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Abstract
This article analyses the critical reception, over time, of Stendhal’s unconventional heroines, attempting to identify and challenge some of the assumptions and prejudices that have been active in the extensive secondary literature devoted to the author. It focuses on critical responses to Mathilde de La Mole, with a view to showing how the attitudes of readers of Le Rouge et le Noir have changed over time, and in order to make a case for their further alteration. Stendhal’s early critics judged her character as lacking in verisimilitude; some celebrated the implausible aspects of her character, while others saw them as literary shortcomings. While such criticisms certainly conveyed an implicit moral judgement, later critics focused far more explicitly on what they perceived as Mathilde’s moral deficiencies, more specifically her failings as a woman and a person; there is also a small but growing number of readers and critics who have read her moral character in a highly favourable light. It will be argued in this essay that different evaluations of Mathilde’s character are authorized by the plural perspectives offered by the text.
Notes
1 Admittedly, Stendhal’s marginal notes do give some support to such a reading.
2 Leslie Rabine also observes that ‘the conclusion to The Red and the Black would in fact fall into sentimental and boring stasis without her countervailing presence’ (1985: 105).
3 Richard Bolster’s chapter entitled ‘Les Héroïnes rebelles de Stendhal’ (1970: 81–104) is, however, unequivocal in its praise for Mathilde, Vanina, Mina, and Lamiel.
4 If Mathilde ‘is typed as the bad mother’ by the text, as Naomi Segal argues (1992: 72), the question must be asked as to whether critics need to perpetuate this branding. On this point, see Scott, Citation2007.
5 In Stendhal’s Projet d’article of 1832 he states that Mathilde ‘n’a pas de [...] tempérament’ (Orc, i: 836).
6 See, respectively, Orc, i: 572, 603, 628, 787 and Orc, i: 370, 372, 373, 374. On the prominence given to gender markers and their complication in Le Rouge et le Noir, see CitationThompson, 1993–94. On Julien’s androgyny and affinity with women, see Kelly, Citation1989: 26–42.
7 David Scott (Citation2000) highlights the way in which the use of citations in Le Rouge et le Noir enables Stendhal to create multiple perspectives on the hero’s behaviour. On the source of the quotation in question, see Francesco Manzini’s article in this volume.
8 As Stanley Fish puts it, ‘interpretive strategies are not put into execution after reading; they are the shape of reading, and because they are the shape of reading, they give texts their shape, making them rather than, as is usually assumed, arising from them’ (1980: 13). Critics of Stendhal who are particularly alert to the lures of interpretation nevertheless tend to achieve a higher degree of objectivity in their readings of his heroines. See, for example, Garnier (Citation2007) and Ansel (Citation2013).
9 Interestingly, in this letter to Mareste, the novelist insists that Mary de Neuville was the exceptional model for Mathilde. Alberthe had been outraged by the use to which she felt her character had been put in Le Rouge et le Noir; the exclusive focus on Mary de Neuville in this letter was almost certainly designed to downplay Alberthe’s importance. In correspondence with Mérimée, he had referred to both women as models for Mathilde (CitationStendhal, 1997–99, iv: 63).
10 Stendhal refers to himself in the Vie de Henry Brulard as ‘le seul tiers incommode’ when, as a young boy, he was obliged to accompany his father and aunt Séraphie on their long walks together (1981–82, ii: 552). Stendhal’s experiences of love led him to identify closely with the rejected lover. Victor Brombert points out that, for the author, ‘the unhappy lover, though not exactly a prestigious figure in society, is initiated, through his very suffering, into the realm of emotional and artistic beauty’ (1968: 44).
11 For Maddalena Bertelà, ‘Stendhal fait de Mathilde une figure perdante en tant que femme, même si ce qu’elle paye personnellement et son énergie morale gardent une très haute valeur’ (1985: 213). Cheryl Morgan writes that ‘the narrative condemns the overeducated Mathilde as an unfit mother who should have been born a man’ (1999: 147). Michel Guérin adopts a highly unusual point of view in that he highlights Mathilde’s success at the close of Le Rouge et le Noir, which he contrasts with what he perceives as the failure of Mina de Vanghel and Vanina Vanini, on account of their choice of unworthy males (1982: 28–32).
12 Margaret Waller describes Armance’s fate as ‘a death from the world’ and a ‘self-immolation’ (1993: 130).
13 Crouzet, similarly, notes: ‘Héros jeune, il est le personnage dans lequel toute jeunesse se reconnaît’ (1995: 107).
14 Carol A. Mossman discusses the ‘breach of closure’ constituted by Mathilde’s pregnancy at the end of Le Rouge et le Noir and refers to her fascination with the Salomé intertext: ‘If I have dwelt extensively on St John, it is because Mathilde’s ending was too seductive to resist. How to explain this conclusion so imbued with fin-de-siècle luster?’ (1984: 19, 90).
15 Ansel makes a similar point (2013: 180).
16 The ‘mauvaise tête’, on the other hand, is a figure with whom Stendhal would seem to have identified. He acknowledges his own ‘réputation de mauvaise tête’ among his friends (CitationStendhal, 1981–82, ii: 483), and in the Roman de Métilde (1819) refers to the ‘mauvaise tête’ of his own alter ego, who loses the love of Métilde on account of the ‘folies’ and ‘imprudences’ prompted by his ‘passion folle’ (Orc, i: 7).
17 Bertelà makes this point (1985: 208). As early as 1944, Clara Malraux wrote: ‘je ne comprends pas mieux qu’à dix-huit ans, que l’on préfère Mme de Raynal [sic] à Mathilde de la Môle [sic]’ (1944: 262).
18 Rabine quotes René Girard, who makes a very similar, though differently inflected, point: ‘Julien Sorel reste un, mais son unité est menacée lors de cette aberration temporaire qu’est son amour pour Mathilde’ (Girard, Citation1961: 96).