Old Goriot - SuccessLove, Money, Power Essays -

Old Goriot - Success:Love, Money, Power Old Goriot Success: Love, Money, Power ?Isn't it a fine game to play, after all, to be alone against mankind and to have luck on your side? (p. 125) states Vautrin. Honore de Balzac, in his novel Old Goriot, places us, the readers in Eugene de Rastignac's mind. The position in which Balzac prepares the readers to learn about Paris and Parisian life is set up brilliantly. What better way to teach the readers that to have them experience the main character's experiences. The lesson Honore de Balzac shares with us and his Eugene de Rastignac is that in Paris, Parisian success is solely a ruthless game of love, money and power. Throughout Old Goriot the prominent theme is success. All Balzac's characters have their own tales of triumph and adversity, as well as choosing which path leads to success, and this leads the readers to the opening of the novel. There are four characters whom of which Balzac puts great emphasis on their lives. These characters are Old Goriot, Vautrin, Madame la Viscomtesse de Beauseant, and Eugene de Rastignac. Two of Balzac's creations, Vautrin and Madame de Beauseant, have their theories of how to gain success through means of love, money and power. Old Goriot and Eugene de Rastignac serve as players in the game of Parisian life. In Paris and the Parisian life, Balzac bestows us, the readers and Eugene three ways of life to choose from. All three lead to some type of success- no one person can correctly define the meaning of ?success?- and all lead to death. The three options are obedience, struggle, or revolt. In the social strata of Parisian life, Old Goriot rests at the bottom. This is because he chose obedience and his family as his pathway to success. In all reality Old Goriot did reach his goal of being successful because he once was a great vermicelli maker. But because of his love for his daughters, he blindly sacrificed his love, money and power for their lives. Old Goriot says ?'Work forty years of my life, carry sacks on my back, lard the earth with my sweat, and pench and save my whole life long for you, my darlings, who pp.2 made all work easy for me and every burden light, only to see my fortune, my life, so up in smoke! If that were so I should go raving made, and die'? (p. 247). As stated earlier each path to success results in an inevitable death. Therefore, the quotation by Old Goriot proves to be true, because the conclusion of the novel ends with his burial. Mystery fills both the readers and Eugene when it comes to the character of Vautrin. In Old Goriot Vautrin - ?'As sure as my name is Cheat'? he says (Vautrin, p. 124) - is the villain, and is Eugene de Rastignac's enemy, granted Monsieur Rastignac is the hero. Vautrin, who's alias is Jacques Collin, has chosen the path to success through revolt and danger. Vautrin makes a very important offer to Eugene, where Monsieur Rastignac is forced to make a decision between struggle and revolt, for he has already done away with obedience by taking leave from his family to concatenate the aristocrats. Vautrin says to Rastignac, ?' Fifty thousand young men at this very moment are in your position and are racking their brains to find a quick road to success...You may judge of the efforts you must make and the bitterness of the struggle. You must devour each other like spiders in a pot, seeing there are not fifty thousand good positions for you. Do you know how a man makes his way here? By the bri lliance of genius or the cunning use of corruption. You must cut a path through this mass of mean like a cannon-ball, or creep among them lie a pestilence. Honesty is of no avail'? (p. 129). From that quote Vautrin has just proven that he has no heart for love and will ?'fight against envy, slander, mediocrity, against the whole world'? (Vautrin, p 131) to succeed in money and power. But, because in Parisian society, you cannot have one without the other, and Vautrin wants only money and power.