fiery chest.
The repeated teasing of the hand of fate caused him to fall into the vortex of love twice, and finally in the face of the judgment of the old forces, he chose the death of the flesh and the liberation of the spirit.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >3. The original appearance of love is not love, but ambition and disillusionment</h1>
Engels said: Ambition is the root of all hypocrisy and lies.
And Jullien's two loves stem from his yearning for flowers and wine, glory and development.
Jullien's first love
Going to Mr. Mayor's house to become a governess was not Jullien's intention, because "I don't want to be a maid." A strong sense of self-esteem and an antipathy to the old system did not allow him to accept the feudal hierarchy himself, and it was not until he heard that he had heard that he had eaten at the same table as Mr. and Mrs. And Mrs. He reluctantly agreed.
He, who had never been in contact with aristocratic women, was shocked by the kindness and beauty of the mayor's wife, but Jullien did not love her at first, and Jullien's love began by using the mayor's wife to climb the upper class for himself.
Stills from the French musical Rock 'n' Roll Red and Black
Like Jullien's mental monologue in his book:
He thought to himself, "I should go one step further, and I must achieve my goal in this woman." If I later become rich and someone laughs at my lowliness as a governess, I will let everyone know that it is love that makes me accept this position."
He was proud and inferior, sensitive and full of illusions, both extremely contemptuous of the authority of high society and incomparably eager to be a member of that group. Love was initially only a means, a tool, and the infinite yearning for power was his guts.
After Yu Lian was really with the mayor's wife, he discovered the beauty and sweetness of the world and fell completely in love with her, and the love of the mayor's wife was Yu Lian's only nostalgia for the decaying reality.
Jullien's second love
As his unrequited love affair with the mayor's wife is about to be exposed, Jullien is forced to leave the small town of Velier, and his quick wit and super memory give him another job offer.
He came to Paris and became secretary to the Marquess de La mole, an extreme royalist.
A fanatic of Napoleon adorned himself with a false face, giving one merit after another to the extreme royalists, Yulian hated such a hypocritical self, and immersed himself in the illusory feeling of being close to the center of power.
Stills from the French musical The Red and the Black
At this time, Jullien was already familiar with the rules of high society, but even if his ability was a hundred times stronger than that of other aristocratic youths, he had no chance of integrating into them.
Because of his humble origin and surname, he had long been isolated from them like an iron wall.
Contrary to the original purpose of the first relationship, the Marquis's daughter naturally became his prey.
For the attraction of love itself, Jullien did not like the arrogant and rebellious character of Miss Marquis.
But when he thinks that "she can bring a good position in society to her husband", the desire for success prompts him to create the appearance of love even if he does not have love. For "possessing this beautiful and noble lady" was a kind of resistance and challenge to the class into which he could not fit in.
He almost succeeded.
Having conquered Miss Marquis, he was given aristocratic status and territory, fulfilling his dream of becoming a member of high society. At this time, he is no longer full of hostility to society, but is infinitely satisfied with the pleasure of being recognized, until he is defeated by the harsh reality.
A confession letter written by the mayor's wife, persecuted by the church priest, knocked him back into his original form, and the two bullets pressed impulsively threw him completely into the abyss.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >4. Contradiction and confrontation are the eternal themes of fate</h1>
Jullien defined himself this way in his final court trial: "I am nothing more than a villager who dares to fight for his humble origins. ”
The aftershocks of the French Revolution have been constantly washing the hearts of all people, and the tragedy of Jullien is that he happened to grow up in an era of constant social turmoil and the impact of old and new ideas, as a petty-bourgeois intellectual youth who grew up after the Revolution, he had already linked personal ability to a better future, he tried to use his personal strength to fight against the heavy and decaying feudal hierarchy, and the desire to shake the old system with his own strength to change the fate was doomed to be a tragedy, and it was also doomed to be toyed with by the ruling class like a clown.
Jullien missed Napoleon's hope of achieving merit through his talents, and when his full initiative was mobilized, he had to in reality pander to the old aristocratic clique that occupied the dominant position in order to promote his class. This contradiction is not only a contradiction between Yu Lian and one person, but a contradiction of an era.
The French Enlightenment thinker Diderot said that human beings are both powerful and weak, both humble and noble, both insightful and often blind.
Jullien is a complex character, both rebellious and compromised, both true and hypocritical, both self-respecting and inferior, both good and hypocritical. He struggled all his life, he gave up his most precious passion to achieve the dreams in his heart, and vanity and ambition destroyed his ideals.
Even though his former loss had made him sink and false appearances of success, his instinctive conscience and the pursuit of freedom had awakened him again, and he finally saw the essence of the feudal aristocracy, which was why he chose to express his resistance with death.
History rushes forward under the confrontation of various forces, and the torrent is unstoppable.
The Russian writer Gorky once commented that Jullien in Stendhal's "The Red and the Black" was the "progenitor" of a series of heroic figures in 19th-century European literature who rebelled against capitalist socialism.
"The Red and the Black" profoundly reflects the social reality of France in the post-Napoleonic period, and also reflects the strong desire of the emerging classes for freedom and equality, awakening the national consciousness of the people.
The power of the individual is infinitely small in the vast universe, but we will still try, because the strength of all people gathers together and becomes a torrent of history.
The people are the creators of history.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks:</h1>
Red and black are two opposing colors, the imprint of the contradictory era on Jullien, and we can witness the choices of human nature and the turbulence of history through his short and enthusiastic life.
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