Stendhal's Charterhouse of Parma: Innocence in a Corrupt World

Introduction: Stendhal and The Charterhouse of Parma

The French author Henri Marie Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, is often called one of the founding fathers of the novel. The Charterhouse of Parma is widely considered to be his masterpiece. Although Stendhal is more famous for his tale of the rise and fall of the adolescent Julien Sorel in his earlier novel The Red and the Black, many critics consider The Charterhouse of Parma to be his most sweeping and compelling work — a tale of military prowess and court intrigue in Napoleonic France.

The first story arc of The Charterhouse of Parma chronicles the exploits of Fabrizio del Dongo, a young aristocrat so determined to fight and so entranced by the example of Napoleon that he hardly cares which side he fights on during the battles that ended Napoleon's first career as a general. Like many young people, Fabrizio is looking for a direction in his life — a philosophy to shape and guide him, something to live for. If he had been born in America during the 1960s, Fabrizio would no doubt have been protesting the Vietnam War; but as an ardent young aristocrat of 19th-century France, he joins Napoleon's army just before the Battle of Waterloo.

He does so not so much to advance his own personal or family interests, or even out of intellectual conviction, but more because of the emotional attraction of the Napoleonic cause. Napoleon seems noble to him — in his starry adolescent eyes — as a leader of men. Before he actually sees combat, war seems a very attractive thing to this young man. His experiences provide a powerful reminder that, though Napoleon is often the subject of parody today as a small, hyperbolic Frenchman, and other leaders have since overtaken Napoleon's persona in terms of cultural meaning and relevance, historically speaking Napoleon was a political celebrity as well as a military leader of extraordinary charisma.

Fabrizio del Dongo: Innocence as Vulnerability

The young Italian nobleman Fabrizio is wholly unlike his hero Napoleon — and unlike Stendhal's earlier, conniving hero Julien Sorel, for that matter. Napoleon was a man who controlled his fate, rising from obscurity to greatness through military prowess and talent as a leader. Fabrizio is "to the manor born" but is largely controlled and buffeted by fate and by the will and political machinations of others. The book's most willful and dominant characters are Fabrizio's aunt, the Duchess of Sanseverina, and her lover Count Mosca. They work to advance Fabrizio's political career at the court of Parma primarily in order to control him.

At times, Fabrizio's innocence and lack of guile can frustrate the modern reader, causing him or her to identify more readily with the more knowing and calculating characters of the text. Yet to his credit, Stendhal never renders Fabrizio's early romanticism and youthful vigor with a sentimental gloss. Fabrizio is gullible and without intellectual defenses against those who would use him and his high birth for political purposes — but he is not morally superior to those around him, either for his susceptibility to being used as a pawn or for his strong romantic feelings for the beautiful Clelia later in the book. If anything, Fabrizio's career at court indicates to the reader that it is possible to be genuinely good and yet be used for ill purposes — a fact illustrated early on during his military career, when he throws himself into the fray of bloodshed because of idealism and the false images of war that his culture and family have instilled in him.

War, Idealism, and the Reality of Combat

Stendhal has often been called a master of realism, long before realism became an integral part of the novelistic tradition and literary fashion. Some of the most visually compelling passages come early in the novel, when the naive and idealistic Fabrizio enters military service with little understanding of what soldiering truly entails:

A bullet, entering on one side of the nose, had come out by the opposite temple, and disfigured the corpse in a hideous fashion, leaving it with one eye still open. "Get off your horse then, lad," said the cantiniere, "and give him a shake of the hand, and see if he'll return it."

Without hesitating, although almost ready to give up the ghost from disgust, Fabrizio flung himself off his horse and taking the hand of the corpse gave it a vigorous shake. Then he stood still as though no life was left in him. He did not feel he had the strength to mount his horse again. What most particularly horrified him was that still open eye. "The vivandiere will think me a coward," he said to himself bitterly.

"You shall fight tomorrow, my boy," she said at length.

"On the contrary, I want to start fighting at once," said our hero in a somber tone that seemed to the vivandiere to augur well. (Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma, 55)

The brutality of war is vividly conveyed in this passage. The physical horror of violence upon the human body is dramatically depicted in the damage done to this anonymous corpse — ravaged by a bullet to the brain, the organ that makes a human being most human, yet with one eye still open as if staring at the young man.

Fabrizio is referred to ironically as "our hero" in the passage, although his behavior is anything but conventionally heroic. Of course, Fabrizio believes his behavior is heroic — or at least, he believes it more heroic to react to a corpse without horror or pity, because it is the dead body of "the enemy." Although he is physically sickened and weakened by the sight, he does not allow himself to feel compassion towards the dead man. His main concern is wholly selfish: to appear brave in front of the cantiniere and the vivandiere.

The lack of humanity within the cantiniere, despite Fabrizio's idealization of this coarse individual, is evidenced by his insistence that the young aspiring soldier shake the hand of a mutilated body. When Fabrizio complies, the female camp follower considers this praiseworthy. This woman is not entirely without virtue — her profession arises from necessity rather than choice, and she does help Fabrizio survive in a kind manner — but the calcifying effect of war upon the human spirit is nonetheless evident in the mannerisms of both individuals.

Works Cited

Stendhal. The Charterhouse of Parma. New York: Penguin Classics, 1958.

Stendhal. The Red and the Black. Signet Classic, 1970.