Honore de Balzac

Father Goriot Honore de Balzac

Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac and translated by Ellen Marriage. Le Pere Goriot is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), included in the Scenes de la vie privee section of his novel sequence La Comedie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot; a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin; and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac. Le Père Goriot begins in June 1819, following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, after the House of Bourbon had been restored to the throne of France. Tension was mounting between the aristocracy, which had returned with King Louis XVIII, and the bourgeoisie produced by the Industrial Revolution. During this era, France saw a tightening of social structures, with a lower class steeped in overwhelming poverty. By one estimate, almost three-quarters of Parisians did not make the 500-600 francs a year required for a minimal standard of living. At the same time, this upheaval made possible a social mobility unthinkable during the Ancien Regime of previous centuries. Individuals willing to adapt themselves to the rules of this new society could sometimes ascend into its upper echelons from modest backgrounds, much to the distaste of the established wealthy class.