Le Père Goriot Summary PDF

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Le Père Goriot Consolidation Themes Le Père Goriot, family, paternity Women, love and marriage Money, commerce and corruption Paris, society and success Realism and immorality

Breakdown Chapter One: pp 47 - 108 – description of Maison Vauquer, introduction of characters, residents by étage Chapter Two: pp 108 – 147 – visits from Rastignac’s cousin Vicomtesse de Beauséant (faubourg SaintGermain) introduces him to high society (with help of Mme de Langeais) and Goriot’s daughters, Anastasie de Restaud (husband has ‘la naissance’), mistress of Maxime de Trailles and Delphine de Nucingen (‘un homme d’argent’) Chapter Three: pp 147 – 200 – Conflict between Vautrin and Goriot’s wishes for Rastignace with women, conflicting father figures Chapter Four: pp 201 – 213: Introdcution to Delphine and Rastignac Chapter Five: pp214 – 288: Trompe la Mort revealed Chapter Six : pp 289 – 327 : Goriot has a stroke when he hears of daughter’s financial turmoil Chapter Seven: pp 328 – 354: Goriot dies

Balzac Born 1799 Conservative values Pro-Monarchy and Catholicism Fictional and Historical Chronology 1782: Liaisons Dangereuses 1789: French Revolution – Bourgeois overthrow of the monarchy and feudal system in favour of National Assembly, France as a republic, Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Emperor in 1799. Influenced by Enlightenment ideals (popular sovereignty) 1799: Birth of Balzac (and textually, Rastignac)

1804 – 14: Napoléon Bonaparte – First Empire. Wanted to resotre order withough going back to the Ancien Régime. Napoleonic Code – cult of the father, Vautrin: Méprisez donc les hommes, et voyez les mailles par où l’on peut passer à travers le réseaux du Code”. Republicanism divides French the least, not clear to them until around 1870s 1814 – 1830: Bourbon Restoriation (Restoration of the monarcy) They were oart of the Ancien Régime, as Napoleon advised to return to monarchic power 1815: Waterloo, French led by Napoléon 1819-1820: Setting of novel – originally 1824 but to fit in with La Peau de Chagrin, another book from La Comédie Humaine, Balzac moved it earlier, however, there are anachronisms 1829: Publication of Les Chouons 1830: Bourbons replaced by another strand of French Royal family (Orléans Monarchy) 1832: Balzac’s conversion to légitimisme – “Le Christianisme a crée les peoples modersn, il les conservera…Le Catholicisme et la Royauté sont deux principes jumeaux” 1834 – 1835 : Published in installments in Revue de Paris, dependetn on patronage, paid by the page 1835: Published as a book 1842 – 1846: La Comédie Humaine published – starting with LPG – look at Avant Propos of the text, meta-text (surrounds the text) 1842 : Avant-Propos a la Comédie Humaine 1850 : Balzac dies

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Balzac categorises women as femmes vertueuses or femmes criminelles Tout peindre – can write about anything, realist principle compared to la censure impériale de sa Majesté Rastignac’s entry into society coincides with LPG’s death Pension Vauquer – microcosm for society, house of the unmarried, those who don’t fit the Napoleonic Civil Code with family life as model for order of nation, outcasts of society. Ambition and Desire – poropels protagonist into action and propels the narrative. Critics see it as moving novel forward – ecessary fro structure of the plot. Rastignac’s desure to succeed is stressed throughout “je réussirai” Structure of the Plot: novel of education, plots course of man’s career. Man’s desire for social success around women – options p[en for men and women in his novels. Fener… La Comédie HUmain is a series of interlocking narratives. Vautrin returns as deos Rastignac numerous times. V emerges as a masterful man, very knoweldgeable and so counterpoint to Rastignac. Role of the Narrator: Reader has aces to private sphere (through Vautrin?) who is a master plotter. Narrative presents us with our iwn fictionalised reading material (newspaper Bianchon no. 15). Communicates a special kind of news intelligence, truth can only be know by a very small number of people. The standard reading is that of Bianchon, the specialist reading, that of Rastignac and by extension they represent a general and specialist reading of society too. We question whether there is a limit to the scope of th narrator;s knowledge and also of Rastignac;s movement to knowledge reflects the narrators too.

Themes Family and Paternity: -

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Goriot rises thrught the pensions brungs him lcoser to God? Daughters see him as a source of profit and do not have a familial bond Goriot’s paternal role to Rastignac mirrors that of Vautrin’s to Rastignac – two very different paths and attitudes Parallels between Goriot and Rastignac and Vautrin and Rastignac – demonstrates ways in which paternity ould be tampered with for personal and financial ends Pension characters conflict with Napoleonic Code – everyone in families, role of father in the family as bread-winner – they are all marginalised individuals Critics have referred to Goriot as a monomanic – he lives for and through his daughters, they define him Goriot would give anything to them, even to h own detriment. Balzac refers to him as “le Christ de la Paternité – symbolises the suffering he goes through in order to ensure hs daughter are provided for Ah! Quand vous étiez petites, vous étiez bien heureuses’, he says nostalgically, thinking of times where they held ‘true human, family-based sentiment’ that was not ‘corroded and denatured in the modern economic world’, (Lucey) Importance of his position as a father to them, he is distraught at the breakdown of family and paternity when they don’t come to him at his death-bed: Si elles ne viennent pas?...Mais je serai mort !’ Papa Vautrin attempts to form a father-son bond with Rastignac -> mutual agreement for financial ends The tragic death of Goriot at the end of the novel serves to illustrate Balzac’s conservative views of the importance of the traditional family of C19 and the consequences of the newly emerging battle for wealth and success in Paris, which would inevitably destroy family relationships

Status -

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All about appearances, always going to the opera, descirtopn of houses and dresses, multiple mentions of diamonds, Status is the most important thing and that which Rastignac most desires Success is seen as the key to power – “le succès est tout le clef du pouvoir” Going to Dinner with Mdm de Nunigen at the end symbolises his rise in social status

Money -

Vauquer sees Goriot as a potential husband (which would allow her to then adhere to the Napoleonic Code, benefits of having him moe in – rich, black-market vermicelli sales As oriot moves up the Pension, Vauquer loses intrest and beings to humiliate him Money brings characters together even though it miht b in a negative way Balzac was very much aware of the importance of money and status Brutality is essential for high society Central theme, referred to multiple times – Balzac was a realist, historian Shown in detail about the rent for the pension, price to bury someone also mentioned – enhances his credibility as a historian

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Rastignca gambles for Délphone to pay off de Marsay Goriot is unable to give his daughter Anastasie 12,000 francs to pay Maxime Characters united by a universal respect for wealth

Women, Love and Marriage -

Social, political contract / agreement Chose husbands for money Rastignac chose Nunigne for her money, loves her eventually but primarily was moneydriven

Education and a journey in a social world -

Rastignac constantly referred to as un étudiant, he gets is social education from Mdm de Bauséant, works up to Delphine andon a moral level, learns to avoid the twists plots of those like Vautrin

Corruption -

All characters are corrupted by their desire, Rastignac, progression, Vautrin, money, Goriot, his daughters’ love and recognition Corruption linked to money – brings with it a power and dangerous corrupt obsession

Quotations by Theme Family and Paternity Vautrin to Rastignac about Goriot: “ses deux filles sont pour lui tout l’univers ” PG to Délphine: “c’est moi qui suis l’auteur de ta joie, comme je suis l’auteur de tes jours” “Ne vous mariez pas, n’ayez pas des enfants ! Vous leur donnez la vie, ils vous donnent la mort…leurs enfants me vengeront » « Mes filles, c’était mon vice a moi ;elles étaient mes maitresses, enfin tout » « il reporta ses affectrions trompées par la mort sur ses deux filles, il voulut rester veuf » Goriot the father compares himself to God: “Un Père est avec ses enfants comme Dieu est avec nous”, quand j’ai été père, j’ai compris Dieu » J’aurai soin de lui comme d’un pere, je lui donnerai mille jouissances.’ (Rastignac abot Goriot)

Women, linked to power, money, sexuality, place in society etc “Ma chère mère, vois si tu n’as pas une troisieme mamelle a t’ouvrir pour moi. Je suis dans une situation a faire promptement fortune. J’ai besoin e douze cent francs, et il me les faut a tout prix » eroticises economy, « maternal erotic love » (Beizer)

[‘une femme du monde mène à tout, elle est le diamant avec lequel un homme coupe toutes les vitres, quand il n’a pas la clef d’or avec laquelle s’ouvrent toutes les portes.’] (CH III 425)… Goriot to his daughters who he cannot keep happy anymore as he does not have the money: Ah! Quand vous étiez petites, vous étiez bien heureuses’

Education and a journey in a social world, realisations un ocean de boue dans lequel un homme se plongeait jusq’au cou, s’il y trempait le pied”… “votre Paris est donc un bourbier” (quagmire”) “Il s’agit pour moi de faire mon chemin ou de rester dans la boue”

Status and Success “son désir de parvenir et lui donnèrent (many circumstances) soif de distinctions » (desire to suceed and made him eager to distinguis himself”) Mme de Beauséant: ‘À Paris, le succès est tout, c’est la clef du pouvoir’] (CH III)

Money L’argent, c’est la vie. La monnaie fait tout’. Without money, he is a septuagénaire, hébété, vacillant, blafard’. Rastignac realises that « l’argent donne tout, même les filles » Corruption ‘Il n’y a pas de principes, il n’y a que des événements; il n’y a pas de lois, il n’y a que des circonstances: l’homme supérieur épouse les événements et les circonstances pour les conduire’] (CH III 144).“je me charge du rôle de la Providence”1 “Je ferais vouloir le bon Dieu”2 Je vous défie de faire deux pas dans Paris sans rencontrer des manigances infernales3”), women (“Une femme du monde mène a tout”4) « il voyait le monde comme un océan de boue dans lequel un homme se plongeait jusqu’au cou s’il y trempait le pied » Moi je me charge du role de la Providence »…je sui l’auteur, tu seras la drame

1 Balzac, H. and Vachon, S. (2016). Le Père Goriot. Paris: Livre de poche. Pg 172 2 Ibid Pg 172 3 Balzac, H. and Vachon, S. (2016). Le Père Goriot. Paris: Livre de poche. 4 Balzac, H. and Vachon, S. (2016). Le Père Goriot. Paris: Livre de poche.

Useful secondary reading according to theme Family and Paternity “Goriot…the incarnation of biological paternity” (Beizer)

natural paternity, epitomised by Goriot” natural paternity” is “depicted as paternal annihilation “Vautrin, the figure of artificial creation, in whom the charge of paternal power appears to vested” if Goriot’s daughters are as mistresses to him, and if Rastignac is his surrogate son, then Rastignac’s relations with Delphine are triply defined : she is lover, sister and mother to him” and the relation of sentiment to blood is itself insistently rhetorical. (Lucey, 2003)

Women, linked to power, money, sexuality, place in society etc

Delphine and Anastasie suffer near imprisonment at the hands of their husbands” (Reddy) “it is evident that society becomes an ocean through the mediation of a woman” (Beizer) “Paris est un veritable ocean.” Links to female evident : « un lieu vierge, un autre inconnu » Continued idea of Paris as Ocean when Rastignac « finds himself with « quinze mois de loisirs pour naviguer sur l’ócean de Paris, pour s’y livrer a la traite des femmes, ou y pecher la fortune » Both of these, although one apears to be financially motvated are about women – « the fortune for which he fishes is to take the form of a series of potential benefactresses »

Status and Success “The upper social sector is dependent on the exploitation of the lower” – “substructure and superstructure” (Brooks, 1995) While horribly material, boue is also compellingly symbolic. As Pasco notes: ‘Boue stands as much for the vile, for shame, for failure as it does for sludge’ (Mortimer, 2017) t heboar di nghouseatoncemi r r or sandpar odi est hest r uct ur eofPar i si ansoci et y… Madame Vauquerr egul at est hehi er ar chi caldi s t r i but i onofherl odger st hr ouhgoutt hev ar i ousst or ey sof t hehouse( Pr ender gast ,1978)

“Ordure, le moisi, le rance, crasse, pourriture, fange, l’air chaude,emt fétide”…Links to morality inherent in mentions of boue

Corruption “Rastignac’s attempts to keep clean during peregrinations through the city readily symbolise his need to keep his moral compass while navigating le beau monde. Vautrin warns that in the struggle to arrive, virtuous genius may be buried under the boue of corruption: ‘I challenge you to take two

steps in Paris without encountering its infernal schemes’ [‘Je vous défie de faire deux pas dans Paris sans rencontrer des manigances infernales’] (CH III 140) (Mortimer, 2017)

Education and a journey in a social world, realisations “These novels are Bildungsromane which represent a double education : they speak at once of a social and a sexual initiation” (Beizer) Rastignac is in a position of knowledge at the end of Le Père Goriot, not guilt (Mortimer, 2017)

Some Definitions Bildungsroman – a novel dealing with one’s formative years or spiritual education – here Rastignac, tracks path between ignorance and knowledge, naivety and experience. Rastignac guided by Bauséant and Vautrin – “étudiant”, both literally and in terms of him getting a social education. Realism – A way of writing that gives the impressions of recording faithfully an actual way of life, avoiding artistic conventions – very clear at the start of the book with the very detailed and precise description of the Pension Vauqyer and its inhabitants Arriviste – a person who wants to succeed at any price by any means...