Le Père Goriot

“If Pere Goriot had daughters as rich as all the women who come to see him appear to be, he would not be living in my house, on the third floor, at forty-five francs a month, and he would not dress like a pauper.”

Madame Vauquer is confidently wrong about everything, including Goriot. She has no interest in learning more about the world around her; she would rather project her misguided assumptions onto everything and then loudly proclaim her opinions to the world. She is incurious and unrepenting in her ignorance.

“You are still too young to know Paris properly.”

Rastignac is still new to the city, so his understanding of the intricacies of Paris is young and naïve. He is still dazzled by the shining lights and the luxurious homes, so he does not yet understand the moral rot that is hidden beneath these fancy veneers—particularly The Hypocrisy of 19th-Century French Society. Vautrin may be a cynic and a criminal, but he is not wrong about Paris’s immorality.

“Steal a million and you’ll be held up as an example of virtue in the salons.”

Vautrin launches a stinging critique of how society holds the poor and the rich to different standards. The poor are criminalized for the same behaviors that Rastignac will witness firsthand among the Parisian elite. The irony of Vautrin’s insight, however, is that he is an unrepentant criminal. He has no issue with stealing millions—merely the different reactions to theft based on whether one is rich or poor.

“The revolutionary government refused to recognize us as creditors when it liquidated the Compagnie des Indes.”

Rastignac is not a wealthy man. He is in Paris due to the benevolence of his family, who are funding his studies in the big city. When he meets the Parisian elite, however, he is able to capitalize on his noble lineage. He presents himself as a scion of a noble house now fallen on hard times. He makes sure to criticize the unfairness of the revolution as a way to ingratiate himself with an aristocratic audience. His family name elevates him in the eyes of this elite, and he uses this to distinguish himself from people with the same amount of money but without his ancestry. This illuminates the nuances of Wealth and Social Class in Restoration France.

“Eugene did not know that you should never pay a call on anyone in Paris without first hearing from their friends the personal stories of husband, wife, and children.”

Rastignac’s ignorance of social etiquette exposes his naivete and unpreparedness. He does not know the unspoken rules that define upper-class life. These rules, when broken, can lead to ostracization and ridicule, hindering social mobility. Rastignac can rely on guidance from his cousin to teach him how to navigate the world, but many others cannot.

“What course is this on which you are embarking? Your life and happiness dependent on appearing to be what you are not, on seeing a world which you could only frequent by spending money you cannot afford, on wasting precious time from your studies?”

The letter from Rastignac’s mother functions as a warning to Rastignac and readers. Rastignac will abandon his morality and spend money that he does not have in order to ingratiate himself into a world that will prove to be cynical and immoral. He will sell himself, in effect, to a world that is not worth his sacrifice. By the end of the novel, his mother is vindicated.

“Who am I? Vautrin. What do I do? What I like. Let’s leave it at that. Do you want to know my character? I am good to those who are good to me, or whose hearts speak to mine.”

Vautrin’s moral code is not exactly moral, but it is direct and unpretentious. As Rastignac tries to navigate the complexities of the Parisian elite, Vautrin’s directness is a relief. Vautrin maintains no pretense about his ethics, and he has no time for questions of right or wrong. He shares this selfish cynicism with the wealthy elite, yet he is different in his refusal to cloak his desires in etiquette and airs.

“So if you want to get rich quick you have either to be rich already or you must appear rich. To get rich here you’ve got to pull off something big, otherwise you’re just a petty thief, and then it’s goodbye!”

The Bourbon Restoration has reinstituted many of the traditional barriers between social classes that were supposedly torn down during the revolution. Social mobility is less possible; this is no longer the same society in which a poor merchant like Goriot can raise himself up. Given these limitations, Vautrin wonders why he should accept the constraints on his life. He does not feel compelled to play by the rules of a society that is so unjust.

“Yes, my sister has put herself in the wrong by treating our poor father as she does.”

Delphine’s hypocrisy is a recurring part of her character. She criticizes her sister for taking so much from their father and offering so little in return, ignoring her own history of doing exactly the same. Delphine refuses to recognize her own moral failings because she is too invested in competing with her sister. Her father is the victim of this competition and hypocrisy and is therefore key to the novel’s exploration of The Corruption of Parent-Child Relationships.

“You must never use this as a weapon against me.”

Delphine seeks Rastignac’s promise that he will not use her secret as a weapon against her. That her first instinct is to seek this promise suggests that she has a dim view of the world. She assumes that those who claim to love her will weaponize her secret and her shame. Rastignac is shocked by the cynicism of Delphine’s worldview, though it reflects her own self-serving behavior as well as what she sees around her.

“I have led that sort of life. I know what it costs.”

Vautrin tries to lecture Rastignac about the nature of Parisian high society, suggesting that the true cost of that sort of life is not financial. Rather, there is a moral cost to entering Parisian high society, as those who live in such luxury find themselves abandoning any morals or ideals that they once held.

“That young man adores you, and you will become his little wife, that’s my prediction.”

Vautrin may be correct in his diagnosis of Parisian corruption, but he is not a good man. Amid his warnings to Rastignac and his efforts to charm Madame Vauquer, he is scheming to secure enough money to purchase a plantation of enslaved laborers for himself. To satisfy this dream, he is emotionally manipulating the poor, innocent Victorine while plotting to have her brother killed. He assures her that Rastignac loves her, knowing full well that he does not. Vautrin makes her life worse for a success that he never realizes.

“Penniless yesterday, this morning she is a rich woman worth several millions.”

Through no action of her own, Victorine’s status has changed. The poor young girl who was forced to live in the Maison Vauquer and who begged her father for forgiveness is now a wealthy heiress, as Vautrin has arranged for her brother to be killed. Victorine is the same person she was the day before, yet in this society, she is immediately more estimable. Victorine’s sudden and unexpected elevation illustrates the disconnect between morality and material wealth.

“Are you any better than us? The brand we bear on our shoulders is not as shameful as what you have in your hearts, flabby members of a putrid society.”

When his criminal past is exposed, Vautrin lashes out at the world around him, but his words are not without merit. He has a brand on his shoulder that marks him as a criminal. However, he rejects the right of such a corrupt society to judge him. He is a criminal, but those who judge him—he insists—are no better.

“You are one of those beings who must be adored for ever.”

Rastignac seems to be praising Delphine, but his words also imply a subtle criticism. Rather than saying he adores her, he points out Delphine’s need to be adored. Delphine measures success by how much she is witnessed and appreciated. She therefore cannot love Rastignac as he loves her, as she is principally concerned with being loved rather than loving.

“How little it costs to make me happy!”

Goriot points to how little he needs in order to be happy, which invites questions about where his vast fortune has gone. His daughters have taken everything, and he was happy to give them this money. If he runs out of resources, however, they will not come to him any longer. Goriot may claim that he needs very little to be happy, but the cost of his daughters’ love is a price he can no longer afford to pay. The true cost of his happiness is the transactional nature of his daughters’ affection rather than the bread, water, and gratitude that he believes sustain him.

“Those women have a genius for rudeness”

The women of Paris will gather at the ball to witness the downfall of Madame de Beauséant. They will disguise their schadenfreude in social etiquette, smiling politely and taking her hand while mocking her behind her back. The rich and powerful people of Paris do not contribute much to the society they inhabit, but their capacity for creative and innovative spite is almost artistic in scope and design.

“Goodness, my brain is boiling, I can feel something burning inside my skull.”

Goriot speaks to his daughters as they bicker and ask for money. He complains of a headache, foreshadowing his imminent stroke. This is their relationship distilled to its purest form. The daughters are too busy with themselves to acknowledge their father’s suffering—particularly once they find out he has no money.

“Madame de Beauséant’s ball is the day after tomorrow, and I want to make sure I look lovely and relaxed there, and do honor to my dear Eugene!”

Delphine acknowledges that attending the ball alone is not enough. She must be seen to attend the ball. She wants to appear “lovely and relaxed” rather than actually be lovely and relaxed (213). To appear this way, she states, is her gift to Rastignac. She is repaying his love by allowing him to witness how others adore her.

“My father gave me a heart, but you made it beat.”

Delphine’s relationship with her father is purely transactional: She does not love him as he loves her. The comparison between Rastignac and her father therefore does not bode well for Rastignac. If this is how she understands love, then she will eventually treat Rastignac as she treated her father. Delphine does not acknowledge her faults, so she sees this as a declaration of love. For Rastignac, however, the meaning is subtly different.

“Her husband wants her to go to the ball to show off the diamonds she is supposed to have sold for the whole of Paris society to see.”

Delphine believes that appearances are more important than reality. She cares more about being seen at the ball than actually being at the ball, and she is not alone in this sentiment. Anastasie must wear diamonds, for example, so that her husband can dispel rumors that they were pawned (which happens to be true). Appearance is more important than reality in upper-class French society.

“Madame de Beauséant stood at the entrance to the first room to receive her supposed friends.”

The Parisian elite attend the ball in the most spiteful manner possible. They are gathered to witness the ritual humiliation of one of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful women. Madame de Beauséant, now aware that her lover has chosen to marry someone else, realizes that she has been turned into a laughingstock. Nevertheless, she must greet her guests as social etiquette demands. As she smiles and shakes hands with her “supposed friends,” the pretense of social niceties is revealed. These people do not really like each other, but they are engaged in a society-wide act that must be sustained.

“They both have hearts of stone. I gave them too much love for them to have any for me.”

Goriot’s final conscious thoughts recognize the tragedy of his love. He has dedicated his life to loving his daughters only to discover that they do not love him as he loved them. He has spoiled his daughters and turned their understanding of love into a purely transactional, materialistic understanding—a point that the paradox of giving so much that it drains the recipient underscores. There is no profit in visiting his deathbed, so they do not do so. Goriot dies with the realization that he has dedicated his life to a failed cause, making his character arc a tragic one.