Features of the realistic manner of Balzac. O's money theme

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14. The theme of money and the image of a miser in the work of Balzac: "Gobsek", "Eugenie Grandet", etc.

The theme of the power of money is one of the main ones in the work of Balzac and runs like a red thread in The Human Comedy.

"Gobsek" written in 1830 and included in Scenes of Private Life. This is a mini novel. It starts with a frame - the devastated Viscountess de Granlier was once helped by the lawyer Derville, and now he wants to help her daughter marry Ernest de Resto (the son of the Countess de Resto, ruined by his mother, but just the other day, according to Derville, who enters into inheritance rights Already here is the theme of the power of money: a girl cannot marry a young man she likes, because he does not have 2 million, and if there were, she would have many applicants). Derville tells the viscountess and her daughter the story of Gobsek, the usurer. The protagonist is one of the rulers of the new France. A strong, exceptional personality, Gobsek is internally contradictory. “Two creatures live in it: a miser and a philosopher, a vile creature and an exalted one,” the lawyer Derville says about him.

The image of Gobsek almost romantic. Speaking surname: from French Gobsek is translated as "zhivoglot". It is no coincidence that clients turn to him only last, because he takes into account even the most unreliable bills, but takes hellish interest from them (50, 100, 500. Out of friendship, he can give 12%, this, in his opinion, is only for great merits and high moral). Appearance: " moon face, Facial features, motionless, impassive, like Talleyrand's, they seemed to be cast in bronze. Eyes, small and yellow, like those of a ferret, and almost without eyelashes, could not stand bright light.". His age was a mystery, his past is little known (they say that in his youth he sailed the sea on a ship and visited most countries of the world), there is one big passion - for the power that money gives. These features allow us to consider Gobsek as a romantic hero. Balzac uses more than 20 comparisons for this image: a man-promissory note, an automaton, a golden statue. The main metaphor, Gobsek's leitmotif is "silence, like in a kitchen, when a duck is slaughtered." Like Monsieur Grandet (see below), Gobsek lives in poverty, although he is terribly rich. Gobsek has his own poetry and philosophy of wealth: gold rules the world.

He cannot be called evil, because he helps honest people who come to him without trying to deceive him. There were only two of them: Derville and Comte de Restaud. But even from them he takes extortionate interest, explaining it very simply. He does not want their relationship to be bound by a feeling of gratitude, which can make even friends enemies.

The image of Gobsek is idealized, it is expressive, tends to the grotesque. He is practically asexual (although he appreciates female beauty), he went beyond passions. He enjoys only power over the passions of other people: “I am rich enough to buy the conscience of other people. Life is a machine driven by money."

He dies like a true miser - alone, avarice reaches fantastic limits. He accepts gifts from his debtors, including food, tries to resell them, but is too intractable, and as a result, all this rots in his house. Everywhere - traces of crazy hoarding. Money falls out of books. The quintessence of this stinginess is a pile of gold, which the old man, for lack of a better place, buried in the chimney ash.

Balzac initially existed within the framework of the romantic movement, but the image of Gobseck is given with the help of the narrator - Mr. Derville, and the romantic exaggeration is objectified, the author is eliminated from it.

"Eugenia Grande" refers to the novels of the "second manner" (repetitions, comparisons and coincidences), is included in "Scenes of Provincial Life", and it develops the theme of the power of money and has its own image of a miser - Felix Grande, the father of the main character. The path to describing Eugenie's character begins with her setting: the home, the story of her father Grande, and his wealth. His stinginess, monomania - all this influenced the character and fate of the main character. The little things in which his stinginess is manifested: he saves on sugar, firewood, uses the edible stocks of his tenants, consumes only the worst of the products grown on his lands, considers 2 eggs for breakfast a luxury, gives Evgenia old expensive coins for birthdays, but constantly watches, so that she does not spend them, she lives in a poor dilapidated house, although she is fabulously rich. Unlike Gobsek, Father Grande is completely unprincipled in the accumulation of wealth: he violates an agreement with neighboring winemakers, having sold wine at exorbitant prices before others, he even knows how to profit from the ruin of his brother, taking advantage of the fall in the price of bills.

The novel, seemingly devoid of deep passions, in fact, simply transfers these passions from the love sphere to the market. The main action of the novel is Father Grande's transactions, his accumulation of money. Passions are realized in money and are also bought with money.

At papa grande- his values, views of the world, characterizing him as a miser. For him, it is not the loss of his father that is more terrible, but the loss of his fortune. He cannot understand why Charles Grande is so upset over his father's suicide, and not over the fact that he is ruined. For him, bankruptcy, intentional or unintentional, is the most terrible sin on earth: “To be bankrupt is to commit the most shameful of all acts that can dishonor a person. A robber from the main road - and that one is better than an insolvent debtor: the robber attacks you, you can defend yourself, he at least risks his head, but this one ... "

Papa Grande is a classic image of a miser, a miser, a monomaniac and an ambitious man. His main idea is to possess gold, to feel it physically. It is no coincidence that when his wife dies and he tries to show her all the tenderness, he throws gold coins on the blanket. Before his death, a symbolic gesture - he does not kiss the golden crucifix, but tries to grab it. From the love of gold grows the spirit of despotism. In addition to his love of money, similar to the Miserly Knight, another of his traits is cunning, which manifests itself even in appearance: a bump on the nose with streaks that moved slightly when Father Grande was plotting some kind of trick.

Like Gobsek, at the end of his life, his stinginess takes on painful features. Unlike Gobsek, even at the time of death, retaining a sound mind, this person loses his mind. He constantly strives to his office, makes his daughter shift bags of money, all the time she asks: “Are they there?”

The theme of the power of money is the main one in the novel. Money controls everything: they play a major role in the fate of a young girl. They trample on all the moral values of man. Felix Grande on his brother's obituary counts the profits. Evgenia is interesting to men only as a rich heiress. Due to the fact that she gave the coins to Charles, her father almost cursed her, and her mother died of a nervous shock on this basis. Even the actual engagement of Eugenie and Charles is an exchange of material values (gold coins for a gold box). Charles marries by calculation, and when he meets Eugenia, he perceives more as a rich bride, although, judging by her lifestyle, he comes to the conclusion that she is poor. Eugenia's marriage is also a trade deal, for money she buys complete independence from her husband.

15. Character and environment in Balzac's novel "Eugene Grande".

"Eugenie Grandet" (1833) is a truly realistic stage in the work of Balzac. This is a drama, concluded in the simplest circumstances. Two of his important qualities appeared: observation and clairvoyance, talent - an image of the causes of events and actions, accessible to the artist's vision. In the center of the novel is the fate of a woman who is doomed to loneliness, despite all her 19 million francs, and her “life is the color of mold.” This work “does not resemble anything I have created so far,” the writer himself notes: “Here the conquest of absolute truth in art has ended: here the drama is contained in the simplest circumstances of private life.” The subject of the image in the new novel is bourgeois everyday life in its outwardly unremarkable flow. The scene of action is the city of Saumur, typical of the French province. The characters are Saumur townsfolk, whose interests are limited to a narrow circle of everyday worries, petty squabbles, gossip and the pursuit of gold. The cult of the chistogan is dominant here. It contains an explanation of the rivalry between two eminent families of the city - Cruchot and Grassins, fighting for the hand of the heroine of the novel, Eugenia, the heiress of the multi-million dollar fortune of "Papa Grande". Life, gray in its miserable monotony, becomes the background of Eugenia's tragedy, a tragedy of a new type - "bourgeois ... without poison, without a dagger, without blood, but for the characters more cruel than all the dramas that took place in the famous Atrid family."

AT character Eugenie Grande Balzac showed the ability of a woman to love and be faithful to her beloved. It's almost the perfect character. But the novel is realistic, with a system of techniques for analyzing modern life. Her happiness did not take place, and the reason for this was not the omnipotence of Felix Grande, but Charles himself, who betrayed youthful love in the name of money and position in the world. So the forces hostile to Eugenia ultimately prevailed over the Balzac heroine, depriving her of what she was intended for by nature itself. The theme of a lonely disappointed woman, the loss of her romantic illusions.

In terms of its structure, the novel is of the “second manner”. One theme, one conflict, few actors. This is a novel that begins with everyday life, an epic of private life. Balzac knew provincial life. He showed boredom, everyday events. But something more is invested in the environment, things - it is Wednesday, which defines the character of the characters. Small details help to reveal the character of the characters: the father saving on sugar, the knock on the door of Charles Grandet, unlike the knock of provincial visitors, the chairman Cruchot, who wants to erase his last name, who signs "K. de Bonfons, as he recently bought the de Bonfons estate, etc. The path to the character of Eugenia consists of a description of everything that surrounds her: the old house, Grande's father and the history of his wealth, accurate information about the family, the struggle for her hand of two clans - Cruchot and de Grassenov. The father is an important factor in the formation of the novel: the stinginess and monomania of Felix Grande, his power, to which Eugenia obeys, largely determines her character, later the stinginess, the father’s mask of indifference is transferred to her, although not in such a strong form. It turns out that the Saumur millionaire (formerly a simple cooper) laid the foundations of his well-being during the years of the French Revolution, which gave him access to the possession of the richest land expropriated by the republic from the clergy and nobility. During the Napoleonic period, Grande becomes mayor of the city and uses this post to run a "superior railway" to his possessions, thereby increasing their value. The former cooper is already called Mr. Grande, receives the Order of the Legion of Honor. The conditions of the Restoration era do not interfere with the growth of his well-being - it was at this time that he doubled his wealth. Saumur bourgeois is typical of France of those times. Grande, a simple cooper in the past, laid the foundations of his well-being during the years of the revolution, which gave him access to the possession of the richest land. During the Napoleonic period, Grande becomes mayor of the city and uses this post to lead an "excellent road" to his possessions, thereby increasing their value. The former cooper is already called Mr. Grande, receives the Order of the Legion of Honor. The conditions of the Restoration era do not prevent the growth of his well-being - he doubles his wealth. Saumur bourgeois is typical of France of those times. The discovery of the "roots" of the Grande phenomenon reveals in all its maturity the historicism of Balzac's artistic thinking, which underlies the ever-increasing deepening of his realism.

The adventure and love that readers expect is missing. Instead of adventures - the stories of people: the story of the enrichment of Grande and Charles, instead of a love line - the deal of Grande's father.

The image of Eugenia. It has a monastic beginning and the ability to suffer. Another characteristic feature of her is ignorance of life, especially at the beginning of the novel. She does not know how much money is a lot, and how much is not enough. Her father doesn't tell her how rich she is. Eugenia, with her indifference to gold, high spirituality and natural desire for happiness, dares to come into conflict with Grande's father. The origins of the dramatic collision are in the heroine's nascent love for Charles. In the fight for Charlyon, he shows rare audacity, again manifested in “little true facts” (secretly from his father, he feeds Charles a second breakfast, brings him extra pieces of sugar, heats the fireplace, although it’s not supposed to, and, most importantly, gives him a collection of coins, although he has no right to dispose of them). For Grande, Eugenia's marriage to the "beggar" Charles is impossible, and he fuses his nephew to India, paying him the way to Nantes. However, even in separation, Eugene remains faithful to her chosen one. And if her happiness did not take place, then the reason for this is not the omnipotence of Felix Grande, but Charles himself, who betrayed youthful love in the name of money and position in the world. So the forces hostile to Eugenia ultimately prevailed over the Balzac heroine, depriving her of what she was intended for by nature itself.

The final touch: betrayed by Charles, having lost the meaning of life along with love, internally devastated Eugenia at the end of the novel by inertia continues to exist, as if fulfilling her father’s behest: “Despite eight hundred thousand livres of income, she still lives the same way as poor Eugenia Grande used to live , lights the stove in her room only on those days when her father would let her... Always dressed as her mother used to dress. Saumur house, without sun, without heat, constantly shrouded in shadow and full of melancholy - a reflection of her life. She carefully collects income and, perhaps, could seem like a hoarder if she did not refute slander by the noble use of her wealth ... The greatness of her soul hides the pettiness instilled in her by her upbringing and skills of the first period of her life. Such is the story of this woman - a woman not of the world in the midst of the world, created for the greatness of her wife and mother and who did not receive a husband, children, or family.

16. The plot and composition of the novels "Father Goriot" and "Lost Illusions": similarities and differences.

both novels

Composition.

In Lost Illusions - the plot develops linearly, what happens with Lucien. Starting with a printing house - and then all the ups and downs

1. "Father Goriot"

Composition: His composition seems to be linear, chronicle. In fact many backstories, and they are very natural, as if one of the characters learns something about the other. This interaction is a mechanism of secrets and intrigues - Vautrin, Rastignac, betrayal - it seems to be a chronicle day after day. Nevertheless, this is a novel that allows you to open a wide picture of social life.

Balzac faced the need transformation of the poetics of the traditional novel, based, as a rule, on the principles of chronicle linear composition. The novel proposes a new type of novel action with pronounced dramatic beginning.

Plot:

Balzac uses a fairly well-known plot (almost Shakespeare's story of King Lear), but interprets it in a peculiar way.

Among the creative records of Balzac, called "Thoughts, plots, fragments", there is a brief sketch: “The old man - a family pension - 600 francs of rent - deprives himself of everything for the sake of his daughters, and both have 50,000 francs of income; dies like a dog. In this sketch, one can easily find out the story of Goriot's boundless paternal love, scolded by his daughters.

The novel shows the boundless, sacrificial love of the father for his children, which was not mutual. And which ultimately killed Goriot.

The story begins with the boarding house Voke, where Goriot lives. In the boarding house everyone knows him, they are extremely unfriendly and his name is none other than "Papa Goriot." Together with him, the young Rastignac also lives in the boarding house, who, by the will of fate learns the tragic fate of Goriot. It turns out that he was a small merchant who made a huge fortune, but squandered it on his adored daughters (Rastignac becomes the lover of one of them), and they, in turn, having squeezed everything they could out of their father, left him. And it was not about noble and rich sons-in-law, but about the daughters themselves, who, once in high society, began to be embarrassed by their father. Even when Goriot was dying, the daughters did not deign to come and help their father. They didn't show up at the funeral either. This story was the impetus for the young Rastignac, who decided to conquer Paris and its inhabitants at all costs.

SIMILARITIES: both of these works are parts of Balzac's "human comedy". One environment, approximately one society, And!!! a person encounters this society and, in fact, loses some kind of illusions, naivety, faith in goodness (we continue in the same spirit).

19. The image of Rastignac and his place in Balzac's Human Comedy.

The image of Rastignac in "Ch.K." - the image of a young man who wins his personal well-being. His path is the path of the most consistent and steady ascent. Loss of illusions, if it occurs, is relatively painless.

AT "Father Goriot" Rastignac still believes in goodness and is proud of his purity. My life is "clear as a lily". He is of noble aristocratic origin, comes to Paris to make a career and enter the law faculty. He lives at Madame Vaquet's boarding house on the last of his money. He has access to the salon of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. According to his social status, he is a poor man. Rastignac's life experience is made up of the collision of two worlds (the convict Vautrin and the viscountess). Rastignac considers Vautrin and his views to be higher than aristocratic society, where crimes are small. “Nobody needs honesty,” Vautrin says. "The colder you count, the further you'll get." Its intermediate position is typical for that time. With the last money, he arranges a funeral for the poor Goriot.

Soon he realizes that his position is bad, will lead to nothing, that he must give up honesty, spit on pride and go to meanness.

In the novel "Banker's House" tells about the first business successes of Rastignac. With the help of the husband of his mistress Delphine, daughter of Goriot, Baron de Nucingen, he makes his fortune through a clever game of stocks. He is a classic fitter.

AT "Shagreen leather"- a new stage in the evolution of Rastignac. Here he is already an experienced strategist who has long said goodbye to all sorts of illusions. This is an outright cynic who has learned to lie and be hypocritical. He is a classic fitter. In order to prosper, he teaches Raphael, one must forge ahead and compromise all moral principles.

Rastignac is a representative of that army of young people who did not follow the path of open crime, but the path of adaptation carried out by means of a legal crime. Financial policy is a robbery. He is trying to adapt himself to the bourgeois throne.

20. The main conflict and arrangement of images of the novel "Father Goriot".

The novel is an important part of the artistic history of the society of the last century conceived by the writer. Among Balzac's creative writings, titled "Thoughts, Plots, Fragments", there is a brief sketch: "The old man - a family boarding house - 600 francs of rent - deprives himself of everything for the sake of his daughters, and both have 50,000 francs of income; dies like a dog. In this sketch, one can easily find out the story of Goriot's boundless paternal love, scolded by his daughters.

The image of Father Goriot, of course, if not the main one in the novel, then at least one of the main ones, since the whole plot consists of the story of his love for his daughters.

Balzac describes him as the last of all the "freeloaders" in Madame Vauquet's house. Balzac writes “... As in schools, as in broken circles, and here, among eighteen parasites, there turned out to be a wretched, outcast creature, a scapegoat, on which ridicule rained down (...) Next, Balzac describes the story of Goriot in a boarding house - how he appeared there, how he shot a more expensive room and was "Monsieur Goriot" as he began to rent rooms cheaper and cheaper until he became what he was at the time of the story. Further, Balzac writes: “However, no matter how vile his vices or behavior, hostility towards him did not reach the point of expelling him: he paid for the boarding house. In addition, he was also useful: everyone, ridiculing or bullying him, poured out his good or bad mood. Thus, we see how all the residents of the boarding house treated Father Goriot and what was their communication with him. As Balzac writes further about the attitude of the tenants towards Father Goriot, “He inspired disgust in some, pity in others.”

Further, the image of Goriot's father is revealed through his attitude towards his daughters, Anastasi and Eugene. Already through the description of his actions, it is clear how much he loves his daughters, how much he is ready to sacrifice everything for them, while they seem to love him, but do not appreciate him. At the same time, at first it seems to the reader that Goriot, behind his boundless love for his daughters, does not see this indifference to himself, does not feel that they do not value him - he constantly finds some explanation for their behavior, is content with what he can only out of the corner of his eye to see how his daughter drives past him in a carriage, can only come to them through the back door. He does not seem to notice that they are ashamed of him, does not pay attention to it. However, Balzac gives his point of view on what is happening - that is, outwardly Goriot does not seem to pay attention to how his daughters behave, but inside “... the poor man's heart was bleeding. He saw that his daughters were ashamed of him, and since they love their husbands, then he is a hindrance to the sons-in-law (...) the old man sacrificed himself, for that he is the father; he drove himself out of their homes, and the daughters were pleased; noticing this, he realized that he did the right thing (...) This father gave everything away .. He gave his soul, his love for twenty years, and he gave his fortune in one day. The daughters squeezed the lemon and threw it into the street.”

Of course, the reader is sorry for Goriot, the reader is immediately imbued with compassion for him. Father Goriot loved his daughters so much that even the state in which he was - for the most part, precisely because of them - he endured, dreaming only that his daughters were happy. “Equating his daughters with angels, the poor fellow thereby exalted them above himself; he loved even the evil that he suffered from them, ”Balzac writes about how Goriot raised his daughters.

At the same time, Goriot himself, realizing that his daughters are treating him unfairly, wrongly, says the following: “Both daughters love me very much. As a father, I am happy. But two sons-in-law behaved badly with me ”That is, we see that he does not blame his daughters in any way, shifting all the blame to his sons-in-law, who, in fact, are much less guilty before him than his daughters. »

And only when dying, when none of the daughters came to him, although both knew that he was dying, Goriot says aloud everything that the reader was thinking about, watching the development of the plot. “They both have hearts of stone. I loved them too much for them to love me,” Goriot says of his daughters. Here is what he did not want to admit to himself - “I have completely atoned for my sin - my excessive love. They cruelly repaid me for my feeling - like executioners, they tore my body with ticks (...) They don’t love me and never loved me! (…) I'm too stupid. They imagine that everyone has fathers like their father. You must always keep yourself in value.

“If fathers are trampled underfoot, the fatherland will perish. It is clear. Society, the whole world is supported by fatherhood, everything will collapse if children stop loving their fathers,” says Goriot, thus, in my opinion, voicing one of the main ideas of the work.

13. The concept and structure of the "Human Comedy" by Balzac.

1. Concept. In 1834, Balzac had the idea to create a multi-volume work that was to become the artistic history and artistic philosophy of France. Initially, he wanted to call it "Etudes of Morals", later, in the 40s, he decided to call this huge work " human comedy”, by analogy with the “Divine Comedy” by Dante. The task is to emphasize the comedy inherent in this era, but at the same time not to deny its heroes humanity. The "Cheka" was supposed to include 150 works, of which 92 were written, works of the first, second and third manners of Balzac. It was necessary not only to write new works, but also to significantly rework the old ones so that they correspond to the plan. The works included in the "Cheka" had the following features:

ü The combination of several storylines and the dramatic construction;

ü Contrast and juxtaposition;

ü keynotes;

ü The theme of the power of money (in almost all sections of the "Human Comedy");

ü The main conflict of the era is the struggle of man with society;

ü Shows his characters objectively, through material manifestations;

ü Pays attention to the little things - the path of a truly realistic writer;

ü The typical and the individual in the characters are dialectically interconnected. The category of the typical extends to the circumstances and events that determine the movement of the plot in novels.

ü Cyclization (the hero of the "Cheka" is considered as a living person, about whom more can be told. For example, Rastignac appears, in addition to "Papa Goriot", in "Shagreen Skin", "The Banker's House of Nucingen" and barely flickers in "Lost Illusions").

The intention of this work is most fully reflected in " Preface to The Human Comedy”, written 13 years after the start of the implementation of the plan. The idea of this work, according to Balzac, "was born from comparison of humanity with the animal world”, namely from the immutable law:“ Everyone for himself on which the unity of the organism is based. Human society, in this sense, is similar to nature: “After all, Society creates from a person, according to the environment where he acts, as many different species as there are in the animal world.” If Buffon in his book tried to represent the whole animal world, why not try to do the same with society, although, of course, the description here will be more extensive, and women and men are completely different from male and female animals, since often a woman does not depend on men and plays an independent role in life. Moreover, if the descriptions of the habits of animals are constant, then the habits of people and their environment change at every stage of civilization. So Balzac was going to " cover three forms of being: men, women and things, that is, people and the material embodiment of their thinking - in a word, depict a person and life».

In addition to the animal world, the concept of The Human Comedy was influenced by the fact that there were many historical documents, and history of human manners was not written. It is this story that Balzac has in mind when he says: “Chance is the greatest novelist in the world; to be fruitful, one must study it. The French Society was to be the historian itself, and all I had to do was be its secretary.».

But not only to describe the history of manners was his task. To earn the praise of readers (and Balzac considered this the goal of any artist), " it was necessary to reflect on the principles of nature and discover in what way human Societies move away or approach eternal law, truth, beauty". The writer must have strong opinions in matters of morality and politics, he must consider himself a teacher of people.

The truthfulness of the details. The novel "would have no meaning if it were not truthful in detail". Balzac attaches as much importance to the facts, constant, everyday, secret or obvious, as well as to the events of personal life, their causes and motives, as much as historians have hitherto attached to the events of the public life of peoples.

Realization of the plan required a huge number of characters. There are more than two thousand of them in The Human Comedy. And we know everything we need about each of them: their origin, parents (sometimes even distant ancestors), relatives, friends and enemies, past and present incomes and occupations, exact addresses, apartment furnishings, the contents of wardrobes, and even the names of tailors who sewed suits. The story of Balzac's heroes, as a rule, does not end at the end of a particular work. Moving on to other novels, stories, short stories, they continue to live, experiencing ups and downs, hopes or disappointments, joys or torments, as the society of which they are organic particles is alive. The interrelation of these "returning" heroes also holds together the fragments of the grandiose fresco, giving rise to the polysyllabic unity of the "Human Comedy".

2. Structure.

Balzac's task was to write a history of the customs of France in the 19th century - to depict two or three thousand typical people of this era. Such a multitude of lives required a certain framework, or "gallery". Hence the whole structure of The Human Comedy. It is divided into 6 parts:

· Scenes of private life(this includes "Papa Goriot" - the first work written in accordance with the general plan of the "Cheka" , "Gobsek"). « These scenes depict childhood, youth, their delusions»;

· Scenes of provincial life (« Eugenia Grande" and part " Lost illusions- "Two poets"). " Mature age, passions, calculations, interests and ambition»;

· Scenes of Parisian life (« Nucingen Banking House»). « A picture of tastes, vices and all the unbridled manifestations of life, caused by the mores peculiar to the capital, where extreme good and extreme evil meet at the same time.»;

· Scenes of political life. « Life is completely special, in which the interests of many are reflected - a life that takes place outside the general framework. One principle: there are two morals for monarchs and statesmen: big and small;

· scenes of military life. « A society in a state of extreme tension, out of its usual state. Least complete piece of work»;

· Scenes of rural life. « The drama of social life. In this section there are the purest characters and the realization of the great principles of order, politics and morality.».

Paris and the provinces are socially opposed. Not only people, but also the most important events differ in typical images. Balzac tried to give an idea of the various regions of France. "Comedy" has its own geography, as well as its genealogy, its families, settings, actors and facts, it also has its coat of arms, its nobility and bourgeoisie, its artisans and peasants, politicians and dandies, its army - in other words, the whole world.

These six sections are the foundation of The Human Comedy. Above it rises the second part, consisting of philosophical studies, where the social engine of all events finds expression. Balzac discovers this main "social engine" in the struggle of egoistic passions and material interests that characterize the public and private life of France in the first half of the 19th century. (" Shagreen leather"- connects the scenes of morals with philosophical studies. Life is depicted in a fight with Desire, the beginning of any Passion. The fantastic image of shagreen leather does not conflict with the realistic method of depicting reality. All events are strictly motivated in the novel by a natural coincidence (Raphael, who had just wished an orgy, went out from an antiquarian's shop, unexpectedly runs into friends who take him to a "luxurious feast" in Taifer's house; at the feast, the hero accidentally meets a notary who has been looking for the heir of a deceased millionaire, who turns out to be Rafael, for two weeks, etc.). - analytical studies(for example, "Physiology of marriage").

* This work is not a scientific work, is not a final qualifying work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information, intended to be used as a source of material for self-preparation of educational work.

Honore de Balzac, famous French writer. Born 8 (20) May 1799 in Tours, died 6 (18) August 1850 in Paris. Not only by the peculiarities of his work, but also by his very personality and literary career, he represents a vivid type of writer, who developed under the influence of the wide successes of natural science and positive philosophy, in the midst of severe struggle and fierce competition caused by the growth of industry. His life is the story of a worker who, with tireless energy, strives to break forward, by all means to win fame and fortune for himself. His work is imbued with the desire to transfer the methods of modern natural science to fiction, to erase the line separating literature from science. His father was a vulgar materialist and left a number of writings on social issues; above all, he set the task of the physical improvement of the human race and, with the help of the conclusions of natural science, dreamed of solving the social and moral problems of his time.

Balzac inherited his father's worldview, his health and iron will. Having received his initial education, first in a provincial, then in a Parisian college, Balzac remained in the capital when his father left with his family for the provinces. Deciding, against the will of his father, to devote himself to literature, he was almost deprived of support from his family. As his letters to his sister Laura show, this did not prevent him from being full of energy and ambitious plans. In his miserable closet, he dreamed of influence, fame and fortune, of conquering a great city. He writes under a pseudonym a number of novels, devoid of literary significance and subsequently not included by him in the complete collection of his works.

At the same time, a projector and an entrepreneur wake up in him. Anticipating the idea of cheap editions, which was widely adopted later, Balzac was the first to start one-volume editions of the classics and publish (1825 - 1826) with his own notes by Molière and Lafontaine. But his publications were not successful. Just as unsuccessfully did the printing house and word castings he started, which he had to concede to his companions, go.

Balzac's trip to Sardinia ended even more sadly, where he dreamed of discovering the silver left there by the ancient Romans in the mines they were developing. As a result of all these enterprises, Balzac found himself in unpayable debts, forcing him to hard literary work. He writes stories, brochures on various issues, collaborates in the magazines Caricature and Silhouette.

Balzac's fame begins with the appearance in 1829 of his novel Le dernier Chouane ou la Bretagne en 1800. From that moment on, Balzac almost does not leave the path he has entered. One after another, his novels appear, in which he outlines all aspects of French life, displays an endless string of the most diverse types, constitutes "the greatest collection of documents on human nature." He is a typical craft writer. Like Zola and in contrast to the romantics, the prophetic poets, he does not wait for inspiration. He works 15 to 18 hours a day, sits down at the table after midnight and hardly leaves a pen until six o'clock the next evening, interrupting work only for a bath, breakfast, and especially for coffee, which maintains energy in himself and which he carefully prepared and used in large quantities.

The novels Shagreen Skin, The Thirty-Year-Old Woman, and especially Eugene Grande (1833), which appeared in the early thirties, brought him great fame, and Balzac no longer had to chase publishers. However, he fails to fulfill his dream of wealth, despite his extraordinary fertility; he sometimes publishes several novels a year.

Of his many novels, the most famous are: The Country Doctor, In Search of the Absolute, Father Goriot, Lost Illusions, The Country Priest, The Bachelor's Household, The Peasants, Cousin Pons, Cousin Betta ".

Perhaps the influence of the scientific spirit of the times on Balzac was not so pronounced in anything as in his attempt to combine his novels into one whole. He collected all the published novels, added a number of new ones to them, introduced common heroes into them, connected individuals with family, friendship and other ties and, thus, created, but did not complete the grandiose epic, which he called "The Human Comedy", and which was supposed to serve as a scientific and artistic material for studying the psychology of modern society.

In the preface to The Human Comedy, he himself draws a parallel between the laws of development of the animal world and human society. Different types of animals represent only a modification of a general type, arising depending on environmental conditions; so, depending on the conditions of upbringing, the environment, etc. - the same modifications of a person as a donkey, a cow, etc. - species of a general animal type.

For the purpose of scientific systematization, Balzac broke all this huge number of novels into series. In addition to novels, Balzac wrote a number of dramatic works; but most of his dramas and comedies were not successful on the stage.

In 1833, Balzac received a letter from an unknown Polish aristocrat Hanska, nee Countess Rzhevusskaya. Correspondence began between the novelist and an admirer of his talent (published on the centenary of Balzac's birth). Balzac subsequently met Ganskaya several times, among other things, in St. Petersburg, where he came in 1840. When Ganskaya became a widow, she accepted Balzac's proposal, but for several more years, for various reasons, their wedding could not take place. Balzac carefully finished the apartment for himself and his wife, but when, finally, in March 1850, the wedding took place in Berdichev, death was already waiting for him, and Balzac had only a few months left to enjoy family happiness and a relatively secure existence.

Balzac is generally recognized as the father of realism and naturalism. The development of realism in literature was a reflection of the general scientific spirit of the 19th century, just as the triumph of positivism in philosophy and the successes of natural science. The famous dispute between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire made a great impression on the minds of the time. Cuvier recognized several separate types in the animal kingdom, between which there is no connection; Saint-Hilaire defended the principle of the unity of organic structure in all animals. Balzac was a student of Saint-Hilaire and transferred his method to the realm of the novel.

Depicting "social varieties" Balzac strives for an accurate scientific classification and shows the observation characteristic of a botanist or zoologist. He studied with amazing accuracy the features inherent in one or another "variety". He knows the habits, turns of speech, techniques, movement, gait, gestures, even the little things of the situation, the details of the costume, characteristic of this or that hero. Just as Cuvier guesses the structure of an entire animal organism from a found tooth or bone, so Balzac determines the entire psyche of a given social type from a single gesture or word. The correspondence that Cuvier discovered between the parts of the body, Balzac seeks to establish between the manifestations of the human psyche. That is why he follows his characters so carefully, depicts in detail the arrangement of rooms in the apartment, knick-knacks on the dressing table, knows exactly to the centime the amount of money in the character's wallet. He has a deep respect for the fact.

Like a true scientist, he seems to be aware that his psychological conclusions will be justified only when they embrace a multitude of facts, and Balzac strives with unparalleled zeal to collect as many documents as possible. For him, as for the natural scientist, facts play a paramount role along with classification. Balzac is striking in the abundance of material he collected. Ministers, bankers and merchants, journalists, critics and poets, artists and scientists, a courtesan, usurers, representatives of the old aristocracy and bourgeoisie, the capital and the provinces, political struggle and private life - Balzac collects everything in his "comedy". The same scientific direction of Balzac's creativity explains the mixture of artistic, scientific and journalistic elements in his novels. Along with the depiction of feelings and passions, we will find in them detailed information of a business nature about banking operations, about a return account, about making cheap paper, reasoning of a journalistic nature about marriage, morality, political and social issues, etc.

Balzac merges with his heroes, he almost physically clearly experiences their sorrows and joys with them, he languishes and suffers when his hero finds himself in a difficult situation, from which he cannot show him a way out; he despairs when he cannot find among his heroes a suitable groom for some heroine, he makes every effort to contribute to the moral rebirth of a degraded person or to keep an inexperienced youth from moral decline, and sincerely mourns when his efforts fail. It seems to him that he is facing living people and real conflicts that develop according to certain laws, beyond his power.

Balzac's worldview, as it turns out from his novels, is pessimistic. He is objective in depicting his heroes and in this respect does not deviate from the general scientific spirit of his work. He does not pursue satirical purposes. Its task is to collect documents about a person and classify them. And yet, it is impossible not to see that, in general, his Comedy is a grave indictment against the French society of the Restoration era and the July Monarchy, and against man in general. Perhaps no one has embodied in such vivid images the heartless egoism that reigns in the bourgeois world. This egoism, engendered by the frenzied pursuit of the blessings of life, of pleasure and wealth, appears to Balzac as the main driving force of society.

Balzac's favorite theme is the fierce struggle of gifted ambitious people making their way in the big city. A pure young man who finds himself in a big city and makes a career at the cost of his moral death is Balzac's favorite image. Such is Rastignac ("Father Goriot"), such is Lucien Chardon ("Lost Illusions"). His women are in most cases such cold egoists as the daughters of Goriot, who easily sell both toilets and showers. His men are mostly lustful animals. If he brings out a pure girl, like Eugenia Grande, then, it seems, only to show how in the terrible atmosphere of modern social life the most sensitive and tender heart hardens, sincere feelings and touching love are etched out.

Balzac belongs to one of the best types of miser known in literature. In the person of old Grandet, he brought out a modern genius for profit, a millionaire who turned speculation into art. Grande renounced all the joys of life, withered the soul of his daughter, deprived the happiness of all those close to him, but made millions. His satisfaction is in successful speculations, in financial conquests, in commercial victories. He is a kind of disinterested servant of "art for art's sake", since he is personally unpretentious and is not interested in those benefits that are given by the millions.

Balzac comprehended the power of money. His money is the main reason for events. He was able to show how his age had exchanged everything for hard cash, from basic necessities to talent, inspiration, and the most tender and holy feelings.

Representatives of the noblest professions - doctors, priests, publicists, artists, poets - have become hired servants of those who have capital.

This pessimism corresponds to the general materialistic direction of Balzac's work. Ideal images are less successful for him than those figures in which the material direction of the 19th century was reflected.

Balzac's view of the meaning of modern life, of the factors that govern modern man, can best be formulated in the words that he puts into the mouth of the convict Vautrin, who instructs a young student: “To jump out into the people - this is the task that 50,000 young people in your position are striving to solve. . And you are one in this sum. Think what efforts will be required from you, what a fierce struggle lies ahead! You will devour each other like spiders! There are no principles, but there are events; and there are no laws, but only circumstances that an intelligent person adjusts to in order to trade them in his own way. Vice is now in force, and talents are rare. Honesty is no good. You have to crash into this crowd like a bomb, or sneak into it like a plague.

Life appears to Balzac as a cruel struggle of appetites, a heartless fratricidal war of all against all because of pleasures and wealth. The objective scientific method was applied by Balzac to the study of the inner world of a woman. In contrast to most poets and romantics, who liked to depict the delights of first love and the first kiss and lowered the curtain over the history of a woman after the period of her naive attitude to life ended, Balzac traced the history of the female soul from youth to old age and made the central moment of his attention to that period of a woman's life when she reaches full maturity, gains wide experience, reaches the peak of her physical and spiritual powers. The 30-year-old age of a woman Balzac preferred her youth, since at this age she is free from illusions, from a naive understanding of life; she gives her heart consciously, knows how to choose and distinguish between people, and therefore her love has more value, gives more happiness and comfort.

These are the main features of Balzac's work and the main features of his worldview. His novels will forever remain the greatest collection of documents about the 19th century - a collection that vividly illuminates all corners of the life of this industrial and materialistic age.

Bibliography:

"Honore de Balzac". Under. ed. P.F. Aleshkin. Ed. "Voice". 1992

"Balzac". Stefan Zweig. Ed. Saransk. 1981

Stendhal: The scene of the Battle of Waterloo is of particular importance in the Parma Cloister. At first glance, it seems that this is just an inserted episode, but it is of decisive importance for the subsequent course of the plot of the novel.

The description of the battle in the "Parma Monastery" is truthful, brilliant in its realism. Balzac praised the magnificent description of the battle, which he dreamed of for his scenes of military life.

The Battle of Waterloo is the beginning of the action in the novel, the main character immediately wants to accomplish a heroic deed, to participate in a historical battle. Like Julien, Fabrizio is convinced that heroism is only possible on the battlefield. Julien fails to make a military career, Fabrizio is given such an opportunity.

The romantic hero, longing for a feat, experiences the most severe disappointment. The author describes in detail the adventures of Fabrizio on the battlefield, reveals step by step the collapse of his illusions. No sooner had he appeared at the front than he was mistaken for a spy and imprisoned, he escaped from there.

Disappointment:

the path of his horse is blocked by the corpse of a soldier (dirty-terrible). Cruelty cuts the guy's eyes;

does not recognize Napoleon: he rushes to the field, but does not even recognize his hero Napoleon when he passes by (when Napoleon and Marshal Ney rode past him, they did not have any divine sign that distinguishes them from mere mortals);

once on the battlefield, Fabrizio cannot understand anything - neither where is the enemy, nor where are his own. In the end, he gives himself up to the will of his horse, which rushes him to no one knows where. Illusions are shattered by reality.

It is no coincidence that Stendhal draws a parallel between the historical battle and the experiences of the hero. Historical events take on a symbolic meaning in the novel: the Battle of Waterloo was the political grave of Napoleon, his complete defeat. A roll call with Fabrizio's "lost illusions", the collapse of all his dreams of a great heroic deed.

Fabrizio fails to "liberate his homeland" - the collapse of not only personal hopes, these are the "lost illusions" of a whole generation. After the battle, heroism, romance, courage remain Fabrizio's personal traits, but acquire a new quality: they are no longer directed towards achieving common goals.

Thackeray: Thackeray's main feature is that he did not depict, did not describe the battle itself, the battle itself. He only showed the consequences, the echoes of the battle. Thackeray specifically describes the scene of George Osborne's farewell to Emilia, when Napoleon's troops cross the Sambre. A few days later he will die in the Battle of Waterloo. Before that, he still sends a letter to Emilia from the front that everything is fine with him. Then the wounded are brought to the city from the battlefield, Emilia takes care of them, not knowing that her husband is lying alone, wounded, on the field and dying. Thus, Thackeray describes the battle in volume, on a large scale, showing everything "before and after" the event.

9. The theme of "disillusionment" in Balzac's Human Comedy.

Lucien Chardon. Rastignac.

"Lost illusions" - to harbor illusions - the fate of the provincials. Lucien was handsome and a poet. He was noticed in his city by the local queen = Madame de Bargeton, who gave a clear preference to a talented young man. His lover constantly told him that he was a genius. She told him that only in Paris would they be able to appreciate his talent. It is there that all doors will open for him. It sunk into his soul. But when he arrived in Paris, his mistress abandoned him because he looked like a poor provincial compared to society dandies. He was abandoned and left alone, therefore, all doors were closed to him. The illusion he had in his provincial town (about fame, money, etc.) disappeared.

In "Shagreen Skin" - a new stage in the evolution of Rastignac. Here he is already an experienced strategist who has long said goodbye to all sorts of illusions. This is an outright cynic

The theme of "disillusionment" in Flaubert's novel "Education sensibilities".

The theme of disillusionment in this novel is connected with the life and development of the personality of the protagonist Frederic Moreau. It all starts with the fact that he comes by boat to Nogent on the Seine to his mother after a long study at a law college. The mother wants her son to become a big man, wants to arrange him in an office. But Ferederic wants to go to Paris. He goes to Paris, where he meets, firstly, with the Arnoux family, and secondly, with the Dambrez family (influential). He hopes that they will help him get settled. At first, he continues to study in Paris with his friend Deslauriers, he meets different students - the artist Pellerin, the journalist Ussonet, Dussardier, Regembard, and so on. Gradually, Feredric loses this desire for a high goal and a good career. He enters French society, begins to attend balls, masquerades, he has love affairs. All his life he has been haunted by love for one woman, Madame Arnoux, but she does not allow him to approach her, so he lives, hoping for a meeting. One day he learns that his uncle has died and left him a relatively large fortune. But Feredric is already at the stage when his position in this French society becomes the main thing for him. Now he is not worried about his career, but how he is dressed, where he lives or dine. He begins to spend money, invests it in shares, burns out, then for some reason helps Arn, he does not repay his debt, Frederick himself begins to live in poverty. Meanwhile, a revolution is being prepared. A republic is proclaimed. All Frederick's friends are at the barricades. But he doesn't care about public opinion. He is more busy with his personal life and its arrangement. He is drawn by the proposal to Louise Rokk, a potential bride with a good dowry, but a country girl. Then the whole story with Rosanette, when she is pregnant from him and a child is born, who soon dies. Then an affair with Madame Dambrez, whose husband dies and leaves her nothing. Frederick is sorry. Meets Arna again, realizes that they are even worse. As a result, he is left with nothing. Somehow he copes with his position without making a career. Here they are, the lost illusions of a man who was sucked in by Parisian life and made him completely unambitious.

The image of Etienne Lousteau in Balzac's novel "Lost Illusions".

Etienne Lousteau is a failed writer, corrupt journalist, introducing Lucien into the world of unscrupulous, lively Parisian journalism, cultivating the profession of "hit killer of ideas and reputations." Lucien masters this profession.

Etienne is weak-willed and careless. He himself was once a poet, but he failed - he threw himself with bitterness into the maelstrom of literary speculation.

His room is dirty and desolated.

Etienne plays a very important role in the novel. It is he who is the seducer of Lucien from the path of virtue. He reveals to Lucien the venality of the press and the theatre. He is a conformist. For him, the world is "hellish torment", but one must be able to adapt to them, and then, perhaps, life will improve. Acting in the spirit of the times, he is doomed to live in eternal discord with himself: the duality of this hero is manifested in his objective assessments of his own journalistic activities and contemporary art. Lucien is more self-confident than Lousteau, and therefore quickly grasps his concept, and fame quickly rises to him. After all, he has talent.

The evolution of the image of the financier in the "Human Comedy" by Balzac.

Just like the antiquarian in Shagreen Skin, Gobsek appears to be a disembodied, dispassionate person, indifferent to the world around him, religion and people. He is far from his own passions, because he constantly observes them in people who come to him for bills. He reviews them, while he himself is in constant calm. In the past, he experienced many passions (traded in India, was deceived by a beautiful woman), and therefore left it in the past. Conversing with Derville, he repeats the formula of shagreen leather: “What is happiness? This is either a strong excitement that undermines our life, or a measured occupation. He is so stingy that in the end, when he dies, there is a pile of goods, food, moldy from the stinginess of the owner.

Tragedy of Eugenie Grande in Balzac's novel of the same name.

The problem is money, gold and the all-consuming power that it acquires in the life of capitalist society, determining all human relations, the fate of individuals, the formation of social characters.

Old Man Grande is a modern money-making genius, a millionaire who has turned speculation into an art. Grande renounced all the joys of life, withered the soul of his daughter, deprived the happiness of all those close to him, but made millions.

The theme is the decay of the family and the individual, the fall of morality, the insult of all intimate human feelings and relationships under the rule of money. It was precisely because of her father's wealth that the unfortunate Evgenia was perceived by others as a way of making a solid capital. Between the Kruchotins and the Grassenists, the two opposition camps of the inhabitants of Saumur, there was a constant struggle for the hand of Eugenia. Of course, old Grandet understood that the frequent visits to his house by Grassins and Cruchot were not at all sincere expressions of respect for the old cooper, and therefore he often said to himself: “They are here for my money. They come here to miss me for my daughter. Ha ha! My daughter will not get either one or the other, and all these gentlemen are just hooks on my fishing rod!

The fate of Eugenie Grande is the most mournful story told by Balzac in his novel. The unfortunate girl, as if in prison, languishing for many years in the house of her miserly father, is attached to her cousin Charles with all her heart. She understands his grief, understands that no one in the world needs him and that his closest person now, his own uncle, will not help him for the same reason that Evgenia has to be content with bad food and miserable clothes all her life. And she, pure in heart, gives him all her savings, courageously enduring the terrible wrath of her father. For many years she has been waiting for his return ... And Charles forgets his savior, under the influence of public sentiment, he becomes the same Felix Grande - an immoral accumulator of wealth. He prefers the titled ugly girl, Mademoiselle D'Aubrion, to Eugenie, because he is now driven by purely selfish interests. Thus, Evgenia's faith in love, faith in beauty, faith in unshakable happiness and peace was cut short.

Evgenia lives with her heart. Material values for her are nothing compared to feelings. Feelings constitute the true content of her life, in them for her is the beauty and meaning of being. The inner perfection of her nature is also revealed in her external appearance. For Eugenia and her mother, who throughout their lives had the only joy of those rare days when their father allowed them to heat the stove, and who saw only their dilapidated house and everyday knitting, money had absolutely no meaning.

Therefore, while everyone around was ready to acquire gold at any cost, for Evgenia, the 17 million inherited after the death of her father turned out to be a heavy burden. Gold will not be able to reward her for the emptiness that formed in her heart with the loss of Charles. And she doesn't need money. She does not know how to deal with them at all, because if she needed them, it was only in order to help Charles, thereby helping herself and her own happiness. But, unfortunately, the only treasure that exists for her in life - kindred affection and love - is inhumanly trampled, and she lost this only hope in the prime of life. At some point, Evgenia realized all the irreparable misfortune of her life: for her father, she was always only the heiress of his gold; Charles preferred a wealthier woman to her, spitting on all the holy feelings of love, affection and moral duty; the Somyurs looked and continue to look at her only as a rich bride. And the only ones who loved her not for her millions, but for real - her mother and the maid Nanon - were too weak and powerless where old Grandet reigned supreme with his pockets stuffed with gold. She lost her mother, now she has already buried her father, who stretches out his hands to gold even in the very last minutes of his life.

Under such conditions, a deep alienation inevitably arose between Eugenia and the world around her. But it is unlikely that she herself was clearly aware of what exactly was the cause of her misfortunes. Of course, just name the reason - the unbridled domination of money and monetary relations, which stood at the head of bourgeois society, which crushed the fragile Eugenia. She is deprived of happiness and well-being, despite the fact that she is infinitely rich.

And her tragedy is that the life of people like her turned out to be absolutely useless and useless to anyone. Her capacity for deep affection fell on deaf ears.

Having lost all hope for love and happiness, Evgenia suddenly changes and marries the chairman de Bonfon, who was just waiting for this moment of good luck. But even this selfish man died very soon after their marriage. Eugenia was left alone again with even more wealth, which had been inherited from her late husband. This was probably a kind of bad luck for the unfortunate girl, who became a widow at thirty-six. She never gave birth to a child, that hopeless passion that Evgenia lived all these years.

And yet, at the end, we learn that "money was destined to communicate its cold coloring to this heavenly life and instill in a woman who was all feeling, distrust of feelings." It turns out, in the end, Evgenia became almost the same as her father. She has a lot of money, but she lives in poverty. She lives this way, because she is used to living this way, and another life is no longer amenable to her understanding. Eugenia Grande is a symbol of human tragedy, expressed in crying into a pillow. She has come to terms with her condition, and she can no longer conceive of a better life. The only thing she wanted was happiness and love. But not finding this, she came to complete stagnation. And a significant role here was played by monetary relations that prevailed at that time in society. If they were not so strong, Charles would most likely not have succumbed to their influence and retained his devoted feelings for Eugenia, and then the plot of the novel would have developed more romantically. But it would no longer be Balzac.

The theme of "violent passion" in the work of Balzac.

Balzac has a violent passion for money. These are both accumulators and images of usurers. This theme is close to the theme of the image of the financier, because it is they who live this frantic passion for hoarding.

Gobsek appears to be a disembodied, impassive person, indifferent to the world around him, religion and people. He is far from his own passions, because he constantly observes them in people who come to him for bills. He reviews them, while he himself is in constant calm. In the past, he experienced many passions (traded in India, was deceived by a beautiful woman), and therefore left it in the past. Conversing with Derville, he repeats the formula of shagreen leather: “What is happiness? This is either a strong excitement that undermines our life, or a measured occupation. He is so stingy that in the end, when he dies, there is a pile of goods, food, moldy from the stinginess of the owner.

Two principles live in him: a miser and a philosopher. Under the power of money, he becomes dependent on them. Money becomes magic for him. He hides gold in his fireplace, and after his death, he does not bequeath his fortune to anyone (a relative, a fallen woman). Gobsek is a live-eater (translation).

Felix Grande is a slightly different type: a modern money-making genius, a millionaire who has turned speculation into art. Grande renounced all the joys of life, withered the soul of his daughter, deprived the happiness of all those close to him, but made millions. His satisfaction is in successful speculations, in financial conquests, in commercial victories. He is a kind of disinterested servant of "art for art's sake", since he is personally unpretentious and is not interested in those benefits that are given by the millions. The only passion - the thirst for gold - knows no boundaries, killed all human feelings in the old cooper; the fate of his daughter, wife, brother, nephew interests him only from the point of view of the main issue - their relationship to his wealth: he starves his daughter and his sick wife, brings the latter to the grave with his stinginess and heartlessness; he destroys the personal happiness of his only daughter, since this happiness would require Grande to give up part of the accumulated treasures.

The fate of Eugene de Rastignac in Balzac's The Human Comedy.

The image of Rastignac in The Human Comedy is the image of a young man who wins his own personal well-being. His path is the path of the most consistent and steady ascent. Loss of illusions, if it occurs, is relatively painless.

In Père Goriot, Rastignac still believes in goodness and is proud of his purity. My life is "clear as a lily". He is of noble aristocratic origin, comes to Paris to make a career and enter the law faculty. He lives at Madame Vaquet's boarding house on the last of his money. He has access to the salon of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. According to his social status, he is a poor man. Rastignac's life experience is made up of the collision of two worlds (the convict Vautrin and the viscountess). Rastignac considers Vautrin and his views to be higher than aristocratic society, where crimes are small. “Nobody needs honesty,” Vautrin says. "The colder you count, the further you'll get." Its intermediate position is typical for that time. With the last money, he arranges a funeral for the poor Goriot.

Soon he realizes that his position is bad, will lead to nothing, that he must give up honesty, spit on pride and go to meanness.

The novel The Banker's House tells of Rastignac's first business successes. With the help of the husband of his mistress, Delphine, daughter of Goriot, Baron de Nucingen, he makes his fortune through a clever game of stocks. He is a classic fitter.

In "Shagreen Skin" - a new stage in the evolution of Rastignac. Here he is already an experienced strategist who has long said goodbye to all sorts of illusions. This is an outright cynic who has learned to lie and be hypocritical. He is a classic fitter. In order to prosper, he teaches Raphael, one must forge ahead and compromise all moral principles.

Diatribe as a way to identify the most acute problems of our time in Balzac's story "The Banker's House of Nucingen".

Diatribe- discourse on moral themes. An angry accusatory speech (from Greek) The conversation permeates the entire novel "The Banker's House of Nucingen", with the help of the conversation, the negative sides of the characters are revealed.

The artistic style of the late Balzac. Dilogy about "Poor Relatives".

Positive heroes and the role of a happy ending in the work of Dickens.

Dickens and Romanticism.

Images of financiers in the works of Balzac and Flaubert.

Balzac: Almost every Human Comedy novel on our list has an image of a financier in Balzac. Basically, these are usurers living on the frantic passion of money, but also some other representatives of the bourgeoisie.

Creating the image of his usurer, Balzac included him in the context of the most complex social era, contributing to the disclosure of various aspects of this image.

Papa Goriot is one of the pillars of The Human Comedy. He is a baker, a former pasta maker. He carried through his life only love for his daughters: that's why he spent all the money on them, and they used it. So he went bankrupt. This is the opposite of Felix Grande. He demands from them only love for him, for this he is ready to give them everything. At the end of his life, he deduces a formula: money gives everything, even daughters.

David Séchard's father: stinginess begins where poverty begins. The father began to be greedy when the printing house was dying. He went so far as to determine the cost of a printed sheet by eye. They were owned only by selfish interests. He placed his son in the school only in order to prepare a successor for himself. This is the type of Felix Grande who wanted David to give him everything while he was alive. When David was on the verge of ruin, he came to his father to ask for money, but his father did not give him anything, remembering that he once gave him money for education.

Rastignac (in the "Banking House of Nucingen"). This novel tells of Rastignac's early business successes. With the help of the husband of his mistress, Delphine, daughter of Goriot, Baron de Nucingen, he makes his fortune through a clever game of stocks. He is a classic fitter. “The more I take out loans, the more they believe me,” he says in Shagreen Skin.

Flaubert: In Madame Bovary, the image of the financier is M. Leray, a usurer in Yonville. He is a cloth merchant, and since this commodity is expensive, he makes a lot of money with it and keeps a lot of the inhabitants of the city in debt. He appears in the novel at the moment when the Bovary arrive in Yonville. Emma Jali's dog escapes and he sympathizes with her, talking about his troubles with lost dogs.

To unwind, Emma buys new clothes from Leray. He takes advantage of this, realizing that this is the only consolation for the girl. Thus, she falls into a debt hole with him, without saying anything to her husband. And Charles one day borrows 1,000 francs from him. Leray is a clever, flattering and cunning businessman. But he, unlike Balzac's heroes, actively acts - he turns his wealth, lending.

The Problem of the Realist Hero in Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary from 1851 to 1856.

Emma was brought up in a monastery, where girls of average condition were usually brought up at that time. She is addicted to reading novels. These were romantic novels with ideal characters. After reading such literature, Emma imagined herself the heroine of one of these novels. She imagined her happy life with a wonderful person, a representative of some wonderful world. One of her dreams came true: already being married, she went to the ball to the Marquis Vaubiesar in the castle. For the rest of her life, she left a vivid impression, which she constantly recalled with pleasure. (She met her husband by chance: the doctor Charles Bovary came to treat Papa Rouault, Emma's father).

Emma's real life is far from her dreams.

Already on the first day after her wedding, she sees that everything she dreamed about does not happen - she has a miserable life in front of her. And all the same, at first she continued to dream that Charles loved her, that he was sensitive and gentle, that something should change. But her husband was boring and uninteresting, he was not interested in the theater, he did not arouse passion in his wife. Slowly, he began to irritate Emma. She loved to change the situation (when she went to bed for the fourth time in a new place (monastery, Toast, Vaubiesart, Yonville), she thought that a new era was beginning in her life. When they arrived in Yonville (Home, Leray, Leon - assistant notary - Emma's lover), she felt better, she was looking for something new, but just as quickly everything turned into a boring routine. Leon went to Paris to receive further education and Emma again fell into despair. Her only pleasure was buying fabrics from Leray. Her lovers in general (Leon, Rodolphe, 34 years old, landowner) were vulgar and deceitful, none of them has anything to do with the romantic heroes of her books. Rodolphe sought his own benefit, but did not find it, he is mediocre. His dialogue with Madame Bovary is characteristic during an agricultural exhibition - the dialogue is mixed through a phrase with satirically described cries of the exhibition host about manure (mixing high and low) Emma wants to leave with Rodolphe, but in the end he does not want to take on the burden (her and the child - Bertha ).

Emma's last drop of patience with her husband disappears when he decides to operate on the sick groom (on the foot), proving that he is an excellent doctor, but then the groom develops gangrene and dies. Emma realizes that Charles is good for nothing.

In Rouen, Emma meets with Leon (she goes with her husband to the theater after an illness - 43 days) - a few delightful days with him.

The desire to escape from this boring prose of life leads to the fact that it is more and more addictive. Emma gets into a big debt with the moneylender Leray. All life now rests on deceit. She deceives her husband, she is deceived by her lovers. She begins to lie even when there is no need for her. More and more confused, sinking to the bottom.

Flaubert exposes this world not so much by opposing the heroine to it, but by means of an unexpected and bold identification of seemingly opposing principles - depoetization and deheroization become a sign of bourgeois reality, extending both to Charles and Emma, both to the bourgeois family and to passion, for love that destroys the family.

An objective manner of narration - Flaubert surprisingly realistically shows the life of Emma and Charles in the cities, the failures that accompany this family during certain moral foundations of society. Flaubert describes Emma's death especially realistically when she poisons herself with arsenic - groans, wild screams, convulsions, everything is described in great detail and realistically.

The social panorama of England in Thackeray's novel "Vanity Fair" and the moral position of the writer.

Double title. A novel without a hero. By this, the author wanted to say that in the bazaar of worldly vanity he depicts, all the heroes are equally bad - all are greedy, greedy, deprived of elementary humanity. It turns out that if there is a hero in the novel, then he is an anti-hero - this is money. In this duality, in my opinion, the movement of the author's intention was preserved: he was born to a humorist writing for magazines, hiding behind a false name, and then, reinforced in his seriousness by biblical associations, the memory of Bunyan's moral intransigence, he demanded that the writer speak on his own behalf.

The subtitle is probably to be taken literally: it is a novel without a romantic hero. Thackeray himself suggests such an interpretation in the sixth chapter, when, just approaching the first important events in the novel, he reflects on how to give them a turn and what style of narration to choose. He offers the reader a variant of a romantic crime or a variant in the spirit of secular novels. But the style chosen by the author does not correspond to literary recommendations that guarantee success, but follows the author’s life experience: “Thus, you see, gracious madams, how our novel could be written if the author so desired; because, to tell the truth , he is as familiar with the customs of Newgate prison as with the palaces of our respectable aristocracy, for he observed both of them only from the outside. (W. Thackeray Vanity Fair. M., 1986. P. 124.).

"Anti-romantic details" are seen throughout the novel. For example, what color is the heroine's hair? According to romantic canons, Rebecca would have to be a brunette ("villain type"), and Emilia - a blonde ("blonde innocence type"). In fact, Rebecca has golden, reddish hair, while Emilia is brown-haired.

In general, "... The famous Becky doll showed extraordinary flexibility in the joints and turned out to be very agile on the wire; the Emilia doll, although it won a much more limited circle of admirers, is nevertheless finished by the artist and dressed up with the greatest diligence ..." Thackeray the puppeteer takes the reader to his theatrical stage, to his fair, where you can see "the most diverse spectacles: bloody battles, majestic and magnificent carousels, scenes from high society life, as well as from the life of very modest people, love episodes for sensitive hearts, as well as comic, in a light genre - and all this is furnished with suitable scenery and generously illuminated with candles at the expense of the author.

Puppeteer motif.

Thackeray himself has repeatedly emphasized that his book is a puppet comedy in which he is just a puppeteer directing the game of his puppets. He is both a commentator, and a detractor, and himself a participant in this "bazaar of worldly vanity." This point emphasizes the relativity of any truth, the absence of absolute criteria.

The tradition of picaresque and romance in Vanity Fair.

Counterpoint of Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley.

Counterpoint is a point upon point when storylines intersperse in a novel. In Thackeray's novel, the storylines of two heroines intersect, representatives of two different classes, social environments, so to speak, Emilia Sedley and Rebecca Sharp. It is better to start comparing Rebecca and Emilia from the very beginning.

Both girls were in Miss Pinkerton's boarding house. True, Rebecca also worked there, taught the kids French, but still they could be considered equal with Emilia at the moment when they left their children's (adolescent) "shelter". Miss Amelia Sedley is recommended to her parents "as a young lady, quite worthy to take her rightful place in their chosen and refined circle. All the virtues that distinguish a noble English young lady, all the perfections befitting her origin and position, are inherent in dear Miss Sedley."

Rebecca Sharp, on the other hand, had the sad feature of the poor - premature maturity. And, of course, her life as a poor pupil, taken from mercy, left alone in this world, did not resemble the dreams of rich Emilia, who had a reliable rear; and Rebecca's relationship with Miss Pinkerton showed that in this embittered heart there is only room for two feelings - pride and ambition.

So, one boarder was waiting for tender, loving, and, what is important, wealthy parents, the other - an invitation to stay with dear Emilia for a week before going to a strange family as a governess. Therefore, it is not surprising that Becky decided to marry this "fat dandy", Emilia's brother.

Life divorced "dear friends": one remained at home, at the piano, with her fiancé and two new Indian scarves, the other went, and one wants to write "to catch happiness and ranks", to catch a rich husband or patron, wealth and independence, with a gift worn Indian shawl.

Rebecca Sharp is a conscientious actress. Her appearance is often accompanied by a theatrical metaphor, the image of the theater. Her meeting with Emilia after a long separation, during which Becky honed her skills and claws, took place in a theater where "no dancer has shown such perfect art of pantomime and could not match her antics." And the highest rise of Rebecca in her secular career is the role in the charade, performed with brilliance, as the actress's farewell exit to the big stage, after which she will have to play on more modest provincial stages.

So, the collapse, which for a smaller or weaker person (for example, Emilia) would mean a complete collapse, the end, for Becky, it’s just a change of role. And a role that has already become boring. Indeed, during her social successes, Becky admits to Lord Stein that she is bored and that it would be much more fun "to put on a sequined suit and dance at the fair in front of a booth!" And in this dubious company that surrounds her in The Restless Chapter, she really has more fun: maybe here she finally found herself, finally happy.

Becky is the strongest personality of the novel, and only before one manifestation of human feelings does she give in - before humanity. She, an egoist, simply does not understand the act of Lady Jane, who first bought Rawdon from creditors, and then took him and his son under her protection. She does not understand Rodon, who threw off the masks of an officer-reveler and a cuckold husband, and acquired a face in his caring love for his son, in his deceived trust, he towered over Becky, who would remember and regret more than once "about his honest, stupid, constant love and fidelity."

Becky looks unseemly in the scene of farewell to Rodon before he leaves for the war. This fool showed so much sensitivity and concern for her future, he even left her his new uniform, and he went on a campaign "almost with a prayer for the woman he left."

About Emilia, it seems to me, it is impossible to speak in such strong and excited tones. She has some kind of “jelly” life, and she always cries, always complains, always hangs on the elbow of her husband, who no longer knows how to breathe more freely.

Thackeray believed that "Emilia would yet show herself," for "she would be saved by love." Some pages about Emilia, especially about her love for her son, are written in a tearful Dickenian vein. But the Vanity Fair is probably arranged in such a way that kindness, love, fidelity not only lose their value, but also lose something in themselves, becoming companions of awkwardness, weakness, narrow-mindedness. And vain, vain self-love: who, after all, was Emilia, "if not a careless little tyrant"? A piece of paper was able to extinguish the fiery, "true" love for ... her dream, and it was Becky who helped Emilia find her stupid, "goose" happiness.

And Becky? Since childhood, cynical, shameless. Thackeray in the course of the novel insistently emphasizes that she is no worse and no better than others, and that adverse circumstances have made her what she is. Her image is devoid of softness. She is shown to be incapable of much love, even the love of her own son. She loves only herself. Her life path is a hyperbole and a symbol: the image of Rebecca helps to understand the whole idea of the novel. Vain, she seeks glory in the wrong ways, and in the end comes to vice and misfortune.

Goebbel's dramatic trilogy "Nibelungen" and the problem of "myth" in realism.

At the end of his life Gobbel wrote The Nibelungen. This is the last completed major dramatic work. He wrote it for five years (from 1855 to 1860). The well-known medieval epic "The Song of the Nibelungs" arranged in a modern way for the writer was dedicated to his wife Christina, whom he saw playing in a theatrical production of Raupach's drama "The Nibelungs", Goebbel's predecessor. In general, it must be said that the theme of this epic was reworked by many writers. The forerunners of the Goebbel tragedy were Delamotte Fouquet, Ulat ("Siegfried"), Geibel ("Kriemhild"), Raupach, and after Goebbel Wagner created his famous trilogy "The Ring of the Nibelungs".

The main difference between the "Nibelungs" by Goebel and the "Song of the Nibelungs" is the deep psychologism of the tragedy, a stronger sounding Christian theme, a more mundane text and the emergence of new motives. New motives are the love of Brynhild and Siegfried, which was not so clearly visible in the last epic, the introduction of a new character Frigga (Brynhild's nurse) into the tragedy, and most importantly, a new interpretation of the myth of cursed gold, which sounded in Volker's song: "Children played - one killed another; gold appeared from the stone, which gave rise to strife among the peoples.

Revolution of 1848 and the aesthetics of "pure art".

The revolution took place in many European countries: Germany, Italy, France, Hungary.

The government of Louis Philippe had a series of setbacks in foreign policy, leading to the rise of both parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition. In 1845-46 there were crop failures, food riots.

1847: The aftermath of a general commercial and industrial crisis in England. The French government did not want reforms, and the broad masses understood the dissatisfied riots. In February 1848, a demonstration took place in defense of electoral reform, which resulted in a revolution. The overthrown party was replaced by more reactionary forces. There was a second republic (bourgeois). The workers were unarmed, there was no question of any concessions to the working class. Then Napoleon, President of the Republic, staged a coup d'état and became Emperor of France (Second Empire).

The whole course of the bourgeois revolution was its defeat and the triumph of reactionary forces. The remnants of pre-revolutionary traditions and the results of social relations perished.

The revolution of 1848 is perceived with a "Hurrah!" intelligentsia. All intellectuals are at the barricades. But the revolution bogs down and turns into a dictatorial coup. The worst has happened that those who aspired to this revolution could have expected. Faith in a humanistic future and in progress collapsed with the collapse of the revolution. A regime of bourgeois vulgarity and general stagnation was established.

At that moment, it was necessary to create the appearance of prosperity and success. This is how pure art was born. Behind him - decadence, Parnassian group (Gaultier, Lille, Baudelaire).

The theory of pure art is the denial of any usefulness of art. The glorification of the principle of "art for art's sake". Art has one goal - the service of beauty.

Art is now a way of leaving the world, pure art does not interfere in social relations.

The trinity of truth, goodness, beauty - theory of pure art.

The theory of pure art arises as a form of escape from the hated reality. Theorists of pure art also tend to outrageous (to express themselves, to shock).

Pantheism arises - multi-belief, many heroes, opinions, thoughts. History and natural science become the muses of the modern era. Flaubert's pantheism is a modern cascade: he explained the languor of the spirit by the state of society. “We are worth something only because of our suffering.” Emma Bovary is a symbol of the era, a symbol of vulgar modernity.

The theme of love in Baudelaire's poetry.

The poet Baudelaire himself is a man with a difficult fate. A break with his family (when he is sent to a colony in India, and he flees back to Paris), he lived alone for a long time. Lived in poverty, earned some money with a pen (reviews). Many times in his poetry, he turned to forbidden topics (also a kind of shocking).

Of the French, his teachers were Sainte-Beuve and Theophile Gauthier. The first taught him to find beauty in what poetry rejected, in natural landscapes, suburban scenes, in the phenomena of ordinary and rough life; the second endowed him with the ability to turn the most ignoble material into pure gold of poetry, the ability to create phrases broad, clear and full of restrained energy, with all the diversity of tone, the richness of vision.

The coup and revolution undermined many idealistic thoughts in Baudelaire.

The life position of the poet is outrageous: constant rejection of what is official. He did not share ideas about human progress.

The theme of love in his work is very complex. It does not fit into any framework that was previously put on this topic by various poets. This is a special love. Rather, love for nature is more than for a woman. Very often the motive of love for the endless expanses, for him, for the endless distance of the sea sounds.

Muse Baudelaire is sick, like his soul. Baudelaire spoke of the vulgarity of the world in everyday language. Rather, it was dislike.

Even his beauty is terrible - "a hymn to beauty."

His main themes were pessimism, skepticism, cynicism, decay, death, collapsed ideals.

“You would attract the whole world to your bed,

Oh woman, oh creature, how evil you are from boredom!

"With a frenzied Jewess stretched out on the bed,

Like a corpse next to a corpse, I'm in stuffy darkness

Woke up and to your sad beauty

From this - bought - desires flew.

This is his understanding of love.

The theme of rebellion in Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil.

The Flowers of Evil was published in 1857. Caused a lot of negative feedback, the book was condemned, was not accepted by bourgeois France. The court ruled: "Crude and insulting to shame realism." Since then, Baudelaire has become a "damned poet."

The theme of rebellion in this collection is very bright. There is even a separate part called "rebellion" or "mutiny". It included three poems: “Cain and Abel”, “The Denial of St. Peter” and “Litanies to Satan” (Oh, the best among the forces reigning in Heaven, offended by fate, and poor in praise). In this cycle, the rebellious, anti-church directions of the poet were most clearly revealed. He glorifies Satan, and St. Peter, who renounced Christ and is well done in this. The sonnet “Cain and Abel” is very important: the family of Abel is the family of the oppressed, the family of Cain is the family of the oppressors. And Baudelaire worships the race of Cain: “Arise from hell and throw the Almighty from heaven!”). He was an anarchist by nature.

He described God as a bloody tyrant who could not get enough of the torments of mankind. For Baudelaire, God is a mortal man who dies in terrible agony.

His rebellion is not only in this. The revolt against boredom is also the revolt of Baudelaire. In all his poems, there is an atmosphere of despondency, irresistible boredom, which he called spleen. This boredom was born of the world of endless vulgarity, Baudelaire rises just against it.

The path of Baudelaire is the path of painful reflection. Through his negation, he breaks through to reality, to those questions that poetry has never touched.

His cycle of "Paris Pictures" is also a kind of rebellion. He describes here the city slums, ordinary people - a drunken scavenger, a red-haired beggar. He sympathizes with these little people without pity. He puts them as equals to himself and thereby rebels against unfair reality.

The role of money in modern society is the main theme in Balzac's work.

Creating the "Human Comedy", Balzac set himself a task still unknown to literature at that time. He strove for truthfulness and a merciless display of contemporary France, a display of the real, real life of his contemporaries.

One of the many themes that sound in his works is the theme of the destructive power of money over people, the gradual degradation of the soul under the influence of gold. This is especially vividly reflected in two famous works of Balzac - "Gobsek" and "Eugene Grandet".

Balzac's works have not lost their popularity in our time. They are popular both among young readers and among older people who draw from his works the art of understanding the human soul, seeking to understand historical events. And for these people, Balzac's books are a real storehouse of life experience.

The usurer Gobsek is the personification of the power of money. The love for gold, the thirst for enrichment, kill all human feelings in him, drown out all other principles.

The only thing he aspires to is to have more and more wealth. It seems absurd that a man who owns millions lives in poverty and, while collecting bills, prefers to walk without hiring a cab. But these actions are also due only to the desire to save at least a little money: living in poverty, Gobsek pays a tax of 7 francs with his millions.

Leading a modest, inconspicuous life, it would seem that he does not harm anyone and does not interfere in anything. But with those few people who turn to him for help, he is so merciless, so deaf to all their pleas, that he resembles some kind of soulless machine rather than a person. Gobsek does not try to get close to any person, he has no friends, the only people he meets are his professional partners. He knows that he has an heiress, a great-niece, but does not seek to find her. He does not want to know anything about her, because she is his heiress, and it is hard for Gobsek to think about heirs, because he cannot come to terms with the fact that he will someday die and part with his wealth.

Gobsek strives to spend his life energy as little as possible, which is why he does not worry, does not sympathize with people, always remains indifferent to everything around him.

Gobsek is convinced that only gold rules the world. However, the author endows him with some positive individual qualities. Gobsek is an intelligent, observant, insightful and strong-willed person. In many of Gobseck's judgments, we see the position of the author himself. So, he believes that an aristocrat is no better than a bourgeois, but he hides his vices under the guise of decency and virtue. And he takes cruel revenge on them, enjoying his power over them, watching how they kowtow to him when they cannot pay their bills.

Turning into the personification of the power of gold, Gobsek at the end of his life becomes pathetic and ridiculous: accumulated food and expensive art objects rot in the pantry, and he bargains with merchants for every penny, not inferior to them in price. Gobsek dies, his eyes fixed on the huge pile of gold in the fireplace.

Father Grande is a stocky "good man" with a moving bump on his nose, a figure not as mysterious and fantastic as Gobsek. His biography is quite typical: having made his fortune in the troubled years of the revolution, Grande becomes one of the most eminent citizens of Saumur. No one in the city knows the true extent of his fortune, and his wealth is a source of pride for all the inhabitants of the town. However, the rich man Grande is distinguished by outward good nature, gentleness. For himself and his family, he regrets an extra piece of sugar, flour, firewood to heat in the house, he does not repair the stairs, because he feels sorry for the nail.

Despite all this, he loves his wife and daughter in his own way, he is not as lonely as Gobsek, he has a certain circle of acquaintances who periodically visit him and maintain good relations. But still, because of his exorbitant stinginess, Grande loses all trust in people, in the actions of those around him he sees only attempts to get hold of at his expense. He only pretends that he loves his brother and cares about his honor, but in reality he does only what is beneficial to him. He loves Nanette, but still shamelessly uses her kindness and devotion to him, exploits her mercilessly.

Passion for money makes him completely inhuman: he is afraid of the death of his wife because of the possibility of dividing property.

Taking advantage of his daughter's boundless trust, he forces her to renounce her inheritance. He perceives his wife and daughter as part of his property, so he is shocked that Evgenia herself dared to dispose of her gold. Grande cannot live without gold and often counts his wealth hidden in his office at night. Grande's insatiable greed is especially disgusting in the scene of his death: dying, he snatches a gilded cross from the priest's hands.

Honore de Balzac began writing novels to earn money. And very quickly surprised the world with the absolute maturity of his style. "Chuans, or Brittany in 1799" - the first work of Balzac, signed by his real name, includes all the components of the work of the writer, who began as an author of commercial vampire novels ("The Heiress of Birag", "The Centennial Old Man") and suddenly decided to create serious romance. Balzac took Scott and Cooper as his teacher. In Scott, he was attracted by the historical approach to life, but did not like the dullness and schematism of the characters. The young writer decides to follow Scott's path in his work, but to show readers not so much a moral model in the spirit of his own ethical ideal, but to describe passion, without which there is no truly brilliant creation. In general, Balzac's attitude to passion was contradictory: "the murder of passion would mean the murder of society," he said; and added: "passion is an extreme, it is evil." That is, Balzac was fully aware of the sinfulness of his characters, but he did not even think of abandoning the artistic analysis of sin, which interested him very much and, in practice, formed the basis of his work. In the way Balzac was interested in human vices, of course, one can feel a certain part of romantic thinking, which has always been characteristic of the great realist. But Balzac understood human vice not as evil, but as a product of a certain historical era, a certain segment of the existence of a country, society. The world of Balzac's novels bears a clear definition of the material world. Personal life is very closely connected with the official one, so big political decisions do not descend from the sky, but are thought out and discussed in living rooms and notary offices, in the boudoirs of singers, they face personal and family relationships. The society is studied in Balzac's novels in such detail that even modern economists and sociologists study the state of society behind his novels. Balzac showed the interaction between people not against the background of God, as Shakespeare did, he showed the interaction between people against the background of economic relations. Society for him appears in the form of a living being, the only living organism. This creature is constantly moving, changing, like the ancient Proteus, but its essence remains unchanged: the stronger eat the weaker. Hence the paradoxical nature of Balzac's political views: the global realist never hid his royalist sympathies and sneered at revolutionary ideals. In the essay “Two Meetings in One Year” (1831), Balzac disparaged the revolution in 1830 and its achievement: “After a fight comes victory, after victory comes distribution; and then there are many more winners than those seen at the barricades.” Such an attitude towards people in general is characteristic of a writer who studied humanity the way biologists study the animal world.

One of Balzac's most serious passions, starting from childhood, was philosophy. At school age, he did not go a little crazy when he got acquainted with the old monastery library in a Catholic boarding school. He did not begin serious writing until he had studied the works of all the more or less eminent philosophers of old and new times. Therefore, the "Philosophical Studies" (1830 - 1837) arose, which can be considered not only works of art, but also quite serious philosophical works. The "Philosophical Studies" also includes the novel "Shagreen Skin", fantastic and at the same time deeply realistic. Fiction, in general, is a phenomenon characteristic of the "Philosophical Studies". It plays the role of a deus ex machine, that is, it performs the function of a central plot premise. Like, for example, a piece of old, dilapidated leather, which accidentally goes to a poor student Valentin in an antique dealer's shop. Covered with old inscriptions, a piece of shagreen fulfills all the desires of its owner, but at the same time it shrinks and in the same way shortens the life of the “lucky one”. Shagreen Skin, like many of Balzac's other novels, is devoted to the theme of "lost illusions". All the wishes of Raphael were fulfilled. He could buy everything: women, valuables, exquisite surroundings, he did not have only a natural life, natural youth, natural love, and therefore there was no point in living. When Raphael learns that he has become the heir of six million, and sees that the shagreen skin has again decreased, accelerating his old age and death, Balzac notes: “The world belonged to him, he could do everything - and did not want anything anymore.” “Lost illusions” can be considered both the search for an artificial diamond, to which Balthasar Claes sacrifices his own wife and children (“Search for the Absolute”), and the creation of a super-creation of art, which acquires the meaning of manic passion for the artist Frenhofer and is embodied in a “chaotic combination of strokes ".

Balzac said that Uncle Toby from the novel by L. Stern "Tristram Shandy" became for him a model of how to sculpt a character. Uncle Toby was an eccentric, he had a "horse" - he did not want to get married. The characters of Balzac's heroes - Grande ("Eugenia Grande"), Gobsek ("Gobsek"), Goriot ("Father Goriot") are built on the principle of "horse". In Grande, such a strong point (or mania) is the accumulation of money and jewelry, in Gobsek - enriching one's own bank accounts, with Father Goriot - fatherhood, serving daughters who demand more and more money.

Balzac described the story "Eugene Grande" as a bourgeois tragedy "without poison, without a dagger, without bloodshed, but for the characters more cruel than all the dramas that took place in the famous Atrid family." Balzac feared the power of money more than the power of the feudal lords. He looked at the kingdom as the only family in which the king is the father, and where there is a natural state of affairs. As for the rule of the bankers, which began after the revolution in 1830, here Balzac saw a serious threat to all life on earth, because he felt the iron and cold hand of monetary interests. And the power of money, which he constantly exposed, Balzac identified with the power of the devil and opposed it to the power of God, the natural course of things. And here it is difficult to disagree with Balzac. Although Balzac's views on society, which he expressed in articles and sheets, can not always be taken seriously. After all, he believed that humanity is a kind of fauna, with its own breeds, species and subspecies. Therefore, he valued the aristocrats as representatives of the best breed, which supposedly was brought out on the basis of the cultivation of spirituality, which neglects the benefits and useless calculation. Balzac in the press supported the insignificant Bourbons as a "lesser evil" and promoted an elitist state in which class privileges would be inviolable, and suffrage would only apply to those who have money, intelligence and talent. Balzac even justified serfdom, which he saw in Ukraine and which he was fond of. The views of Stendhal, who valued the culture of aristocrats only at the level of aesthetics, look much more just in this case.

Balzac did not perceive any revolutionary speeches. During the revolution in 1830, he did not interrupt his vacation in the provinces and did not go to Paris. In The Peasants, expressing pity for those who are "great through their hard lives," Balzac says of the revolutionaries: "We poeticized the criminals, we had mercy on the executioners, and we almost created an idol from the proletarian"! But it is no coincidence that they say: Balzac's realism turned out to be smarter than Balzac himself. The wise one is the one who evaluates a person not according to his political views, but according to her moral qualities. And in the works of Balzac, thanks to an attempt to objectively depict life, we see honest Republicans - Michel Chrétien ("Lost Illusions"), Nizron ("Peasants"). But the main object of study of Balzac's work is not they, but the main force of today - the bourgeoisie, the same "money angels" who have acquired the significance of the main driving force of progress and the morals of which Balzac exposed, exposed in detail and not fussily, like a biologist, which I study the habits of a certain subspecies of animals. “In commerce, Monsieur Grande was like a tiger: he knew how to lie down, curl up into a ball, look at his prey for a long time, and then rush at it; opening the trap of his purse, he swallowed another fate and lay down again, like a boa constrictor that digests food; He did all this calmly, coldly, methodically. The increase in capital looks like something like an instinct in Grande's character: before his death, with a "terrible movement", he grabs the golden cross of the priest, who bent over the fainting man. Another "knight of money" - Gobsek - acquires the meaning of the only god in whom the modern world believes. The expression "money rules the world" is vividly realized in the story "Gobsek" (1835). A small, inconspicuous, at first glance, man, holds the whole of Paris in his hands. Gobsek executes and pardons, he is fair in his own way: he can bring almost to suicide, someone who neglects piety and because of this gets into debt (Countess de Resto), or maybe let go of a pure and simple soul that works day and night. night, and finds himself in debt not through his own sins, but through difficult social conditions (seamstress Ogonyok).

Balzac liked to repeat: “The historian itself should be French society. I can only serve as his secretary. These words indicate the material, the object of study of Balzac's work, but hush up the means of processing it, which cannot be called "secretary". On the one hand, in the course of creating images, Balzac relied on what he saw in real life (the names of almost all the heroes of his works can be found in the newspapers of that time), but on the basis of the material of life, he deduced certain laws behind which there existed, and, indeed, to Unfortunately, society exists. He did it not as a scientist, but as an artist. Therefore, the typification technique acquires such significance in his work (from the Greek typos - imprint). A typical image has a specific design (appearance, character, fate), but at the same time it embodies a certain trend that exists in society at a certain historical period. Balzac created the typical grievances in different ways. It could be aimed only at typicality, as, for example, in the "Monograph on the Rentier", or it could sharpen individual character traits or create aggravated situations, as, for example, in the stories "Eugene Grande" and "Gobsek". Here, for example, is a description of a typical rentier: “Practically all persons of this breed are armed with a cane or a snuffbox. Like all persons from the genus "man" (mammals), he has seven valves on his face and, most likely, owns a complete skeletal system. His face is pale and often onion-shaped, it has no character, which is his characteristic feature. But filled with spoiled canned food, the never-heated fireplace in the house of a millionaire - Gobseck, of course, is a sharpened feature, but it is this sharpness that emphasizes typicality, exposes a trend that exists in reality, the ultimate expression of which is Gobseck.

in 1834 - 1836 Balzac issues a 12-volume collection of his own works, which is called "Etudes on the manners of the 19th century." And in 1840-1841. a decision is ripening to generalize all of Balzac's creative activity under the name of "The Human Comedy", which is often called the "comedy of money". The relationship between people in Balzac is mainly determined by monetary relations, but not only they were of interest to the author of The Human Comedy, who divided his gigantic work into the following sections: Studies on Morals, Physiological Studies and Analytical Studies. Thus, the whole of France appears before us, we see a huge panorama of life, a huge living organism that is constantly moving due to the incessant movement of its individual organs.

The feeling of constant movement and unity, the synthesis of the picture arises due to the characters who return. For example, we will meet Lucien Chardon for the first time in Lost Illusions, and there he will try to conquer Paris, and in The Shine and Poverty of Courtesans we will see Lucien Chardon, who was conquered by Paris and turned into meek instruments of the diabolical ambition of Abbé Herrera-Vautrin (still one through character). In the novel Père Goriot, we first meet Rastignac, a kind guy who came to Paris to get an education. And Paris provided him with an education - a simple and honest guy turned into a rich man and a member of the cabinet of ministers, he conquered Paris, understood its laws and challenged him to a duel. Rastignac defeated Paris, but destroyed himself. He deliberately killed a guy from the provinces who loved working in the vineyard and dreamed of getting a law degree to improve the lives of his mother and sister. The naive provincial has turned into a soulless egoist, because otherwise one cannot survive in Paris. Rastignac went through various novels of The Human Comedy and acquired the meaning of a symbol of careerism and the notorious "social success". Maxime de Tray, the de Resto family constantly appear on the pages of different works, and we get the impression that there are no points at the end of individual novels. We are not reading a collection of works, we are looking at a huge panorama of life. "The Human Comedy" is a vivid example of the self-development of a work of art, which never reduces the greatness of the work, but on the contrary - gives it the greatness of something provided by Nature. It is precisely such a powerful, much greater than the personality of the author, that is the brilliant work of Balzac.

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