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The Red and the Black

Summary & Analysis

Pick one chapter: in each one, you get a summary of what happens, followed by the passages with analysis.

Book I

  1. Chapter 1A small town
  2. Chapter 2A mayor
  3. Chapter 3A curé
  4. Chapter 4A father and a son
  5. Chapter 5A negotiation
  6. Chapter 6Boredom
  7. Chapter 7Elective affinities
  8. Chapter 8Small events
  9. Chapter 9A night in the country
  10. Chapter 10A great heart
  11. Chapter 11A night
  12. Chapter 12A journey
  13. Chapter 13The lace stockings
  14. Chapter 14The English scissors
  15. Chapter 15The crowing of the rooster
  16. Chapter 16The next day
  17. Chapter 17The deputy mayor
  18. Chapter 18A king in Verrières
  19. Chapter 19To think is to suffer
  20. Chapter 20The anonymous letters
  21. Chapter 21Dialogue with a master
  22. Chapter 22Ways of acting in 1830
  23. Chapter 23A civil servant's woes
  24. Chapter 24A capital
  25. Chapter 25The seminary
  26. Chapter 26The World, or What the Rich Man Lacks
  27. Chapter 27First experience of life
  28. Chapter 28A procession
  29. Chapter 29The first promotion
  30. Chapter 30An ambitious man

Book II

  1. Chapter 1The pleasures of the country
  2. Chapter 2Entry into society
  3. Chapter 3The first steps
  4. Chapter 4The La Mole mansion
  5. Chapter 5Sensibility and a Devout Great Lady
  6. Chapter 6Manner of pronunciation
  7. Chapter 7A gout attack
  8. Chapter 8Which decoration is the most honorable
  9. Chapter 9The ball
  10. Chapter 10Queen Margaret
  11. Chapter 11The empire of a young woman
  12. Chapter 12He'll be a Danton
  13. Chapter 13A conspiracy
  14. Chapter 14Thoughts of a young woman
  15. Chapter 15Will it be a conspiracy?
  16. Chapter 16One in the morning
  17. Chapter 17An old sword
  18. Chapter 18Cruel moments
  19. Chapter 19The Opéra Bouffe
  20. Chapter 20The Japanese vase
  21. Chapter 21The secret note
  22. Chapter 22The argument
  23. Chapter 23The Clergy, the Woods, Liberty
  24. Chapter 24Strasbourg
  25. Chapter 25The ministry of virtue
  26. Chapter 26Moral love
  27. Chapter 27The best positions in the Church
  28. Chapter 28Manon Lescaut
  29. Chapter 29Boredom
  30. Chapter 30A box at the Opéra Bouffe
  31. Chapter 31To frighten her
  32. Chapter 32The tiger
  33. Chapter 33The hell of weakness
  34. Chapter 34A man of wit
  35. Chapter 35A storm
  36. Chapter 36Sad details
  37. Chapter 37A tower
  38. Chapter 38A powerful man
  39. Chapter 39The intrigue
  40. Chapter 40Tranquility
  41. Chapter 41The trial
  42. Chapter 42Taken to a cell for the condemned, Julien Sorel rehearses what he would say to Madame de...
  43. Chapter 43An hour later, Julien Sorel wakes with tears running over his hand and thinks it is...
  44. Chapter 44Freed from the priest, Julien Sorel weeps because he is going to die, and he laments that...
  45. Chapter 45Julien Sorel asks Fouqué for a Jansenist confessor who cannot be reached by intrigue, and...