Napoleon's relationship with his father and how it impacted his personality
I've talked about the mom, now it's time for the dad! Despite how little time he stayed alive throughout Napoleon's life, I'd argue that Carlo has a huge role behind what he became.
Usual disclaimer: this is a very personal interpretation of the psychological dynamics occurying between and into the people in question. I have consulted sources, but my takes can't really be extracted by biographies and sometimes even primary sources. Everything is speculation mostly based on emotional intuition, and I warmly invite you to see it as such, and if there are some other people with insight that would like to discuss anything, please do.
I personally see Carlo Buonaparte as the anti-Napoleon.
Although, because of how I see Napoleon himself as defined by a conflict between a romantic and a pragmatic nature, between personal fulfilment and social approval, by "anti-Napoleon" I mean that Carlo expresses all the aspects and impulses that Napoleon had within himself but had also repressed by contrast.
Carlo is kind of a shadow to Napoleon, in the Jungian sense of the word.
Let's first analyse the reputation he has gained. His main two recurring traits throughout the lore are his turncoat move from Corsica's independance movement to France and his alleged image as an irresponsible hedonist of a man.
Just like many other people in Napoleon's life, we basically follow his takes, which he mostly said at St. Helena. Here, across his staff's memoirs, Napoleon usually depicted his father with unflattering words. And yet there's also a notorious, meaningful moment which proves he felt nostalgia and a wish to make him proud nonetheless, which is that time before the coronation when he said to Joseph "if only father could see us now..."
Just like with Letizia, Napoleon had likely a messy cocktail of feelings about his father. He may have not felt esteem for him, but he still had affection for him.
I'd even argue that the coronation episode and the words some letters from Napoleon to Carlo (like this one from 1784) suggest that there was more "tenderness" between the two than between Napoleon and his mother.
But outside of Napoleon's perspective, Carlo's image as a egoist, lustful and lazy bonehead is very questionable. It can be easily disputed by seeing the efforts he put in doing all those long travels between Corsica and France despite a growing illness, while his turncoat move actually proves a certain degree of ambition and pragmatism that also harshly clashes with such a reputation.
What I rather depict is a young (let's not forget he died at 34) father who actively seeked happiness for his family and himself. We know he was a follower of the Enlightenment movement that likely rejected overly rigid and undisputable norms such as religious ones, as they were an obstacle to rationality and balance as much as lust and wild impulses. Carlo probably valued reason and wanted to achieve harmony between pleasure and duty, but he envisioned it as something where the former is the bigger priority, while the latter is only a means.
Napoleon seems to have evolved very much by contrast to such image. We can see it in the way he held on to quite a spartan lifestyle even as an emperor, accepting luxury only with the intent of confirming his rank without genuinely enjoying any of it. The aggressiveness of the judgement he reserved for Murat, who actively enjoyed luxury and pleasure, show how problematic Napoleon's relationship with luxury was. We can see it in the way he never, ever relaxed; we can see it in the way he made himself overly involved in as much situations and people as possible, as though the more responsibilities he got, the more worth he gained.
The thing is, Napoleon's perspective on his father was based upon his long absences as a child, while watching his mother being lonely, stressed out, frustrated and probably embarassed. While Carlo traveled, she was left alone with a bunch of kids, enduring 12 pregnancies, managing a household in a precarious economic situation. Not to mention that Carlo's turncoat move must have raised social disapproval, only increased by his long absences and the neglect of his wife and children.
Letizia likely channeled her frustration on her children, if episodes like the one where she sneaked on Napoleon to beat him up are true. But little Napoleon must have understood that. Children aren't stupid, probably they are more able to read emotional signs than adults because their rational mind isn't developed yet, so they still rely more on the primal one, even without being able to express themselves properly. He must have aknowledged his dad's absence and his mother being upset and bitter and overly invested in her children because at least they shouldn't wrong her like their father did. Probably she openly expressed contempt for him, undermining his authority in the children's mind.
(I must admit, I'm on a period where I'm thinking a lot on my experience with my dad's absence due to a particular military mission when I was a child. Probably the very reason I started to ponder on the topic of Napoleon's absent dad is a way to cope with my real life, as usual, so my words may be full-on projecting).
Combined with how his family already made Napoleon feel like his worth and affection were only measured by how many responsibilities he took on, his father's behavior must have motivated him to actively embrace this conditional love. He didn't just want to do well for recognition and affection, he wanted to do better than his dad. Maybe especially with his mother. That's why little Napoleon actively embraced the emotional blackmail of "if you love your family, you need to start a military career and be our breadwinner as soon as possible" even if it means staying away from home for 8 years uninterrupted since you weren't even 10, in the midst of xenophobic and classist bullies and huge language barriers.
Another reason Napoleon might have resented his father was that, as a consequence of his hedonism and the pride that had made him aspire to join the French nobles, Carlo had forced his son on a path that he would have spontaneously never taken, deciding for him.
Remember how similar Napoleon and Vegeta look to me? Think about Vegeta's backstory about his father sending him to Freeza as a hopeless try to survive, but also for power.
As a young boy, Napoleon just wanted to stay at home with his family, safe and stable, and projected his unease among the French and his desire to return home and freedom from duty in Corsica's independence cause.
Only when Napoleon tried to take long leaves, tried to be involved in Corsican politic, seek a compromise between it and revolutionary France and obtain approval of Paoli, the face of Corsican freedom, all this was denied him.
This was somewhat by Paoli himself (actuated by Pozzo di Borgo), who saw him as the irritating son of a deserter who did not want to obey the grown-ups, partly by the objective interests given by the simple fact that he worked in France and that his family actually lived with his work.
Fate has stifled Napoleon's heart and idealism, a fate written first and foremost by his father. What Napoleon saw was a selfish, irresponsible, hedonistic and careless father.
But as I said, Carlo wasn't just that. And he wasn't so selfish, as one of his priorities when he became a French nobleman was obtaining scholarships for his children to study in prestigious boarding schools and have the best of all possible futures.
In fact, there are several traits of his that we find in Napoleon, first of all the desire to improve his situation, whether in the sense of happiness or prestige, and also the pragmatism, if not real cynicism, with which he pursued them, turning his back on his mentor as well. No matter how harshly Napoleon may have deemed his father's cynical turncoat move when he was a young idealist, he readily imitated him so many times in the future.
Although they interpreted it differently, both father and had at heart a search for harmony, for the measure between pleasure and responsibility, between heart and conscience, in the name of reason and instead disgusting any irrational movement, especially moral and religious rules that in their visions were only limits to human ingenuity and happiness. But Napoleon had learned to see it as a hopeless, eternal performance of duty, where pleasure was only guilty, in front of a harsh reality.
A more superficial and nicer trait Napoleon inherited from his father is a great love for books. We know that they bonded over them as Napoleon asked him to send some. Infact, he also tried to do the same with Paoli, as if it was an invite to let him see him as a surrogate father. They both valued knowledge and culture.
Please let me know what you think and don't hesitate to call me out about any error! This was wild!
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