description: In a grimy boardinghouse in a dismal Parisian neighborhood, Balzac sets the stage for his 1834 study of paternal love, of greed, envy, and despair. Pere Goriot tells the story of a nineteenth-century counterpart to King Lear, a father so blindly devoted to his undeserving daughters that his tragic realization - "I loved them too much for them to love me at all" - comes too late. This best-known of Balzac's Comedie humaine novels has all the stylistic elements one might unnerving psychological analyses; vivid physical descriptions, acute observations of the rules governing Parisian society, disarming wit, and unbridled passion.
language: English
title: Pere Goriot/Eugenie Grandet
titlecomplete: Pere Goriot/Eugenie Grandet
genres: Literature, Classics, Novels, France, Fiction
ratings_count: 302
publisher: McGraw-Hill College