Characters appear in fragments, with brief scenes providing small clues about their identity. The Charter of 1814 granted by King Louis XVIII had established a "legal country" which allowed only a small group of the nation's most wealthy men to vote. Men and women for you must be nothing more than post-horses; take a fresh relay, and leave the last to drop by the roadside; in this way you will reach the goal of your ambition. Yet, if you have a heart, lock it carefully away like a treasure; do not let any one suspect it, or Indianapolis boudoir photography you will be lost; you would cease to be the executioner, you would take the victim's place. Vautrin, for example, slips in and out of the story - offering advice to Rastignac, ridiculing Goriot, bribing the housekeeper Christophe to let him in after hours - before he is revealed as a master criminal. This pattern of people moving in and out of view mirrors Balzac's use of characters throughout La Comédie humaine.
Although Balzac had used this technique before, the characters had always reappeared in minor roles, as nearly identical versions of the same people. Although the complexity of these characters' lives inevitably led Balzac to make errors of chronology and consistency, the mistakes are considered minor in the overall scope of the project. When you loved this informative article and you would want to receive more details regarding Indianapolis boudoir photography please visit the web site. As with Scott's characters, Rastignac epitomizes, in his words and actions, the Zeitgeist in which he lives. Much less intricate are the descriptions of wealthier homes; Madame de Beauséant's rooms are given scant attention, and the Nucingen family lives in a house sketched in the briefest detail. This new detail sheds considerable light on the actions of all three characters within the pages of Le Père Goriot, complementing the evolution of their stories in the later novel. Balzac owed the former detail to the expertise of his friend Hyacinthe de Latouche, who was trained in the practice of hanging wallpaper.
His urban exodus is like that of many people who moved into the French capital, doubling its population between 1800 and 1830. The texture of the novel is thus inextricably linked to the city in which it is set; "Paris", explains critic Peter Brooks, "is the looming presence that gives the novel its particular tone". Readers are more often troubled by the sheer number of people in Balzac's world, and feel deprived of important context for the characters. Le Père Goriot, especially in its revised form, marks an important early instance of Balzac's trademark use of recurring characters: persons from earlier novels appear in later works, usually during significantly different times of life. It is said that in Le Père Goriot, Paris becomes a character in the same way the city did in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and London becomes in Charles Dickens' works. Rastignac is tutored by Vautrin, Madame de Beauséant, Goriot, and others about the truth of Parisian society and the coldly dispassionate and brutally realistic strategies required for social success.
Thus, Rastignac's drive to achieve social status is evidence not only of his personal ambition but also of his desire to participate in the body politic. Still, it is the larger social structure that finally overwhelms Rastignac's soul - Vautrin merely explains the methods and causes. In some ways this mirrors Balzac's own social education, reflecting the distaste he acquired for the law after studying it for three years. This is evident in Balzac's portrayal of the Parisian society as mercilessly stratified, corrupt, amoral, and money-obsessed. Although he rejects Vautrin's offer of murder, Rastignac succumbs to the principles of brutality upon which high society is built. Through his characters and narration, Balzac lays bare the social Darwinism of this society. While Rastignac desires wealth and social status, Goriot longs only for the love of his daughters: a longing that borders on idolatry. Rastignac, Vautrin, and Goriot represent individuals corrupted by their desires.