The narrator interrupts the story to comment, judge, give an opinion or speak directly to the reader.
In The Red and the Black
the tyranny of opinion, and what an opinion!, is as stupid in the small towns of France as in the United States of America.
The narrator interrupts the presentation of Verrières to judge in his own voice, with the exclamation "and what an opinion!" and the adjective "stupid", without hiding his contempt for the public opinion of small towns.
Book I, Chapter 1: A small town, the narrator
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
Truly, her enthusiasm was a little deliberate. Passionate love, more than a reality, was still a model one imitated.
Book II, Chapter 16: One in the morning, 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
Well then, sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. It can reflect, in your eyes, the blue of the sky or the filth of the mud in the road. Could the man who carries the mirror in his luggage be accused of immorality? The mirror shows the dirt, and you accuse the mirror? You should accuse the long road where the mud forms and, above all, the road inspector who lets the water rot and the slime pile up.
Book II, Chapter 19: The Opéra Bouffe, the narrator
"Politics", continues the author, "is a stone tied around the neck of literature that, in less than six months, makes it sink. Politics, among the interests of the imagination, is a pistol shot in the middle of a concert. That noise is dissonant without being energetic. It does not harmonize with the sound of any instrument. This politics will mortally offend half the readers and bore the other half, who found it far more interesting and lively in the morning paper." "If your characters do not speak of politics", continues the editor, "they will no longer be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book will no longer be a mirror, as you wished…"
Book II, Chapter 22: The argument, the author and the editor, in a feigned dialogue
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