Julien Sorel's aspirations and those of too many young people today

As Julien Sorel (Red and the Black, 1830( completes his "conquest" of Madame de Renal (Mayor's - and his emplyer's - wife), even though he seems to care little for or about her except for the fact that he has asserted power over someone in a higher social "caste," his interest wanes and he begins thinking more about how he can rise to great social prominence through deeds of glory, a la his hero, Napoleon. His desires and fascination with wealth and rank climax with the visit of some unnamed European monarch to the little town of Verrieres. American readers will, or at least should, blanch in horror at this scene - the entire town practically fulminating about the visit of a king, about which I say who cares? Some goddamn useless figure who commands respect and obedience as a result of his ancestry alone? No, a true Napoleonic hero would recognize the fatuity of devotion to a monarch and would recognize the need for a a democratic government. Sorel is not all that smart, just conniving and grandiose. Whether Standahl shares these view, I don't know, but he does make us see that JS hopes to enter the clergy only to achieve social status. His aspiration - take any path available to achieve rank and wealth and power - has its counterpart today in the thousands of bright young people aspire to careers on the street, accumulating wealth, without any sense of how they could use their talents and their education. Julien has no interest in professing religious values, in a career in the pulpit, or in fact in doing anything to advance his society or to help people, other than himself.