Le Père Goriot — Honoré de Balzac | Coleman’s Notes Reader’s Companion | CN-060

Balzac’s Paris — a world where money, ambition and social status can determine almost everything.

Set primarily in the shabby Maison Vauquer boarding house, Le Père Goriot brings together three unforgettable figures: the ambitious young student Eugène de Rastignac, the mysterious criminal Vautrin, and the ageing Père Goriot, whose obsessive devotion to his daughters has reduced him from prosperous businessman to impoverished lodger.

As Rastignac attempts to gain entry into fashionable Parisian society, he discovers a world governed by wealth, influence, appearances and ruthless competition.

Part family tragedy, part social panorama and part coming-of-age story, Balzac’s novel is one of the defining works of nineteenth-century French realism.

This comprehensive Coleman’s Notes® Reader’s Companion provides a clear route through the characters, relationships, social structures and ideas of Balzac’s remarkable novel.

Inside the guide

✓ Clear exploration of the story and structure
✓ Père Goriot and destructive parental devotion
✓ Eugène de Rastignac and social ambition
✓ Vautrin and the temptation of power
✓ Delphine de Nucingen and Anastasie de Restaud
✓ The Maison Vauquer and its inhabitants
✓ Detailed character analysis
✓ Fathers, daughters and family obligation
✓ Money, wealth and social power
✓ Ambition and social advancement
✓ Parisian high society
✓ Class and inequality
✓ Love, marriage and financial calculation
✓ Appearance versus reality
✓ Corruption and moral compromise
✓ Balzac and literary realism
✓ La Comédie humaine and the recurring-character system
✓ Setting, symbolism and narrative technique
✓ Key episodes and their significance
✓ Critical interpretation and discussion

What price success?

Rastignac arrives in Paris as a relatively inexperienced young man but quickly discovers that talent alone may not be enough to succeed.

Through Goriot, Vautrin and fashionable Parisian society, Balzac presents him with competing lessons about money, power, family and ambition.

Goriot sacrifices almost everything for his daughters. Vautrin argues that society itself is corrupt and should therefore be manipulated rather than respected. Rastignac must decide how far he is prepared to compromise himself to enter the world he desires.

His development gives the novel one of its central questions: can an individual succeed within a corrupt society without becoming part of that corruption?

Ideal for students, teachers, reading groups, book clubs and independent readers exploring Balzac and nineteenth-century French literature.

CN-060 | Digital Reader’s Companion | £10.95

Also available in French Literature Collection 1 — five complete Coleman’s Notes® Reader’s Companions for £49.95.

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