num_pages: 448
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: French
title: Le Père Goriot
titlecomplete: Le Père Goriot
characters: Horace Bianchon, Anastasie de Restaud, Delphine de Nucingen, Frederic de Nucingen, Vautrin, Eugène de Rastignac, Vicomtesse de Beauseant, Père Goriot, Henri de Marsay, Béatrix de Rochefide
genres: Fiction, France, French Literature, Roman, Classic Literature, School, Literature, Classics, Novels, 19th Century
ratings_count: 57189
places: Paris
series: La Comédie Humaine
publisher: Folio