Meet the Cast
Julien Sorel
Dreeeeeeamer, You're Nothing But a Dreamer No, Julien is not the heir to the Sorel boot fortune. In fact, Stendhal is pretty quick to show us that young Julien Sorel tends to have his head in the c...
Mademoiselle de La Mole (Mathilde)
Cold BloodedMathilde de La Mole isn't the kindest, sweetest person in the world. She might seem that way to the people of upper-class French society, but we readers know that deep down, she's prett...
Madame de Rênal
Pretty, Humble, and DecentFrom what we can tell, Madame de Rênal has lived most of her life without really wondering what true love is. She has always done what society has told her, and as a resu...
Monsieur de Rênal
The mayor of Verrières is a pretty straightforward guy. He likes status and he likes money. In fact, that narrator criticizes him early in the book for measuring the value of everything in dollars...
Marquis de La Mole
The Marquis de La Mole is, in short, Julien Sorel's meal ticket. He's also Julien's ticket into upper-class French society. When Julien first learns that he's gotten a job with the Marquis, he expe...
Sorel
We don't really see much of Sorel in this book. His role in the story is to give Julien the motivation he needs to escape his peasant lifestyle. How does he do this, you ask? By being an abusive je...
Father Pirard
The first thing Stendhal ever tells us about Father Pirard is that the guy is really ugly. Even his pupil Julien has to admit, Certainly, no one could deny that Father Pirard was the most respectab...
Count Norbert
Julien is warned early on that he'll have to watch out for Count Norbert, who is apparently a condescending snob. But this definitely doesn't match with Julien's first impression of the guy. As the...
Madame de Fervaque
Plain and simple, Madame is the woman whom Julien flirts with into order to make Mathilde de La Mole jealous. And it totally works. But along the way, we also learn about Madame, who the narrator s...