THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF MALE AND FEMALE WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE IN STENDHAL’S NOVEL LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR

Abstract

This thesis examines the distinctive features of male and female written correspondence in Stendhal’s novel Le Rouge et le Noir. Particular attention is paid to the communicative functions of letters, their emotional and strategic content, lexical and stylistic characteristics, and their role in revealing the psychological states of the characters. The analysis shows that letters written or associated with male and female characters perform different narrative and pragmatic functions. Male correspondence is frequently connected with ambition, social strategy, self-control, manipulation, and the construction of public identity, whereas female correspondence tends to foreground emotional attachment, sincerity, anxiety, moral conflict, and interpersonal relations. At the same time, these differences are not absolute and are closely related to the social norms and gender expectations of nineteenth-century French society.