In Père Goriot, Balzac often sees characters as products of their environment. For example, the narrator describes the Paris setting as follows: “a valley full of suffering that is real, and of joy that is often false, where life is so hectic that it takes something quite extraordinary to produce feelings that last.” The environment, in other words, stirs up fleeting emotions that don’t endure and that sometimes prove to be inauthentic. This environment is disorienting for those who, like Rastignac of France’s southern provinces, naively assume that genuine emotion should be openly expressed. Other characters, especially society women like his cousin Madame de Beauséant, tutor Rastignac in the suppression of genuine emotion and the use of calculated emotions as tools for getting one’s way in this fast-paced world. Yet by portraying the heartbreak and exile of characters like Madame de Beauséant, Rastignac, and Goriot, Balzac suggests that a calculating environment like Paris ultimately erodes people’s humanity, becoming an empty shell by ruining and expelling those who can’t live this way.
In Paris, emotions are tools and weapons for getting one’s way. A newcomer to Paris, Rastignac learns from a would-be paramour, Madame de Restaud, and from his cousin, the vicomtesse Madame de Beauséant, that emotional transparency isn’t valued in Parisian high society; rather, concealment and calculation are. The vicomtesse explains to Rastignac that “If you want to succeed […] start by not showing your feelings so plainly.” Later, when Rastignac says something the vicomtesse knows to be insincere, she is encouraged by his so-called progress: “For the first time the Southerner had become calculating. Between Madame de Restaud's blue boudoir and Madame de Beauséant's pink salon he had taken an Honours course in that Parisian Law which is never mentioned, although it constitutes an advanced social jurisprudence which, well learned and well practised, opens every door.” The sarcastic comparison to Rastignac’s law studies suggests that this sort of emotional calculation is an unspoken, yet essential, aspect of personal advancement within Parisian society. But such personal advancement comes at the cost of genuine relationships with others. As Madame de Beauséant advises Rastignac in greater detail, “The more coldly calculating you are, the further you will go. […] Accept men and women as mere post horses to be left worn out at every stage and you will reach the summit of your ambitions. […] But if you have any genuine feelings, hide them like a treasure; never let anyone suspect them, or you will be lost.” Madame de Beauséant’s chilling comparison—of people to horses ridden relentlessly from one stage of life to the next—clearly shows that other human beings are intended to be used, and that revealing one’s true feelings for others ruins one’s chances at advancement.
Even when a person tries to abide by these calculating rules, they will likely be left heartbroken. Rastignac discovers that even if a person succeeds at gaining an admired position in society through calculating displays of emotion, they can still be emotionally entangled and manipulated in turn. Over time, his calculated affair with Delphine de Nucingen stirs up true feelings: “Whether she really loved him or was just leading him on, Madame de Nucingen had inflicted on Rastignac all the pains of a genuine passion, drawing on all the resources of feminine intrigue as practised in Paris. […] For the past few months she had so inflamed Eugene's senses that she finally affected his inward heart. If in the initial stages of his liaison the student had believed himself to be the master, Madame de Nucingen had now gained the upper hand[.]” Rastignac discovers that toying with emotions is dangerous. For the inexperienced, emotions employed as weapons can turn on the user in unexpected, self-defeating ways.
Balzac portrays Paris as a place where genuine emotion cannot thrive and where sincere people either waste away or are driven out. As Rastignac watches Goriot die, he reflects, “Noble souls cannot stay long in this world. Indeed, how could deep feelings keep company with such a mean, petty, superficial society?” Madame de Beauséant, too, can’t ultimately follow through on the advice she gave Rastignac—she ends up leaving Paris, humiliated when she discovers that her lover is marrying someone else and unwilling to maintain a façade of composure. Ultimately, Balzac critiques a society that is consuming itself by forcing people to suppress and distort the very emotions that make them human.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Emotions, Sincerity, and Calculation ThemeTracker
Emotions, Sincerity, and Calculation Quotes in Père Goriot
‘You can understand that under the Empire the two sons-in-law did not make too much fuss about receiving in their homes the old revolutionary of '93; it was still all right under Buonaparte. But when the Bourbons came back, the old chap was an embarrassment to Monsieur de Restaud, and still more so to the banker. The daughters, who may perhaps still have been fond of their father, tried to play a double game, keeping their father and their husbands sweet at the same time. […] Personally, my dear, I believe that genuine feelings are neither blind nor stupid, so the poor old 93er's heart must have bled.’
‘The more coldly calculating you are, the further you will go. Strike without pity and people will fear you. Accept men and women as mere post horses to be left worn out at every stage and you will reach the summit of your ambitions. Don't forget that you will be nothing here unless you have a woman to take an interest in you. You need one who is young, rich, elegant. But if you have any genuine feelings, hide them like a treasure; never let anyone suspect them, or you will be lost.’
‘All right, let Père Goriot win you admission to Madame Delphine de Nucingen's house. The beautiful Madame de Nucingen will be the standard you bear. Enjoy the marks of her favour and women will dote on you. […] You will be very successful. In Paris success is everything, it is the key to power. If women believe you to have wit and talent, so will men, unless you disillusion them. Then you can set your heart on anything, every door will be open to you. Then you will learn what the world is really like: an assembly of dupes and knaves. Don't be counted with either.’
He was ashamed of what he had written. How intense would be their heartfelt wishes for him, how pure their fervent prayers to heaven! How they would delight in their self-sacrifices! How his mother would grieve if she could not send the whole sum! He would use such fine sentiments, such fearful sacrifices as rungs in a ladder to reach Delphine de Nucingen. Tears, a last few grains of incense cast on the sacred altar of the family, fell from his eyes.
The student walked back from the Théâtre-Italien to the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, his head full of the most alluring plans. He had not failed to notice how closely Madame de Restaud had observed him, both in the vicomtesse's box and in that of Madame de Nucingen, and he presumed that he would no longer find the comtesse's door closed to him. He could already count on four major contacts in the most select Parisian society […]
'If Madame de Nucingen takes an interest in me, I will teach her how to manipulate her husband. Her husband is a very successful businessman, and he'll be able to help me make my fortune in less than no time.'
‘My word,’ he said with seeming indifference, ‘what good would it do me to live in greater comfort? I really can’t explain that sort of thing; I can’t put two words together properly. That's what it's all about,’ he added, striking his heart. ‘My life, my own life, is all in my two daughters. If they enjoy themselves, if they are happy and finely dressed, if they have carpets to walk on, what does it matter what clothes I wear or what sort of bedroom I have? I don't feel cold if they are warm. I never feel sad if they are laughing. My only sorrows are theirs.’
Rastignac was indeed in a state of perplexity which must be familiar to many young men. Whether she really loved him or was just leading him on, Madame de Nucingen had inflicted on Rastignac all the pains of a genuine passion […] For the past few months she had so inflamed Eugène's senses that she finally affected his inward heart. If in the initial stages of his liaison the student had believed himself to be the master, Madame de Nucingen had now gained the upper hand[.]
‘Try and be philosophical, Ma,’ Collin went on. ‘Did it do you any harm being in my box at the Gaîté last night?' he exclaimed. ‘Are you any better than us? The brand we bear on our shoulders is not as shameful as what you have in your hearts, flabby members of a putrid society. The best among you could not stand up to me!’
Today I have only one fear, I can imagine only one disaster, and that would be to lose the love which has made me glad to be alive. Apart from that love, nothing matters, nothing else in the world means anything to me. You are everything to me. If I enjoy being rich, it is to enable me to give you more pleasure. I am, to my shame, more lover than daughter. Why? I don't know. My whole life is in you. My father gave me a heart, but you made it beat. The whole world may condemn me, what do I care?
He saw society as an ocean of mire into which one had only to dip a toe to be buried in it up to the neck. 'The only crimes committed there are petty ones!' he said to himself. 'Vautrin was a bigger man than that.' […] In his thoughts he returned to the bosom of his family. He remembered the pure emotions of that tranquil life, he recalled days spent among those who held him dear. By following the natural laws of hearth and home, those dear creatures found complete, unbroken, untroubled happiness. Despite such worthy thoughts, he did not feel bold enough to go to Delphine and confess the faith of pure souls by bidding her follow Virtue in the name of Love.
Rastignac left at about five o'clock, after seeing Madame de Beauséant into her travelling-coach and receiving her tearful farewell […] It was cold and damp as Eugène walked back to the Maison Vauquer. His education was almost complete.
‘I shan't be able to save poor Père Goriot,’ Bianchon said to him as Rastignac came into his neighbour's room.
‘My friend,’ said Eugène, after a look at the sleeping old man, ‘stay on the path that leads to the modest goal you have been content to set yourself. As for me, I am in hell, and must stay there.’
