Father Goriot

Father Goriot is Honoré de Balzac’s novel about paternal devotion and social ambition in Paris. Goriot’s sacrifices for his daughters unfold beside Eugène de Rastignac’s efforts to enter a privileged social world. The boarding house where they meet links people of different circumstances, making private histories part of a wider network of financial and personal dependence. Advice from figures such as Vautrin gives ambition an openly troubling moral logic. Balzac places affection and calculation in close proximity, asking how much family loyalty can survive when social standing becomes the measure of success.