Book Review – Eugénie Grandet by Balzac
A Classic Novel From one of France’s Most Esteemed Literary Realists
Apr 30, 2009
Eugénie Grandet was published in 1833, and later integrated into Honoré de Balzac’s magnum opus, The Human Comedy. Balzac’s literary project was to document the minutiae of life and character through a vast collection of novels and stories. Eugénie Grandet was Balzac’s first commercially-successful work and tells the story of a young bourgeois woman whose circumstances and fortune are dictated by the extreme greed of her father.
Comparing Eugénie With Greedy Monsieur Grandet
Right from the beginning, Balzac sets up a strong contrast between Eugénie and her father. Monsieur Grandet is portrayed as an extremely cunning businessman, whose only real concern in life is to enrich his stores of gold. He keeps his household in near poverty, so much so that both Eugénie and her mother believe the family must live on a very limited income.
Monsieur Grandet’s greed is such that it has warped his character entirely. He is incapable of caring for his wife and daughter, and in many ways the individual he has the most regard for is his servant, Nanon, who derives an incredible amount of pleasure in fulfilling her master’s miserly whims.
Eugénie, on the other hand, is wholly uncorrupted by this greed. She is devoted and kind, portrayed as an ignorant but gentle saint. Balzac’s initial description of Eugénie lays the groundwork for the further development of her character. What is the ultimate ending for a saint? To become a martyr.
Basic Plot Outline of Eugénie Grandet
Although Balzac’s novel treats a variety of interesting themes, the basic story revolves around Eugénie’s possibilities for marriage. There is a long-standing rivalry between two other bourgeois families, the des Grassins and the Cruchots, each of which has one young man to offer the Grandets. Balzac introduces a sudden twist with the arrival of Eugénie’s cousin Charles one evening while the three families are celebrating Eugénie’s 23rd birthday.
Charles does not bring happy news to the gathering. His father, Monsieur Grandet’s brother and long-time resident of Paris, has just committed suicide and left Charles a debtor. The Grandet name risks losing its honor. Charles grieves, Eugénie attends to him, and inevitably the two fall in love.
From this point on, the novel entertains two questions: will Eugénie and her cousin be allowed to marry and how will Monsieur Grandet save the family name and rid himself of any responsibility toward Charles without spending one cent of his own money? His ingenious machinations provide for the dénouement of this captivating novel.
Literary Realism in Eugénie Grandet
Balzac is considered a great master of the realist literary style. His careful attention to detail and the way he uses everyday objects and painstaking description to exemplify the interior workings of his characters make his novels both rich and complex. His goal was to create an exact likeness of human existence – the good and the bad, the perfect and the flawed.
This realist style is epitomized in Eugénie Grandet. From the description of the Grandet household to the smallest mention of a piece of jewelry or a candle, Balzac highlights the objective details surrounding his characters and uses that information to convey human nature to the reader.
Eugénie Grandet, Oxford University Press, 2003, 240 pp.
ISBN: 978-0192804747
