Placing opposite ideas or words side by side, so that one illuminates the other through contrast.
In The Red and the Black
The children adored him, he did not like them; his thoughts were elsewhere. [...] Cold, just, impassive and yet loved, because his arrival had somehow driven boredom from the house, he was a good tutor.
Two successive oppositions define the tutor: "The children adored him, he did not like them" and "Cold, just, impassive and yet loved". The contrast shows a young man who pleases without giving himself to anyone.
Book I, Chapter 7: Elective affinities, the narrator
Her love was still ambition; it was the joy of him, a poor unhappy creature so scorned, possessing a woman so noble and so beautiful.
Book I, Chapter 16: The next day, the narrator
Julien, already very ill at ease, thought that on the other side of the wall of the dining room were poor prisoners whose portion of meat had perhaps been taken to pay for all this tasteless luxury with which they wanted to stun him. Perhaps they are hungry right now, he said to himself; his heart tightened, he could not eat, and he could hardly speak.
Book I, Chapter 22: Ways of acting in 1830, the narrator
your companions will never look at you without hating you; if they pretend to love you, it is only to betray you the better.
Book I, Chapter 29: The first promotion, Abbé Pirard
If the return to tender feelings and the eclipse of Madame de Rênal's remorse had come a little earlier, they would have been a divine happiness; obtained thus, by artifice, they were nothing but a pleasure.
Book I, Chapter 30: An ambitious man, the narrator
It was not, to be sure, that voluptuousness of the soul he had sometimes found beside Madame de Rênal. There was nothing tender in his feelings at that first moment. It was the most lively joy of ambition, and Julien was above all ambitious.
Book II, Chapter 16: One in the morning, the narrator
His words, so frank but so stupid, changed everything in an instant: Mathilde, certain of being loved, despised him completely.
Book II, Chapter 18: Cruel moments, the narrator
Cerebral love is no doubt wittier than true love, but it has only a few moments of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it judges itself without ceasing; instead of losing the thought, it is built only by the force of thoughts.
Book II, Chapter 19: The Opéra Bouffe, the narrator
That proud woman, at my feet!, thought Julien.
Book II, Chapter 29: Boredom, Julien Sorel (in thought)
Madame de Rênal found reasons for doing what her heart dictated; this young lady of high society lets her heart be moved only after finding good reasons for being moved.
Book II, Chapter 30: A box at the Opéra Bouffe, Julien Sorel (in thought)
I have no illusions, death awaits me: it will be just. I was capable of attacking the life of the woman most worthy of all respect and all homage. [...] My crime is atrocious and was premeditated. I deserve, therefore, death, gentlemen jurors. [...] But even if I were less guilty, I see men who, without taking into account what my youth might deserve in pity, will want to punish in me and discourage forever that class of young men who, born in an inferior class and somehow oppressed by poverty, have the good fortune to obtain a good education and the boldness to mix with what the pride of the rich calls good society.
Book II, Chapter 41: The trial, Julien Sorel
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