The Red and the Black

The Red and the Black tells the story of Julien Sorel's life in a monarchic society of fixed social class. It is a historical psychological novel which chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him. The novel has a two-fold literary purpose, being both a psychological portrait of the romantic protagonist, Julien Sorel, and an analytic, sociological satire of the French social order under the Bourbon Restoration.