Le Père Goriot

Father Goriot (French: Le Père Goriot ) is an 1834 and 1835 published in the years novel by Honoré de Balzac. As part of Balzac's La Comédie humaine series of novels (English: The Human Comedy ) is one of Goriot to the Scènes de la vie privée ( Scenes from private life ).

Thematic classification

Balzac Father Goriot addressed to a virtually all social strata comprehensive persons ensemble both social advancement as well as its plains and chasms in the context of the restoration of the early 19th century. Balzac granted by the example of the former pasta factory Goriot - who lives only in the lives of his daughters, is exploited in return, and finally " like a dog " dies - a look at the ideological orientation of the company to fame, power, note the decor and the rise of capitalism, an ever stronger penetration of the money in all areas of life. The emblematic of optimism about progress and rationalism standing chariot of civilization ' rolls over and breaks the to him Deputy end in the way of " coeur " (heart) short hand and points to the reader obvious at the beginning of the novel Balzac's exemplary writing and literary self to.

Fictional characters

• Madame Vauquer, inn owner
• Vautrin, unscrupulous crook named Jacques Collin in the guise of a respectable citizen
• Father Goriot, former grain speculator and pasta producer
• Anastasie de Restaud, his elder daughter, wife of a nobleman
• Delphine de Nucingen, his younger daughter, wife of a banker
• Victorine Taillefer, a young, penniless girl
• Madame Couture, her governess
• Eugène de Rastignac, ambitious, a penniless young man from the country
• Mademoiselle Michonneau, greedy retiree
• Poiret, fawning official

Narrative technique

The peculiarity of Balzac's narrative technique lies in its stylistic and programmatic perspective, which is mainly due to an authorial narrator, who in turn is in tension between the intermittent than reflector-character protagonists Rastignac. The narrator is ostensibly a first transmitter proclaimed as a true story in which limitless, ad absurdum father love ultimately must result in a society founded on moral worthlessness as selfishness, ruthlessness, vanity, and of course greed to ruin. For those who possess these qualities, the social mobility seems assured. Goriot, however, nothing more consumed by his daughters, as the " petit chien " (small dog ) to be allowed to be near her, thus enters into a literally dog-like dependence and finally must also " comme un chien" ( like a dog ) die. In these key scenes, the narrative perspective changes in the vicinity of the characters, so that the reader through the suggested, close proximity to the characters Goriot on his deathbed, who has seen through his daughters, yet wants their presence, or Rastignac, in his inner conflict between moral integrity and social success, striving to identify emotionally. The " realistic " Tell Balzac has in some passages a strong mythological component, as in the arrest of the criminal in the board when it is associated with the devil.

Company image

Sociological Function

The truth claim of the novel is based is nevertheless embedded in a larger context, it's about more than the representation of the fate of an individual. Through his narrator Balzac operated as an empirical social scientists and social scientists, who is also an analyst, critic and visionary. Wisely on authenticity and analytical precision he clasped reality and fiction as part of a poetics of scientific imagination and puts itself and thereby also the recipient in a position to be able to make from a global perspective statements about society. Balzac justified by the novel as a ( socio-) scientific form, which exceeds with the help of imagination and genius, the dimensions of the means of traditional natural sciences tangible, is still methodically derived from them. Great importance to his work has also zoologist Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire, to whom he dedicated this book. Modeled after the espèces zoologiques Balzac creates in his work the espèces humaines (eg Mademoiselle Michonneau as Viper ).

Socio-critical function

The often unsparing depiction of society eventually leads to a critique. Social mobility is possible after Balzac's analysis, as a Goriot by skillful grain speculation, as a kind of revolution winners, the social ladder initially rises, but does not deal takes place in a based on corruption and decor company and monomaniac by his - not father love - and exploitation worthy can survive. Or like a Rastignac, whose social initiation is gradual, but he has to be ready for integrity of its roots, metaphorically by its origin from the province as opposed to Paris yet uncorrupted, detach. Inevitably leads to social mobility in a moral chaos that represent the reader again through poetic refinements such as the moral Raumsemantisierung, in the topological heights as the Père Lachaise cemetery as Goriot's final resting place, indicators for the respective moral level, is made ​​aware of. The presentation of the cash fixity and the insatiability as drivers of the company post- Napoleonic era, leads not only to a disillusionment of the reader, but also a critique of contemporary social action that lacks any traditional or ethical standards.

References

• Balzac, Honore de. Le Père Goriot. In 1834. Vachon, Stéphane (eds.). Librairie Générale Française, 1995.
• Dethloff, Uwe. Le Père Goriot. Honoré de Balzac's society representation in the context of the realism debate. Tübingen: Francke, 1989.
• Dubois, Jacques. Les romanciers du reel. De Balzac à Simenon. Editions du Seuil, 2000
• Warning, Rainer. The imagination of the realists. Munich: Fink, 1999.