The Topography of Le Père Goriot

The Paris of Balzac's lifetime was largely mediaeval, based as it was on a mediaeval street pattern and largely unchanged. It was not until the 1850's with the modernization programme commissioned by Napoléon III and carried out by Baron Haussmann that the modern Paris we know today took shape. Balzac's Paris was one of glitter, ferment and temptation since the capital became a magnet for the concentraion of wealth and power. Yet it was also one of squalid streets, dark alleys and poor hygiene.

By and large, the Paris depicted by Balzac in his novels conforms to this historical reality. Paris, in Le Père Goriot is divided according to social, economic and moral differences. The description of the Pension Vauquer at the beginning of the novel with its hierarchy of levels and rooms for the comparatively rich and the comparatively poor represents the Parisian social space in miniature. Balzac's Paris is then, one of economic difference and social and moral distinction.

Let's now take a more detailed look at the topography (the division and organization of space) of the novel. David Bellos (1987) claims that Balzac's Paris is composed of three distinct and interrelated worlds:

The Faubourg Saint-Marceau (left bank)

The Faubourg Saint-Honoré (right bank)

The Faubourg Saint Germain (left bank)

These three separate social spaces correspond, respectively, to the following social orders:

The Faubourg Saint-Marceau (an impoverished urban sprawl populated by les misérables: Mme Vauquer, le père Goriot etc.)

The Faubourg Saint-Honoré (the haute bourgeoisie of bankers and businessmen as well as the `new' aristocracy: Baron de Nucingen, M. Taillefer etc.)

The Faubourg Saint Germain (old aristocracy: Madame de Beauséant; Madame de Restaud etc.)

Although this division illustrates Balzac's sensitivity to the new economic shifts in the capital it may be simpler to draw a distinction between just two worlds:

La Pension Vauquer

Le grand monde

This is undoubtedly the more dramatic ordering of social space since it leaves no room for half measures or being in-between. Indeed, this is the conceptual opposition that Balzac establishes and then systematically undermines throughout the novel. It provides the two separate battlegrounds on which the novel's three main protagonists (Goriot, Vautrin and Rastignac) struggle for supremacy, or in the case of Goriot, for survival. However, running through these two clearly defined territories is a deep seam or trammel of mystery and clandestine financial transactions. This seam or trammel undermines or destabilizes the hierarchy, the binary division of social space revealing not difference or separation but similarity and connection. Where, superficially, there appears to be difference, there is in fact sameness. In terms of the functionning of the plot the character of Rastignac is pivotal since his presence helps to reveal the secret connections of these two ostensibly autonomous realms. Part of Rastignac's bildung is thus the discovery of the underlying organizing principle of society. The underlying organizing principle of society is, of course, money. One of the key scenes in the novel is when Rastignac meets Anastasie and Monsieur de Restaud for the first time and he commits the embarassing social error of mentionning the name of le Père Goriot. (Folio pp.94-5). Through this apparently innocent act of verbal awkwardness he strumbles unwittingly into an area of secrecy and taboo. He articulates the deep connectedness of the classes, particularly the middle and upper classes of the Restoration. Goriot's fortune has bought his daughter an advantageous marriage into the aristocracy but the aristocracy's reliance on the fortunes of the bourgeoisie must never be mentionned. Goriot, the visible reminder of dubious origins must be hidden from sight and never mentionned.

The superficial separation between the social worlds of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie is revealed to be illusory, it simply doesn't exist. The `high' and `low' worlds described in the novel are unified and united by an under the surface system of dehumanized financial relations. Money is the point of contact behind apparent social divisions, but it is a travesty of the real human bonds.This is the moral pattern underlying the superficial topography of the novel.

Further Reading

• D. Bellos, Balzac: Old Goriot (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
• C. Prendergast, Balzac: Fiction and Melodrama (London: Edward Arnold, 1976)

http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~os0tmc/comm.html
Les Chemins du savoir
Concept: Charlie Mansfield, Text: Tony McNeill, Artwork: Carole Baker
The University of Sunderland, GB, Last Update 18-Mar-96