Focusing on the main line of the protagonist's personal struggle and ultimate failure, the novel widely shows "1the oppressive social atmosphere brought by successive governments to the French people in the first 30 years of the 9th century", and reflects some essential problems in French political and social life in the early 9th century.

In art, the novel, with its profound and delicate style, widely used monologues and free association, fully shows the spiritual space of the hero, excavates the deep consciousness activities of the hero, and creates the precedent of "stream of consciousness novel" and "psychological novel" in later generations, so Stendhal is called "the father of modern novels" by later generations.