Crveni i crni: Kronika XIX. stoljeća

The Red and the Black follows Julien Sorel, the son of a village carpenter whose exceptional intelligence and ambition are stifled by a society of strict class divisions. His desire to rise first leads him to the house of Mr. de Rênal as a teacher, where he begins a forbidden relationship with Madame de Rênal. This relationship brings him a sense of power, but also a deep moral confusion. After a scandal, Julien enters the seminary, where he faces hypocrisy and intrigue, but his restless spirit yearns for worldly success. Thanks to his intelligence and determination, he becomes secretary to the Marquis de la Mole in Paris, where he enters the luxurious but rigid aristocratic world. There he is attracted to the Marquis' daughter Matilda, whose passionate, idealized love simultaneously elevates and destabilizes him. Julien's rise becomes increasingly precarious when his past knocks on his door: Madame de Rênal writes a letter that compromises him, and in a fit of despair he commits a crime that finally brings him to justice. His tragic ending exposes the cruelty of a society in which an individual like him, torn between the "red" ideal of military glory and the "black" ideal of church power, has no real room for freedom or fulfillment. The novel thus becomes a sharp critique of hypocrisy, ambition, and rigid social structures.