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Le Père Goriot is a novel by Honore de Balzac, set in Paris 1819 and following the lives of three characters. These characters were intended to return in the author’s later works, thus creating a sense of continuity within de Balzac’s fiction. Such a method illustrated the development of returning characters and the value of their contributions to the storyline. Another important component of de Balzac’s work is realism, which is characterized by the increased attention to the description of details inherent to the characters.
In the 19th century, there has been a significant shift in the culture of Europe, with the increased urbanization and industrialization altering the physical landscape and pushed society toward progress. In Le Père Goriot, de Balzac studied women of different social classes and their everyday life. In the novel, women take more prominent sexual roles and have stronger characters that are reinforced with de Balzac’s focus on realism. For example, the first female character encountered in the novel, Madame Vauquer, seems to align with the stereotype of a motherly figure and a widow. In the author’s description, she resembled all the women who have suffered throughout their lives. Nevertheless, Madame Vauquer is only interested in people who have a good income, and she appears to be very fond of gossip. She is described as not the first person “to mistrust her nearest and dearest yet confide in the first stranger who comes along” (de Balzac, 2001, p. 36). Such a description of a woman may seem quite stereotypic. However, given the realism approach toward characterization, one cannot argue with the fact that there are such women in real life. Moreover, men are also described with a high degree of realism, with their character flaws being for show.
Therefore, women in the novel have received a certain degree of power and equality when it comes to their relationships with men. At the basic level, de Balzac does not trace any specific distinction between the characters of different genders. Both the characters of Goriot and Rastignac suffer in the hands of women because the latter seems to have the leading role in relationships, both familial and sexual. For example, Goriot’s daughters have abandoned him because he was not as wealthy as they would have wished them to be. The man had a deep love for his daughters: “Only I love my daughters more than God loves the world […] They are so near and dear to my heart” (de Balzac, 2011, p. 87). On his deathbed, the old man acknowledged that his daughters were his only vice. Such an acknowledgment shows a great sense of power that Goriot’s daughters had over him.
Money and beauty are the topics that go hand-in-hand in the novel. A woman’s sexual power over a man is associated with her desire to be successful and have resources for living. While de Balzac’s women have power with beauty and use that power to enable men to give them the resources, the relationships between the characters represent the basis for the comedy of life. The depiction of women in Le Père Goriot may seem as transactional and inhumane; however, the power of female sexuality is given an active role, which makes the novel unique in its approach. As women realize their strengths, they can use them to advance in life, willingly and intentionally obtaining the resources that they deem necessary.
Reference
De Balzac, H. (2011). Old man Goriot. (O. McCannon, Trans.). London, UK: Penguin Books.
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