Le Père Goriot
Encyclopedia
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
(1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie Parisienne section of his novel sequence
Novel sequence
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence.-Definitions:...
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin
Vautrin
Vautrin is a character from the novels of French writer Honoré de Balzac in the La Comédie humaine series. His real name is Jacques Collin...
; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac is a fictional character from La Comédie humaine series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances...
.
Originally published in serial
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
form during the winter of 1834/35, Le Père Goriot is widely considered Balzac's most important novel. It marks the first serious use by the author of characters who had appeared in other books, a technique that distinguishes Balzac's fiction. The novel is also noted as an example of his realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
style, using minute details to create character and subtext
Subtext
Subtext or undertone is content of a book, play, musical work, film, video game, or television series which is not announced explicitly by the characters but is implicit or becomes something understood by the observer of the work as the production unfolds. Subtext can also refer to the thoughts...
.
The novel takes place during the Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
, which brought about profound changes in French society; the struggle of individuals to secure upper-class status is ubiquitous in the book. The city of Paris also impresses itself on the characters – especially young Rastignac, who grew up in the provinces of southern France. Balzac analyzes, through Goriot and others, the nature of family and marriage, providing a pessimistic view of these institutions.
The novel was released to mixed reviews. Some critics praised the author for his complex characters and attention to detail; others condemned him for his many depictions of corruption and greed. A favorite of Balzac's, the book quickly won widespread popularity and has often been adapted for film and the stage. It gave rise to the French expression "Rastignac", a social climber willing to use any means to better his situation.
Historical background
Le Père Goriot begins in June 1819, following Napoleon's defeat at WaterlooBattle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
, after the House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
had been restored
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
to the throne of France. A tension was mounting between the aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
– which had returned with King Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
– and the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
produced by the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
. During this era, France saw a tightening of social structures, with a lower class steeped in overwhelming poverty. By one estimate, almost three-quarters of Parisians did not make the 500–600 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s a year required for a minimal standard of living. At the same time, this upheaval made possible a social mobility unthinkable during the Ancien Régime
Ancien Régime in France
The Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system established in France from the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties...
of previous centuries. Individuals willing to adapt themselves to the rules of this new society could sometimes ascend into its upper echelons from modest backgrounds, much to the distaste of the established wealthy class.
Literary background
When Balzac began writing Le Père Goriot in 1834, he had published several dozen books, including a stream of pseudonymPseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
ously published potboiler
Potboiler
Potboiler or pot-boiler is a term used to describe a poor quality novel, play, opera, or film, or other creative work that was created quickly to make money to pay for the creator's daily expenses . Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers...
novels. In 1829 he had published Les Chouans
Les Chouans
Les Chouans is an 1829 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac and included in the Scènes de la vie militaire section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in the French region of Brittany, the novel combines military history with a love story between the aristocratic...
, the first novel to which he signed his own name; this was followed by Louis Lambert
Louis Lambert
Louis Joseph Lambert, Jr. , is a Louisiana attorney, businessman, former member and chairman of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, and a former Louisiana state senator....
(1832), Le Colonel Chabert
Le Colonel Chabert (novel)
Le Colonel Chabert is an 1832 novella by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac . It is included in his series of novels known as La Comédie humaine , which depicts and parodies French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy...
(1832), and La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac . Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of...
(1831). Around this time, Balzac began organizing his work into a sequence of novels
Novel sequence
A novel sequence is a set or series of novels which share common themes, characters, or settings, but where each novel has its own title and free-standing storyline, and can thus be read independently or out of sequence.-Definitions:...
which he eventually called La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine
La Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
, divided into sections representing various aspects of life in France during the early 19th century.
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
-turned-policeman named Eugène François Vidocq
Eugène François Vidocq
Eugène François Vidocq was a French criminal and criminalist whose life story inspired several writers, including Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac...
published a pair of memoirs – sensationalized during the revision process by his editors – recounting his criminal exploits. Balzac met Vidocq in April 1834, and used him as a model for a character named Vautrin
Vautrin
Vautrin is a character from the novels of French writer Honoré de Balzac in the La Comédie humaine series. His real name is Jacques Collin...
he was planning for an upcoming novel.
Writing and publication
In the summer of 1834 Balzac began to work on a tragic story about a father who is rejected by his daughters. His journal records several undated lines about the plot: "Subject of Old Goriot – A good man – middle-class lodging-house – 600 fr. income – having stripped himself bare for his daughters who both have 50,000 fr. income – dying like a dog." He wrote the first draft of Le Père Goriot in forty autumn days; it was published as a serialSerial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
in the Revue de Paris
Revue de Paris
Revue de Paris was a French literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis Desiré Veron....
between December and February. It was released as a novel in March 1835 by the publishing house of Werdet, who also published the second edition in May. A much-revised third edition was published in 1839 by Charpentier. As was his custom, Balzac made copious notes and changes on proofs he received from publishers, so that the later editions of his novels were often significantly different from the earliest. In the case of Le Père Goriot, he changed a number of the characters into persons from other novels he had written, and added new paragraphs filled with detail.
The character Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac
Eugène de Rastignac is a fictional character from La Comédie humaine series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances...
had appeared as an old man in Balzac's earlier philosophical fantasy novel La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin
La Peau de chagrin is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac . Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of...
. While writing the first draft of Le Père Goriot, Balzac named the character "Massiac", then abruptly decided to use the same character from La Peau de chagrin. Other characters were changed in a similar fashion. It was his first structured use of recurring characters, a practice whose depth and rigor came to characterize his novels.
In 1843 Balzac placed Le Père Goriot in the section of La Comédie humaine entitled "Scènes de la vie parisienne" ("Scenes of life in Paris"). Quickly thereafter, he reclassified it – due to its intense focus on the private lives of its characters – as one of the "Scènes de la vie privée" ("Scenes of private life"). These categories and the novels in them were his attempt to create a body of work "depicting all society, sketching it in the immensity of its turmoil". Although he had prepared only a small predecessor for La Comédie humaine, entitled Études de Mœurs, at this time, Balzac carefully considered each work's place in the project and frequently rearranged its structure.
Plot summary
The novel opens with an extended description of the Maison Vauquer, a boarding houseBoarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
in Paris' rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève covered with vines, owned by the widow Madame Vauquer. The residents include the law student Eugène de Rastignac, a mysterious agitator named Vautrin, and an elderly retired vermicelli
Vermicelli
Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section that is thicker than spaghetti.-Vermicelli thickness comparison:In USA, the National Pasta Association, founded in 1904, lists, together with various spelling mistakes, vermicelli as a thinner type of spaghetti.-History in Italy:In...
-maker named Jean-Joachim Goriot. The old man is ridiculed frequently by the other boarders, who soon learn that he has bankrupted himself to support his two well-married daughters.
Rastignac, who moved to Paris from the south of France, becomes attracted to the upper class. He has difficulty fitting in, but is tutored by his cousin, Madame de Beauséant, in the ways of high society. Rastignac endears himself to one of Goriot's daughters, Delphine, after extracting money from his own already-poor family. Vautrin, meanwhile, tries to convince Rastignac to pursue an unmarried woman named Victorine, whose family fortune is blocked only by her brother. He offers to clear the way for Rastignac by having the brother killed in a duel
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
.
Rastignac refuses to go along with the plot, balking at the idea of having someone killed to acquire their wealth, but he takes note of Vautrin's machinations. This is a lesson in the harsh realities of high society. Before long, the boarders learn that police are seeking Vautrin, revealed to be a master criminal nicknamed Trompe-la-Mort ("Cheater of Death"). Vautrin arranges for a friend to kill Victorine's brother, in the meantime, and is captured by the police.
Goriot, supportive of Rastignac's interest in his daughter and furious with her husband's tyrannical control over her, finds himself unable to help. When his other daughter, Anastasie, informs him that she has been selling off family jewelry to pay her lover's debts, the old man is overcome with grief at his own impotence and suffers a stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
.
Neither Delphine nor Anastasie will visit Goriot as he lies on his deathbed, and before dying he rages about their disrespect toward him. His funeral is attended only by Rastignac, a servant named Christophe, and two paid mourners
Professional mourning
Professional mourning or paid mourning is a mostly historical occupation practiced in Near Eastern cultures and many other parts of the world. Professional mourners are compensated to lament or deliver a eulogy. Mentioned in the Bible, the occupation is widely invoked in literature, from the...
. Goriot's daughters, rather than being present at the funeral, send their empty coaches, each bearing their families' respective coat of arms. After the short ceremony, Rastignac turns to face Paris as the lights of evening begin to appear. He sets out to dine with Delphine de Nucingen and declares to the city: "À nous deux, maintenant!" ("It's between you and me now!")
Style
Balzac's style in Le Père Goriot is influenced by the American novelist James Fenimore CooperJames Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
and Scottish writer Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
. In Cooper's representations of Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, Balzac saw a human barbarism that survived through attempts at civilization. In a preface to the second edition in 1835, Balzac wrote that the title character Goriot – who made his fortune selling vermicelli
Vermicelli
Vermicelli is a traditional type of pasta round in section that is thicker than spaghetti.-Vermicelli thickness comparison:In USA, the National Pasta Association, founded in 1904, lists, together with various spelling mistakes, vermicelli as a thinner type of spaghetti.-History in Italy:In...
during a time of widespread hunger – was an "Illinois
Illiniwek
The Illinois Confederation, sometimes referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were a group of twelve to thirteen Native American tribes in the upper Mississippi River valley of North America...
of the flour trade" and a "Huron of the grain market". Vautrin refers to Paris as "a forest of the New World where twenty varieties of savage tribes clash" – another sign of Cooper's influence.
Scott was also a profound influence on Balzac, particularly in his use of real historical events as the backdrop for his novels. Although history is not central to Le Père Goriot, the post-Napoleonic era serves as an important setting, and Balzac's use of meticulous detail reflects the influence of Scott. In his 1842 introduction to La Comédie humaine, Balzac praises Scott as a "modern troubadour" who "vivified [literature] with the spirit of the past". At the same time, Balzac accused the Scottish writer of romanticizing history, and tried to distinguish his own work with a more balanced view of human nature.
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
or detective fiction
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
. Instead, the central puzzles are the origins of suffering and the motivations of unusual behavior. Characters appear in fragments, with brief scenes providing small clues about their identity. Vautrin, for example, slips in and out of the story – offering advice to Rastignac, ridiculing Goriot, bribing the housekeeper Christophe to let him in after hours – before he is revealed as a master criminal. This pattern of people moving in and out of view mirrors Balzac's use of characters throughout La Comédie humaine.
Le Père Goriot is also recognized as a bildungsroman
Bildungsroman
In literary criticism, bildungsroman or coming-of-age story is a literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood , and in which character change is thus extremely important...
, wherein a naive young person matures while learning the ways of the world. Rastignac is tutored by Vautrin, Madame de Beauséant, Goriot, and others about the truth of Parisian society and the coldly dispassionate and brutally realistic strategies required for social success. As an everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
, he is initially repulsed by the gruesome realities beneath society's gilded surfaces; eventually, however, he embraces them. Setting aside his original goal of mastering the law, he pursues money and women as instruments for social climbing. In some ways this mirrors Balzac's own social education, reflecting the distaste he acquired for the law after studying it for three years.
Recurring characters
Le Père Goriot, especially in its revised form, marks an important early instance of Balzac's trademark use of recurring characters: persons from earlier novels appear in later works, usually during significantly different times of life. Pleased with the effect he achieved with the return of Rastignac, Balzac included 23 characters in the first edition of Le Père Goriot that would recur in later works; during his revisions for later editions the number increased to 48. Although Balzac had used this technique before, the characters had always reappeared in minor roles, as nearly identical versions of the same people. Rastignac's appearance shows, for the first time in Balzac's fiction, a novel-length back-storyBack-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
that illuminates and develops a returning character.
Balzac experimented with this method throughout the thirty years he worked on La Comédie humaine. It enabled a depth of characterization that went beyond simple narration or dialogue. "When the characters reappear", notes the critic Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
, "they do not step out of nowhere; they emerge from the privacy of their own lives which, for an interval, we have not been allowed to see." Although the complexity of these characters' lives inevitably led Balzac to make errors of chronology and consistency, the mistakes are considered minor in the overall scope of the project. Readers are more often troubled by the sheer number of people in Balzac's world, and feel deprived of important context for the characters. Detective novelist Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
said that he never tried to read Balzac, because he "did not know where to begin".
This pattern of character reuse had repercussions for the plot of Le Père Goriot. Baron de Nucingen's reappearance in La Maison Nucingen (1837) reveals that his wife's love affair with Rastignac was planned and coordinated by the baron himself. This new detail sheds considerable light on the actions of all three characters within the pages of Le Père Goriot, complementing the evolution of their stories in the later novel.
Realism
Balzac uses meticulous, abundant detail to describe the Maison Vauquer, its inhabitants, and the world around them; this technique gave rise to his title as the father of the realistRealism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
novel. The details focus mostly on the penury of the residents of the Maison Vauquer. Much less intricate are the descriptions of wealthier homes; Madame de Beauséant's rooms are given scant attention, and the Nucingen family lives in a house sketched in the briefest detail.
At the start of the novel, Balzac declares (in English): "All is true". Although the characters and situations are fictions, the details employed – and their reflection of the realities of life in Paris at the time – faithfully render the world of the Maison Vauquer. The rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève (where the house is located) presents "a grim look about the houses, a suggestion of a jail about those high garden walls". The interiors of the house are painstakingly described, from the shabby sitting room ("Nothing can be more depressing") to the coverings on the walls depicting a feast ("papers that a little suburban tavern would have disdained") – an ironic decoration in a house known for its wretched food. Balzac owed the latter detail to the expertise of his friend Hyacinthe de Latouche, who was trained in the practice of hanging wallpaper. The house is even defined by its repulsive smell, unique to the poor boardinghouse.
Themes
Social stratification
One of the main themes in Le Père Goriot is the quest to understand and ascend society's strataSocial stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
. The Charter of 1814
Charter of 1814
The French Charter of 1814 was a constitution granted by King Louis XVIII of France shortly after his restoration. The Congress of Vienna demanded that Louis bring in a constitution of some form before he was restored. It guaranteed many of the rights that most other countries in western Europe had...
granted by King Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
had established a "legal country" which allowed only a small group of the nation's most wealthy men to vote. Thus, Rastignac's drive to achieve social status is evidence not only of his personal ambition but also of his desire to participate in the body politic
Body politic
A polity is a state or one of its subordinate civil authorities, such as a province, prefecture, county, municipality, city, or district. It is generally understood to mean a geographic area with a corresponding government. Thomas Hobbes considered bodies politic in this sense in Leviathan...
. As with Scott's characters, Rastignac epitomizes, in his words and actions, the Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
of the time in which he lives.
Through his characters and narration, Balzac lays bare the social Darwinism
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
of this society. In one particularly blunt speech, Madame de Beauséant tells Rastignac:
This attitude is further explored by Vautrin, who tells Rastignac: "The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been discovered, because it was properly executed." This sentence has been frequently – and somewhat inaccurately – paraphrased as: "Behind every great fortune is a great crime."
Influence of Paris
The novel's representations of social stratification are specific to Paris, perhaps the most densely populated city in Europe at the time. Traveling only a few blocks – as Rastignac does continually – takes the reader into vastly different worlds, distinguished by their architecture and reflecting the class of their inhabitants. Paris in the post-Napoleonic eraBourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
was split into distinct neighborhoods. Three of these are featured prominently in Le Père Goriot: the aristocratic area around the Boulevard Saint-Germain
Boulevard Saint-Germain
The Boulevard Saint-Germain is a major street in Paris on the Left Bank of the Seine river. It curves in a 3.5 kilometer arc from the Pont de Sully in the east to the Pont de la Concorde in the west and traverses the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements...
, the newly upscale quarter of the rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin
Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin
The rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, in the IXe arrondissement of Paris was the street that gave this new quarter of Paris its generic name. It runs north-northwest from the Boulevard des Italiens to the Église de la Sainte-Trinité sited to provide a focal object at its upper end...
, and the run-down area on the eastern slope of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève
Montagne Sainte-Geneviève
The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève is a hill on the left Bank of the Seine in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.On the top of the Montagne, one can visit the Panthéon or the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, which is often full of students from La Sorbonne and other nearby universities...
.
These quartiers of the city serve as microcosms which Rastignac seeks to master; Vautrin, meanwhile, operates in stealth, moving among them undetected. Rastignac, as the naive young man from the country, seeks in these worlds a new home. Paris offers him a chance to abandon his far-away family and remake himself in the city's ruthless image. His urban exodus is like that of many people who moved into the French capital, doubling its population between 1800 and 1830. The texture of the novel is thus inextricably linked to the city in which it is set; "Paris", explains critic Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks
Peter Brooks is Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale University and Andrew W. Mellon Scholar in the department of Comparative Literature and the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. He is formerly Professor in the Department of English and School of Law at the...
, "is the looming presence that gives the novel its particular tone".
Corruption
Rastignac, Vautrin, and Goriot represent individuals corrupted by their desires. In his thirst for advancement, Rastignac has been compared to FaustFaust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
, with Vautrin as Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...
. Critic Pierre Barbéris calls Vautrin's lecture to Rastignac "one of the great moments of the Comédie humaine, and no doubt of all world literature". France's social upheaval provides Vautrin with a playground for an ideology based solely on personal advancement; he encourages Rastignac to follow suit.
Still, it is the larger social structure that finally overwhelms Rastignac's soul – Vautrin merely explains the methods and causes. Although he rejects Vautrin's offer of murder, Rastignac succumbs to the principles of brutality upon which high society is built. By the end of the novel, he tells Bianchon: "I'm in Hell, and I have no choice but to stay there."
While Rastignac desires wealth and social status, Goriot longs only for the love of his daughters: a longing that borders on idolatry
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
. Because he represents bourgeois wealth acquired through trade – and not aristocratic primitive accumulation
Primitive accumulation of capital
In Marxist economics and preceding theories, the problem of primitive accumulation of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinctions between possessors and non-possessors came to be.Adam Smith's account of primitive-original accumulation depicted a peaceful...
– his daughters are happy to take his money, but will see him only in private. Even as he is dying in extreme poverty, at the end of the book, he sells his few remaining possessions to provide for his daughters so that they might look splendid at a ball.
Family relations
The relations between family members follow two patterns: the bonds of marriage serve mostly as MachiavellianMachiavellianism
Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...
means to financial ends, while the obligations of the older generation to the young take the form of sacrifice and deprivation. Delphine is trapped in a loveless marriage to Baron de Nucingen, a money-savvy banker. He is aware of her extramarital affairs, and uses them as a means to extort money from her. Anastasie, meanwhile, is married to the comte de Restaud, who cares less about the illegitimate children she has than the jewels she sells to provide for her lover – who is conning her in a scheme that Rastignac has heard was popular in Paris. This depiction of marriage as a tool of power reflects the harsh reality of the unstable social structures of the time.
The betrayal of Goriot's daughters is often compared to that of the characters in Shakespeare's King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
; Balzac was even accused of plagiarism when the novel was first published. Discussing these similarities, critic George Saintsbury
George Saintsbury
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury , was an English writer, literary historian, scholar and critic.-Biography:...
claims that Goriot's daughters are "as surely murderesses of their father as [Lear's daughters] Goneril and Regan". As Herbert J. Hunt points out in Balzac's Comédie humaine, however, Goriot's tale is in some ways more tragic, since "he has a Regan and a Goneril, but no Cordelia".
Rastignac's family, off-stage, also sacrifices extensively for him. Convinced that he cannot achieve a decent status in Paris without a considerable display of wealth, he writes to his family and asks them to send him money: "Sell some of your old jewelry, my kind mother; I will give you other jewels very soon." They do send him the money he requests, and – although it is not described directly in the novel – endure significant hardship for themselves as a result. His family, absent while he is in Paris, becomes even more distant despite this sacrifice. Although Goriot and Vautrin offer themselves as father figures to him, by the end of the novel they are gone and he is alone.
Reception and legacy
Le Père Goriot is widely considered Balzac's essential novel. Its influence on French literatureFrench literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
has been considerable, as shown by novelist Félicien Marceau
Félicien Marceau
Félicien Marceau is the pen name of Louis Carette a French novelist, playwright and essayist originally from Belgium. He was close to the Hussards right-wing literary movement, itself close to the monarchist .He received the Prix Goncourt for his book Creezy in 1969...
's remark: "We are all children of Le Père Goriot." Brooks refers to its "perfection of form, its economy of means and ends". Martin Kanes, meanwhile, in his book Le Pére Goriot: Anatomy of a Troubled World, calls it "the keystone of the Comédie humaine". It is the central text of Anthony Pugh's voluminous study Balzac's Recurring Characters, and entire chapters have been written about the detail of the Maison Vauquer. Because it has become such an important novel for the study of French literature, Le Père Goriot has been translated many times into many languages. Thus, says Balzac biographer Graham Robb
Graham Robb
Graham Macdonald Robb FRSL is a British author.Robb was born in Manchester and educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester and Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Modern Languages...
, "Goriot is one of the novels of La Comédie humaine that can safely be read in English for what it is."
Initial reviews of the book were mixed. Some reviewers accused Balzac of plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
or of overwhelming the reader with detail and painting a simplistic picture of Parisian high society. Others attacked the questionable morals of the characters, implying that Balzac was guilty of legitimizing their opinions. He was condemned for not including more individuals of honorable intent in the book. Balzac responded with disdain; in the second preface of 1835, he wrote with regard to Goriot: "Poor man! His daughters refused to recognize him because he had lost his fortune; now the critics have rejected him with the excuse that he was immoral."
Many critics of the time, though, were positive: a review in Le Journal des femmes proclaimed that Balzac's eye "penetrates everywhere, like a cunning serpent, to probe women's most intimate secrets". Another review, in La Revue du théâtre, praised his "admirable technique of details". The many reviews, positive and negative, were evidence of the book's popularity and success. One publisher's critique dismissed Balzac as a "boudoir writer", although it predicted for him "a brief career, but a glorious and enviable one".
Balzac himself was extremely proud of the work, declaring even before the final installment was published: "Le Père Goriot is a raging success; my fiercest enemies have had to bend the knee. I have triumphed over everything, over friends as well as the envious." As was his custom, he revised the novel between editions; compared to other novels, however, Le Père Goriot remained largely unchanged from its initial version.
In the years following its release, the novel was often adapted for the stage. Two theatrical productions in 1835 – several months after the book's publication – sustained its popularity and increased the public's regard for Balzac. In the 20th century, a number of film versions were produced, including adaptations directed by Jacques de Baroncelli
Jacques de Baroncelli
Jacques de Baroncelli was a French film director best known for his silent films from 1915 to the late 1930s....
and Travers Vale
Travers Vale
Travers Vale was an English-born silent film director. He directed 78 films between 1910 and 1926. He was born in Liverpool and died in Hollywood, California from cancer...
, and a presentation for Masterpiece Theatre directed by Paddy Russell
Paddy Russell
Patricia "Paddy" Russell is a British television director.She directed several television programmes between 1962 and 1981 and her work includes Out of the Unknown , Late Night Horror , Pere Goriot , Little Women , The Moonstone and The Omega Factor .Before becoming a director herself, during the...
. The name of Rastignac, meanwhile, has become an iconic sobriquet
Sobriquet
A sobriquet is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. It is usually a familiar name, distinct from a pseudonym assumed as a disguise, but a nickname which is familiar enough such that it can be used in place of a real name without the need of explanation...
in the French language; a "Rastignac" is synonymous with a person willing to climb the social ladder at any cost.
Furthermore, one line, when Vautrin
Vautrin
Vautrin is a character from the novels of French writer Honoré de Balzac in the La Comédie humaine series. His real name is Jacques Collin...
tells Eugène that he is "making him an offer that he cannot refuse", was used by Mario Puzo
Mario Puzo
Mario Gianluigi Puzo was an American author and screenwriter, known for his novels about the Mafia, including The Godfather , which he later co-adapted into a film by Francis Ford Coppola...
in The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
. In the film adaptation of that novel
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
, that line, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" was voted as the second most memorable line in cinema history in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes by the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
.
External links
(plain text)- Father Goriot at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) Le Père Goriot, audio version