Stendhal as a Replacement Child: The Theme of the Dead Child in Stendhal's Writings

The french novelist henri beyle (1783-1842), best known under his pseudonym, Stendhal, used the child as a recurring theme in his work. Though his novels are curiously lacking in direct depiction of children or childhood, we find instead themes of pregnancy, the child as yet unborn, childbirth, the child in danger, and the child that has died. Previous Stendhal scholars and critics have noted the presence of this theme in Stendhal's writings, but as yet neither the psychological background nor the explanation for this curious focus on the dead or endangered child have been elaborated. In this paper I suggest certain aspects of Stendhal's own childhood developmental history that will help us understand his strange fascination with the themes of death and childbirth.

Among the examples that illustrate this theme in Stendhal is the agonized scene in The Red and the Black between its hero, Julien, and Mme de Rênal, concerning the illness and possible death of the latter's young son. Mme de Rênal, unbalanced by her anguish and worry over her son's illness, is ready to confess to her husband the affair with Julien in the hope that Heaven will pardon her guilty love and save the child's life. The themes of death and childbirth occur again at the end of the novel when Julien is