ABSTRACT
The occasional blurring of the distinction between role-playing and naturalness in Stendhal's writing anticipates in some respects the ideas of Judith Butler about the primacy of performance over identity. Solitude is repeatedly presented, in Le Dernier Stendhal's fiction, as an antidote to the tyranny exercised by other people over a character's attitudes and actions. The mixture of falseness and sincerity that was characteristic of Stendhal's chosen style of being in the world can be related to what has already been said about the problem encountered by the dissimulator or hypocrite. Critics are generally agreed that there exist strong parallels between Julien Sorel and Mathilde de La Mole insofar as both make identification with their chosen role models integral to the strategy of resistance that they adopt in the face of a conformist society. Mathilde emulates her chosen role models in an overt fashion rather than in the hypocritical, covert mode preferred by the male protagonist.
