Who He Is
Father of Julien Sorel, a peasant at the sawmill where the son first appears, whom Chapter 4 of Book I describes as rude and calculating. Julien is always the carpenter's son.
Trajectory
In Chapter 4 of Book I, Julien is introduced reading on top of a beam at the sawmill, deaf to his father's call, and takes a blow that knocks the Memorial of Saint Helena into the stream (see the Memorial of Saint Helena). The father despises in the son exactly what sets him apart: intelligence applied to reading instead of to manual labor.
Two chapters later, in Chapter 6 of Book I, already in the Rênal house, it is by his father's beating that Julien measures the new family:
What a difference from me, thought Julien. Only yesterday my father beat me. How happy these rich people are!
In the negotiation over his son's salary with Monsieur de Rênal, he is the one who wins.
Ch. V. In the negotiation over the son's salary, Father Sorel gets the better of the mayor:
the peasant's cunning beat the cunning of the rich man, who has no need of it to live.
From then on he drops out of the scene for a long time and returns as an origin, when someone reminds Julien where he comes from.
His ancestor was at court and had the honor of having his head cut off at the Place de Grève, on April 26, 1574, because of a political intrigue. You are the son of a carpenter from Verrières and, what is more, in the service of his father.
In Chapter 35 of Book II, when Julien becomes La Vernaye, the Marquis de La Mole has word sent through the Abbé Pirard on how the father should be listed: as the carpenter who looked after the boy in his childhood.
Monsieur de La Vernaye may think it fitting to give a present to Monsieur Sorel, carpenter in Verrières, who looked after him in his childhood
In Chapter 44 of Book II, near the end, the father visits his condemned son. He begins with reproaches, and Julien disarms him only by speaking of the savings he made; on learning that he will keep the rest of the money, the old man still charges him for what he spent on his son.
There are still the expenses of your food and your education, which I advanced and which you seem to have forgotten
Alone, Julien judges him without anger, and measures the comfort the money will bring the old man in the face of his son's death.
At this price, your look says, which of you would not be delighted to have a guillotined son?
Themes Embodied
The standard themes that run through him are Family, Money and wealth, and Social class.
The first winning calculation of the book is not Julien's but his father's: the shrewdness that beats the mayor in the salary negotiation is the yardstick of "making a profit" applied to his own son. Julien leaves home against the father who beats him for reading, and takes that calculation with him.
Relationships
- Julien Sorel: the son, who is beaten by him for reading.
- Monsieur de Rênal: the rich man he beats in the negotiation.