Falling Short

The Bildungsroman and the Crisis of Self-Fashioning

Aleksandar Stevic, Aleksandar Stević

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813944043
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

A paradox haunts the bildungsroman: few protagonists successfully complete the process of maturation and socialization that ostensibly defines the form. From the despondent endings of Dickens's Great Expectations and Meredith's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel to the suicide of Balzac's Lucien de Rubempré and the demise of Eliot's Maggie and Tom Tulliver, the nineteenth-century bildungsroman offers narratives of failure, paralysis, and destruction: goals cannot be achieved, identities are impossible to forge, and the narrative of socialization routinely crumbles. Examining the novels of Stendhal, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Henry James, Samuel Butler, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust, Falling Short reveals not only a crisis of character development but also a crisis of plotting and narrative structure.

From the inception of literary realism in the 1830s to the height of modernism a century later, the bildungsroman presents itself as a key symptom of modern Europe's inability to envision either coherent subjectivity or successful socialization. Rather than articulating an arc of personal development, Stevi? argues, the bildungsroman tends to condemn its heroes to failure because our modern understanding of both individual subjectivity and social success remains riddled with contradictions. Placing primary texts in conversation with the central historical debates of their time, Falling Short offers a revisionist history of the realist and modernist bildungsroman, unearthing the neglected role of defeat in the history of the genre.

1

Lucien de Rubempré and the Politics of Usurpation in Post-Napoleonic France

It cannot be an accident that Balzac’s most extensive reflection on social mobility is also his most extensive reflection on the failure of social mobility. Illusions perdues and Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, two books focusing on Lucien de Rubempré’s unsuccessful attempts to claim a place for himself among the elites of Restoration France, are also among Balzac’s longest novels, with a combined total of some thirteen hundred pages in most modern editions. And although both novels persistently dismiss their hero as naïve, erratic, and unfocused, Lucien has nonetheless managed to occupy Balzac’s imagination more stubbornly than any of his other protagonists, including Eugène de Rastignac, the most able social climber of La Comédie humaine.1

The writing history behind Lucien’s saga speaks for itself. In late June 1836 Balzac wrote to Émile Regnault to announce that he had written the first forty pages of a new book and that with another ninety pages he would be done: “In all likelihood, I will finish Illusions perdues by next Saturday.”2 In reality, what Balzac published the following year under that title was not more than the first quarter of the novel as we know it today, with further installments to follow in 1839 and 1843. Moreover, long before the full text of Illusions perdues was published, Balzac was already writing its sequel, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes. An early version of the first part of Splendeurs appeared as La Torpille in 1838. The conclusion to Illusions perdues and roughly the first half of Splendeurs appeared almost simultaneously in the summer of 1843, and the final part of Splendeurs was published in 1847. What was meant to be done in a week took more than a decade to write.

What this complex publication history suggests is that Balzac felt compelled to rewrite the plot of Illusions perdues even before he had finished writing it. In Illusions perdues, Lucien attempts to penetrate the world of aristocracy by taking the noble name that once belonged to his mother, then struggles to rise through the ruthless economy of Parisian journalism, and, having failed in both endeavors, returns home to the provinces, prepared to commit suicide. Yet even before his initial Parisian adventure was complete, Lucien was already revived as the hero of Splendeurs and given another opportunity to try and conquer Paris under the guidance of the master criminal Vautrin, only to fail once more. The way in which Lucien’s fate is plotted offers a radical departure from most of the bildungsroman tradition. Although it is not entirely uncommon for bildungsroman heroes to return from the metropolis, such returns are seldom as far-reaching as the one Balzac offers: his decision to reset the bildungsroman plot and to rewrite it while it was still being written suggests that the crisis of social mobility by Lucien de Rubempré had transformed into a crisis of plotting for his creator.

This crisis developed from Balzac’s struggle to negotiate the unique pressures imposed on the process of socialization in early and mid-nineteenth-century France. Is upward social movement anything more than an exercise in self-invention? Who can assume positions of privilege and how? What kinds of knowledge, social capital, and work on the self make upward mobility possible? Both Lucien’s persistent failures and Balzac’s obsessive rewriting of Lucien’s story stem from the inability to offer a plausible answer to these questions—an inability that plagued Restoration society as much as it plagued Balzac’s novels.

With the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy in 1815, it seemed that France had left behind both the revolutionary experiment of 1789 and Napoleon’s imperial fantasy, which marked the early years of the nineteenth century. In reality, however, both of these projects continued to exert tremendous pressure on both the structure of French society and the collective imagination. On the one hand, the French Revolution, however troubling its history, had managed not only to abolish the aristocracy, but also to articulate a compelling meritocratic and egalitarian challenge to the monarchical principle of inherited privilege. On the other, Napoleon Bonaparte’s unlikely rise from obscurity offered a paradoxical but far-reaching precedent. While his triumph seemed to confirm the meritocratic assumptions that drove the revolution, he nonetheless proceeded to engineer an aristocratic order of his own: the emperor was also a self-made man. By 1821—the year when Lucien de Rubempré arrives in Paris—France was once again a monarchy ideologically dominated by a reactionary aristocratic class that did its best to suppress the legacy of the revolution and of the self-proclaimed emperor Napoleon, but could not quite forget that only a decade earlier this Corsican nobody managed to conquer Europe. Lucien is therefore attempting to make it in a society that is simultaneously deeply invested in an essentially aristocratic understanding of social status as an inherited privilege and whose elites in practice included an uneasy mix of the old nobility, yesterday’s republicans ennobled by Napoleon, and self-appointed parvenus.3

Because the social universe Lucien de Rubempré struggles to navigate is defined by an unresolved relationship between competing models of social power, economic and cultural production, and political legitimacy, there is no master model he can rely on in his quest for success. Instead, what he faces is a series of interrelated contradictions. On the one hand, there is the irresistible attraction of ennoblement, understood not simply in terms of rapid rise through the ranks, but as something akin to an instantaneous invention or an almost alchemical conversion; on the other, there is a powerful reactionary discourse committed to defending the legitimacy of traditional aristocratic privilege, yet unable to quell the legacy of dramatic social change on which Lucien’s fantasy of extreme and instantaneous upward movement rests. Perhaps most significantly, the clash between the reactionary notions of aristocratic prestige and the fantasies of Napoleonic rise is itself implicated in a powerful exchange economy that needs to be mastered, but that proves fully unnavigable, even for Vautrin.

Balzac’s approach to the question of social mobility in both Illusions perdues and Splendeurs is entirely governed by these contradictions. The simultaneous writing and rewriting of Lucien’s story, along with the inevitable failure the hero suffers at the end of both novels, suggests that the oppositions between monarchical and republican visions of social hierarchy and between feudal and capitalist modes of wealth acquisition have created a rupture within the social imaginary that renders the process of socialization effectively unnavigable. This chapter analyzes the failure of navigation that shapes the logic of Balzac’s two Lucien novels. First, however, I will take a brief detour through the work of Stendhal, who had already modeled the bildungsroman hero on the Napoleonic example.

From Self-Fashioning to Self-Invention

When Balzac began to develop the story of Lucien de Rubempré in the mid-1830s, the French novel was already exploring the mechanisms of social mobility in the post-Napoleonic world. Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) anticipates the main themes of Balzac’s fiction and brings to the fore the figure of the young provincial parvenu who will attempt to conquer Paris, encouraged by the Napoleonic example. For Stendhal’s Julien Sorel, vigorous work on the self is the condition of success: he will consciously shape himself in order to emulate the forms of behavior and appearance exhibited by those who hold power and influence. Like Napoleon, he aspires to go from nothing to something—from an obscure lieutenant, as he puts it, to the ruler of the world. He only needs to adopt the model to the circumstances. Twenty years earlier, at the height of Napoleon’s power, prestige was associated with the army, and now equivalent power and status are associated with the Church (71, 26).4 Hence Julien’s initial attempt to rise through the Church hierarchy; hence the laborious task of memorizing the New Testament in Latin.

In many respects, Julien’s project closely corresponds to the practice of self-fashioning described by Stephen Greenblatt. For Greenblatt, self-fashioning “is linked to manners or demeanor, particularly that of the elite; it may suggest hypocrisy or deception, and adherence to mere outward ceremony; it suggests a representation of one’s nature or intention in speech or actions.”5 As Julien quickly understands, what is required in order to make it in the Church is not familiarity with the dogma, but rather the ability to project the image of pious devotion:

Que de peine ne se donnait-il pas pour arriver à ce front béat et étroit, à cette physionomie de foi fervente et aveugle, prête à tout croire et à tout souffrir, que l’on trouve si fréquemment dans les couvents d’Italie, et dont à nous autres laïcs, le Guerchin a laissé de si parfaits modèles dans ses tableaux d’église. (264)

(What endless trouble he took to attain that facial expression of fervent and blind faith, ready to believe and suffer anything, that is so often encountered in monasteries in Italy, and of which Guercino has left us laymen such perfect models in his church paintings.) (191)

Stendhal is even meticulous enough to provide the exact reference: “Voir, au musée du Louvre, François duc d’Aquitaine déposant la couronne et prenant l’habit de moine, no 1130” (See, in the Louvre, Francois, Duke of Aquitaine laying down his breastplate and putting on a monk’s habit, n.1130; 264n, 191n). Selves are to be shaped according to models, through a vigorous course of observation, practice, and attention to detail.

It hardly needs emphasizing that this elegant plan is profoundly hypocritical: hypocrisy is the sine qua non of Julien’s project, though it is by no means its end point. In Le Rouge et le Noir dissimulation is a dreadfully serious affair, requiring a frightening degree of self-discipline, and neither playing a part nor self-invention do justice to this ambitious project. What is at stake is a process that requires constant perfectioning. “What is haunting about such a project,” writes Greenblatt about Sir Thomas More, “is the perpetual self-reflexiveness it demands, and, with this self-reflexiveness, perpetual self-estrangement.”6 In other words, self-fashioning works both as a mechanism of forging individual identity, and a mechanism that reveals the artificial nature of what is being forged.

In spite of such contradictions, the problem of selfhood is at least still taken seriously—perhaps too seriously. What seems premodern about Julien is precisely this fusion of the commitment to subjectivity and the commitment to personal achievement, which together generate the irresistible desire to internalize the fictions of his ambition. Julien attempts to overcome what Moretti calls an “opposition between formation and socialization” (131) by calling for the fusion between the two processes. His “Koran” consists of both Rousseau’s Confessions (1782) and Las Cases’s Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (1823), signifying an attempt to reconcile the exploration of interiority with naked ambition (Le Rouge et le Noir, 66; The Red and the Black, 22). For instance, even when he is presented with a clearly false noble identity that Monsieur de la Mole provided for him, Julien is quick to identify with it in a way that pushes his project far beyond mere hypocrisy:

Serait-il bien possible, se disait-il, que je fusse le fils naturel de quelque grand seigneur exilé dans nos montagnes par le terrible Napoléon? A chaque instant, cette idée lui semblait moins improbable. . . . Ma haine pour mon père serait une preuve. . . . Je ne serais plus un monstre! (586–87)

(Could it really be possible, he wondered, that I might be the natural son of some great lord driven into exile in our mountains by the terrible Napoleon? This idea seemed less improbable to him with every passing moment. . . . My hatred for my father would be proof of it. . . . I shouldn’t be a monster any more!) (465)

And once he is given the rank of lieutenant and a spot in a regiment to accompany his title, Julien will immediately start to fantasize about military achievements (588, 466), despite the fact that he has no military experience. What is at stake is not so much a question of ethics, of moral legitimation, as it is of an understanding of social mobility that calls both for one’s external appearance and for one’s interiority to be shaped in accordance with the demands of ambition.

As we turn from Stendhal to Balzac, however, we will face a steady erosion of this thoroughness, and the slow disappearance of this intersection of self-fashioning, learning, and social mobility. Whereas Stendhal’s hero is committed to meticulous work on the self that blurs the line between mere hypocrisy and elaborate self-engineering, Balzac introduces a more radical interpretation of the Napoleonic example: Stendhal’s Julien Sorel believes that he can turn himself into a Napoleonic figure through intense work on himself, while Balzac’s Lucien de Rubempré believes that he can become a Napoleonic figure by pretending that he is a Napoleonic figure.

The transformation of the bildungsroman hero from a master of self-fashioning into a master of self-invention was not instantaneous. In Le Père Goriot, Balzac’s other key reflection on mobility, social initiation is still understood as a process, and his hero, Eugène de Rastignac, still knows that he needs to learn, and that he will need a tutor:

Si d’abord il voulut se jeter à corps perdu dans le travail, séduit bientôt par la nécessité de se créer des relations, il remarqua combien les femmes ont d’influence sur la vie sociale, et avisa soudain à se lancer dans le monde, afin d’y conquérir des protectrices: devaient-elles manquer à un jeune homme ardent et spirituel dont l’esprit et l’ardeur étaient rehaussés par une tournure élégante et par une sorte de beauté nerveuse à laquelle les femmes se laissent prendre volontiers? (57–58)

(If at first he wanted to throw himself wholeheartedly into his work, he was soon diverted by the need to make social contacts, and noticing how influential women are in social life, he suddenly took it into his head to launch out into the world so that he could win some feminine patronage. Could such patronage fail to reward an ardent and witty young man, whose wit and ardour were enhanced by an elegant bearing and the kind of wiry good looks to which women willingly succumb?) (28)7

Acquiring a patron is still a serious task, and one complicated by the fact that there is much that Rastignac doesn’t know. When visiting Mme de Restaud he makes the mistake of mentioning Goriot, unaware that the old man is the father of the lady of the house; at Mme de Beauséant he addresses her as “ma cousine” showing that he doesn’t quite understand their relationship, and prompting a shocked “Hein?” from her (104, 63). But Rastignac, at least, knows that he doesn’t know. He seems aware that there is a system of communication, of manners, of phrases and glances that he needs to penetrate, and, above all, that the world of high society poses an epistemological problem. He understands that there are laws, principles, and signs to be learned, and he knows that he will need an instructor. What brings him to Mme de Beauséant after making the gaffe of mentioning old Goriot to Mme de Restaud is “pour vous demander le mot d’une énigme, et vous prier de me dire de quelle nature est la sottise que j’y ai faite” (to ask you to solve a puzzle for me and to tell me what sort of blunder I committed; 106, 65). As Peter Brooks comments on these words, “[Balzac’s] ambitious young men may not be brooding intellectuals, but they are theorists of their destinies, and quickly come to understand that the realization of vouloir/pouvoir depends on a certain social savoir.”8 The boudoirs Rastignac visits, Balzac tells us quite explicitly, are above all sites of learning (105, 65).

In Illusions perdues, however, Balzac offers a rewriting of Le Père Goriot in which this commitment to learning begins to dissolve. Once again, he presents us with a young provincial man with some talent and endless ambition and with a society woman who is to serve as his ticket to social success and as something of a mentor. Like Rastignac, Lucien de Rubempré doesn’t quite understand the etiquette of Parisian high society and is bound to produce a series of social blunders: he will dress atrociously and shout loudly every time he recognizes an acquaintance at the opera. Like Rastignac, Lucien will request...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: On Taking Failure Seriously
• 1. Lucien de Rubempré and the Politics of Usurpation in Post-Napoleonic France
• 2. The Great Evasion: Dickensian Bildungsroman and the Logic of Dependency
• 3. Charlotte Brontë and the Governess as a Liberal Subject
• 4. Portrait of the Hero as an Ideologue, ca. 1885–1914
• 5. Madame de Guermantes and Other Animals: Proust and the Forms of Pleasure
• Epilogue: Historicizing the Bildungsroman
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index