Legitimacy and Usurpation: Shattering of the Social Walls in Stendhal’s The Red and the Black

Napoleon’s rise to the French throne in the 1800s paved the way for a huge shift in the social structure that was dominant in many of the European countries and even throughout the whole world. Social circles started to change their shapes and their representatives now that more and more people started to move from the lower classes to the upper ones. French author Stendhal (1783-1842) focuses on this substantial change in French society in his novel The Red and the Black (1830), in which he depicts a life full of scandals and social moves of a young and ambitious Julien Sorel. Julien’s fast but precarious rise from the bottom of the social status to the upper one flows through love affairs, affection, respect, pangs of conscience, and betrayal. Julien’s sole aim was to get to the top either by the legitimate ways or by usurpation. This study aims to analyse the protagonist’s hazardous climbing up the social ladder and his targets. The study will also point out whether Julien has the rights to get these targets or he gets them by force.