Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot)

Summary

Father Goriot opens in 1819 in the Maison Vauquer, a shabby boarding house in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève on the poor edge of the Latin Quarter, which Balzac describes room by room, smell by smell, before introducing its lodgers. Among them are Eugène de Rastignac, a law student from a poor noble family near Angoulême; the hearty, mocking Vautrin, who claims to be a retired merchant; the spinster Mlle. Michonneau and her companion Poiret; Victorine Taillefer, a gentle girl disowned by her rich banker father; and the old man the others call Father Goriot, a retired vermicelli maker who arrived rich and has grown steadily poorer, moving to cheaper rooms each year. Rastignac, eager to rise, is introduced into high society by his cousin the Vicomtesse de Beauséant. He discovers that Goriot is the father of two fashionable women, Anastasie, Comtesse de Restaud, and Delphine, Baronne de Nucingen, wife of a banker. Goriot gave each a fortune as a dowry, and both now receive him only in secret, ashamed of the tradesman who paid for their rank. His whole life is his love for them; he sells his silver and his annuities to pay their debts. Mme. de Beauséant, herself about to be abandoned by her lover, advises Rastignac to use society coldly and to win Delphine. Vautrin sees the student's hunger and offers him a bargain: court Victorine, and Vautrin will have her brother killed in a duel so that she inherits her father's millions, in return for a share. Rastignac refuses, wavers, and is drugged at dinner so that he cannot give warning; young Taillefer is killed. Meanwhile the police, through Mlle. Michonneau, unmask Vautrin as Jacques Collin, the escaped convict called Trompe-la-Mort, and arrest him at the boarding-house table. Goriot furnishes a small apartment where Rastignac and Delphine may meet, and dreams of living near them. But the sisters' troubles overwhelm him: Anastasie has pawned her husband's family diamonds to pay the debts of her lover, Maxime de Trailles, and Delphine's fortune is locked in her husband's speculations. The daughters quarrel in his room, and he suffers a stroke. On the night Mme. de Beauséant gives her farewell ball before leaving Paris, Anastasie appears wearing the diamonds. Goriot dies slowly in the boarding house, calling for daughters who do not come. Rastignac and the medical student Horace Bianchon nurse him and pay for the funeral; Anastasie arrives only when he can no longer hear her. Two empty carriages bearing the families' arms follow the coffin to Père-Lachaise. Standing above the city, Rastignac challenges Paris and goes to dine with Delphine. Serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1834-35 and published as a book in 1835, the novel was the first in which Balzac systematically brought back characters from book to book, the method that built La Comédie humaine. Ellen Marriage's English translation appeared in 1896.

Plot or Argument

• The Maison Vauquer

  The narrator insists the story is true and describes the boarding house, its widow landlady, its rancid dining room and its lodgers, before turning to the mystery of Goriot's decline from wealthy boarder to laughing-stock.

• Rastignac enters society

  Eugène visits his cousin Mme. de Beauséant, blunders at the Restaud house by naming Goriot, and learns from the Duchesse de Langeais and his cousin how the old man made his fortune and was shut out by the daughters he enriched.

• Mme. de Beauséant's counsel

  Wounded by news of her lover's coming marriage, the Vicomtesse tells Eugène to treat society as it deserves and to win Delphine de Nucingen; he writes home and takes his mother's and sisters' savings to dress the part.

• Vautrin's proposal

  In the garden Vautrin lays out his philosophy and his plan: Eugène will court Victorine while Vautrin arranges her brother's death in a duel. Eugène refuses, then lets the days pass without acting.

• Trompe-la-Mort

  A police agent recruits Mlle. Michonneau to identify Vautrin; Vautrin drugs Eugène and Goriot so they cannot interfere; young Taillefer falls in the duel; Michonneau drugs Vautrin to find his convict's brand, and he is arrested at the table.

• The rue d'Artois apartment

  Goriot spends his last resources on rooms for Eugène and Delphine and hopes to live beside them, while Delphine reveals that Nucingen controls her fortune.

• The daughters' quarrel

  Anastasie confesses she has pawned the Restaud diamonds for Maxime de Trailles; the sisters accuse each other before their father, who collapses after giving away the last of his means.

• The farewell ball

  Mme. de Beauséant receives Paris for the last time and leaves for Normandy; Anastasie appears in the diamonds; Delphine attends while her father lies stricken.

• Goriot's death and burial

  Nursed by Eugène and Bianchon, Goriot raves about his daughters, curses and blesses them, and dies; the students pawn a watch for the funeral, and Eugène, alone at Père-Lachaise, declares war on Paris.

Characters

• Jean-Joachim Goriot, title character

  Retired vermicelli maker who has given everything to his two daughters and dies poor in a boarding house.

• Eugène de Rastignac, protagonist

  Ambitious law student from the provinces whose education in Paris society is the novel's other plot.

• Vautrin (Jacques Collin), tempter

  Jovial lodger who is secretly the escaped convict Trompe-la-Mort and offers Rastignac a criminal shortcut to wealth.

• Anastasie de Restaud, Goriot's elder daughter

  Countess who pawns her husband's family diamonds to pay her lover's debts.

• Delphine de Nucingen, Goriot's younger daughter

  Banker's wife who becomes Rastignac's lover and whose fortune is held by her husband.

• Claire de Beauséant, Rastignac's cousin

  Great lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain who introduces Eugène to society and withdraws from it when her lover marries.

• Horace Bianchon, medical student

  Rastignac's friend, who studies Gall's system, diagnoses Goriot's stroke and nurses him to the end.

• Mme. Vauquer, landlady

  Widowed proprietor of the boarding house, who once hoped to marry Goriot.

• Victorine Taillefer, boarder

  Gentle girl disowned by her banker father, the heiress in Vautrin's scheme.

• Mlle. Michonneau, boarder

  Spinster who betrays Vautrin to the police for a reward.

Lessons

• A father's love without measure

  Goriot gives his daughters fortunes, rank and finally his silver, annuities and health, and asks only to see them. The novel presents his devotion as both sublime and disordered: he never asks anything of them, and they learn to take everything. Balzac makes the reader feel the tragedy without letting Goriot off as blameless.

  • What does Goriot sell or give away over the course of the novel, and in what order?
  • Does Goriot share any responsibility for what his daughters have become?
  • What is the difference between love that gives and love that never asks anything in return?

• Three teachers for one student

  Rastignac receives three educations: Mme. de Beauséant teaches him society's cold rules, Vautrin offers the criminal's frank version of the same rules, and Goriot shows him love that society despises. Eugène refuses Vautrin's crime but adopts much of the Vicomtesse's counsel.

  • How are Vautrin's and Mme. de Beauséant's advice alike, and where do they differ?
  • Why does Rastignac refuse Vautrin outright yet fail to warn Taillefer's son?
  • Which of his teachers does Eugène follow in the last line of the novel?

• The price of a place in society

  Every rise in the novel has a cost: the Restaud diamonds, the Nucingen fortune, the savings of Eugène's mother and sisters, young Taillefer's life. Balzac's society runs on money that is always someone else's, and the boarding house sits beneath the grand houses as their hidden foundation.

  • Whose money pays for Rastignac's first evening clothes?
  • Why does Balzac set the novel in a boarding house rather than in a great house?
  • Can a person enter a corrupt society without being changed by it?

• Kindness among the poor

  At the end, the only people who tend Goriot are two students and the servant Christophe, who lend money, pawn a watch and stand at the grave. The empty carriages of the daughters' families make the contrast plain.

  • What do Bianchon and Rastignac give up to care for Goriot?
  • What does Christophe say of Goriot at the funeral, and why does Balzac give him that line?
  • Why does Eugène's youth end with a tear at the grave?

Context

The novel is set in 1819-20, under the restored Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII, when the old nobility of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and new fortunes made in banking and wartime trade were mingling uneasily. Goriot grew rich selling grain during the shortages of the Revolution; his daughters marry into the old nobility and the new banking world respectively. Balzac wrote it in 1834, under the July Monarchy, looking back fifteen years.

Composition

Balzac drafted Le Père Goriot quickly in the autumn of 1834; it appeared in the Revue de Paris from December 1834 to February 1835 and as a book in 1835. Here he first brought back characters from earlier works (Mme. de Beauséant, the Duchesse de Langeais) and launched others, Rastignac, Vautrin and Bianchon, who recur throughout La Comédie humaine. The dedication to the naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire dates from a later edition. Ellen Marriage's translation was published in 1896 in the English Comédie humaine series edited by George Saintsbury.

Reception

Father Goriot was a success on publication and has remained Balzac's most widely read novel. Rastignac's name entered French as a byword for an ambitious young man. Critics have long compared Goriot with King Lear, and the novel has been repeatedly adapted for stage, film and television.

Comparisons

• king-lear

  Both turn on a father who gives his fortune to daughters who then shut him out; Lear has Cordelia, while Goriot has no faithful child, only a student who nurses him.

• crime-and-punishment

  Rastignac and Bianchon's talk about killing an old mandarin for a fortune anticipates Raskolnikov's theory; Dostoevsky admired Balzac and translated his Eugénie Grandet.

• great-expectations

  Pip and Rastignac are young men educated in money and rank, and in each a convict (Magwitch, Vautrin) offers a hidden path to fortune.

• les-miserables

  Vautrin and Jean Valjean are both escaped convicts living under false names, but Hugo's convict is redeemed by mercy while Balzac's remains a genius of the underworld.

• goethe-faust-part-one

  Vautrin plays a Mephistophelean tempter to an ambitious young man, offering a bargain whose price is another's life.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The long description of the Maison Vauquer at the start, and how the house is made to match its landlady and lodgers.
• Every time Goriot sells or gives something away for his daughters.
• The parallel advice Rastignac receives from Mme. de Beauséant and from Vautrin.
• The talk between Rastignac and Bianchon about killing an old mandarin in China.
• The double scene of Mme. de Beauséant's farewell ball and Goriot's sickbed, and the final view from Père-Lachaise.

Key terms and names

Maison Vauquer

The cheap boarding house in the Latin Quarter where Goriot, Rastignac and Vautrin lodge.

Faubourg Saint-Germain

The Paris district of the old nobility, where Mme. de Beauséant receives society.

Trompe-la-Mort

Cheat-Death, the underworld nickname of the escaped convict Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin.

Dowry

The fortune Goriot settled on each daughter at marriage, which bought them their titles and husbands.

The mandarin question

A thought experiment Rastignac puts to Bianchon: would you kill an unknown old man in China by a wish if it made you rich?

La Comédie humaine

Balzac's collective title for his linked novels and stories; Rastignac, Vautrin and Bianchon reappear in many of them.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension How did Goriot make his fortune, and where has it gone by the time the novel opens?
2. Comprehension What exactly does Vautrin propose to Rastignac, and how is Vautrin finally caught?
3. Interpretation Why does Balzac spend so many pages describing the boarding house before the story begins?
4. Interpretation Vautrin says there are no principles, only events. Does the rest of the novel prove him right or wrong?
5. Interpretation What does Rastignac mean by his last words at Père-Lachaise, and why does he then go to dine with Delphine?
6. Big Question Can love be given in a way that harms the one who receives it?
7. Big Question Is ambition itself a fault, or only ambition that sacrifices others?

Faith Connections

• Exodus 20:12 (Scripture)

  Honor thy father and thy mother. The daughters' neglect of Goriot is a broken commandment; Goriot's own indulgence, which never asked honor, is part of the story too.

• Mark 8:36 (Scripture)

  What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Vautrin's bargain and Rastignac's final challenge to Paris put the question in concrete form.

• Luke 15:11-32 (Scripture)

  The father of the prodigal runs to meet a penitent son; Goriot waits for daughters who come too late, and Anastasie's repentance at the deathbed is unheard.

• Augustine, Confessions II (Church Fathers)

  Augustine examines the theft of pears done for the sake of companions; Rastignac likewise moves step by step through a society whose approval he craves.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: In Restoration Paris, rank and pleasure are bought with money, and money is always taken from someone: a father, a family, a dead brother. Goriot gives without limit and is consumed; Vautrin takes by crime and is caught; Mme. de Beauséant plays by society's rules and is still cast aside. Therefore the student who learns these lessons must choose what he will become, and the novel ends at the moment of that choice.

Rhetorical device: apostrophe to the reader. In the opening pages the narrator turns on the comfortable reader in an armchair and insists that the drama is neither a fiction nor a romance.

Debate: Resolved: that Rastignac is guilty of young Taillefer's death.

Memory Work

Henceforth there is war between us.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Rastignac has three teachers: Mme. de Beauséant, Vautrin and Goriot. Argue which one has the deepest influence on him by the last page.

Comparison with King Lear: Compare Goriot and Lear as fathers who give away their fortunes to their daughters. How does the presence or absence of a Cordelia change the meaning of each tragedy?

Medical Lens

Horace Bianchon, here a student at the Hôpital Cochin, became Balzac's recurring physician across La Comédie humaine, and the novel's medicine is that of the Paris clinical school around 1820. Bianchon reads character by Gall's phrenology, diagnoses Goriot's collapse as serous apoplexy (an effusion of serum on the brain, a period category for some strokes), and treats it with mustard plasters on the legs to draw the congestion downward, moxas, and laudanum rubbed over the diaphragm, after a consultation including a pupil of Gall. Two druggings drive the plot: Vautrin puts a sleeping draught in the wine of Rastignac and Goriot, and the police supply Mlle. Michonneau with a dose meant to send blood to Vautrin's head so that his shoulder can be bared. The narrator says Goriot's fatherhood grew almost into a mania, in the vocabulary of the time; modern readers have discussed his devotion as an obsession, but that is interpretation. The deathbed scenes, with delirium, alternating curses and blessings, and a hired priest, are among the most detailed death scenes in the 19th-century novel.

• Dinner after the daughters' quarrel

  Bianchon reads the signs of serous apoplexy in Goriot's face and eyes and gives a poor prognosis.

  Physicians Doctors Aging Senescence
• Goriot's last illness

  Mustard poultices, moxas from the Hospice Cochin, a medical consultation, and laudanum rubbed on the diaphragm.

  Physicians Doctors Opium Laudanum Death Dying
• Vautrin's arrest

  The police agent's drug, slipped into Vautrin's drink at table, produces a sham apoplexy so that Vautrin's brand can be found; earlier Vautrin drugs the wine of Rastignac and Goriot.

  Pharmacology Poisons
• Account of Goriot's history

  The narrator traces how Goriot's fatherhood, after his wife's death, developed almost into a mania.

  Obsession Monomania Grief
• Goriot's death

  Delirium, calls for the absent daughters, Anastasie's arrival when he can no longer hear, and the death announced by Bianchon.

  Death Dying Grief

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write the letter Rastignac's mother sends with the family's savings, in her voice.

• Dialogue

  Stage a conversation between Vautrin and Mme. de Beauséant on how a young man should rise in Paris.

• Essay

  Compare Goriot and King Lear as fathers. Which bears more responsibility for his fate, and why?

Further Reading

• Lost Illusions, Honoré de Balzac

  Vautrin returns at its close.

• Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac

• Balzac: A Biography, Graham Robb

• Mimesis, Erich Auerbach

  Its chapter on Stendhal and Balzac analyzes the description of Mme. Vauquer's dining room.