In the first paragraph of his novel Pere Goriot, Balzac describes his main environment, the Maison Vauquer, as a "respectable establishment" that has never been tainted by any "breath of scandal " " (1). This statement significantly defines the house in terms of scandal, the author chooses to refer to its purity only through an exclusionary description --- there is no direct mention of morality, rather Balzac chooses to frame the Maison Vauquer within a construction of secrecy and conspiracy. This authorial choice fixes the focus of the novel on the world of conspiratorial plots from the beginning, because it centers the reader not on what is right within this Parisian world, but about what is wrong: purity is the exception, as we come to see, in this little microcosm of the Parisian landscape The entire Pere Goriot exists within and between these different textures, creating a kind of suspended system in which all the characters are connected, and our protagonist Eugene serves as a tour guide through the intricate entanglements of this treacherous world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Once introduced to this house of expected scandal, we meet its characters, a sort of microcosmic social physiology of 19th century Paris. This tendency towards social categorization is pervasive throughout the novel, which helps to highlight the conspiratorial web of plots woven within it; since each person characterizes a certain social type or function, they therefore serve to illuminate a particular plot specified for his personal situation. The boarders "all looked at each other with a mixture of mutual indifference and distrust deriving from their respective situations" (14). Even more significantly, Pere Goriot has no major plot, meaning there is no specific goal or conflict set up at the beginning for the reader. Rather, numerous smaller plots gradually accumulate until together they construct the grand façade of a main plot; however, when you examine this facade, you begin to see that in reality at both the beginning and the end we have nothing but fractured stories all happening within a small geographic and social area. This idea of ​​containment cannot be emphasized enough: in the boarding house, Mrs. Vauquer made available "cells [that] belonged to her. She fed these prisoners serving life sentences and exercised over them an authority that they respected" (14) and the the neighborhood in general felt "like a prison" (2). Balzac repeatedly draws attention to the feeling of closure of the space of the novel, thus creating in the reader a habitual association of imprisonment with retirement and everything related to it. This tendency shrouds the novel in another layer of secrecy, so when Balzac finally reveals the protagonist Eugene, the introduction seems fitting for this secretly plotting world: "Without his observing curiosity and the skill with which he managed to enter the Parisian social scene, this narrative would have lacked the stamp of authenticity that it surely owes to its cunning and its desire to probe the mysteries of a terrible situation that was carefully hidden both by those who had created it and by its victim" (8). Balzac, as we see, consciously made the choice to foreshadow the rest of the work in this brief introduction, creating a parvenu narrative based on and built around the melodramatic complexities of Parisian society. We see these complexities most strikingly in the relationships Eugene builds with various other characters in the novels. ANDInterestingly, every single relationship connects with the others in the novel, with the exception of Eugene's relationship with Bianchon, who is also his only friend from a plotless world, academia. Bianchon, however, is exposed to the conspiracies at the end of the novel, but enters and exits again, without ever becoming trapped in the web of relationships that ultimately terrorize both the Maison Vauquer and the upper class of Faubourg St. Germain. We can find the best examples of this world of plots in his characters: Pere Goriot is the embodiment of the secrecy and paranoia that characterize this world, while Vautrin symbolizes crime, hiding and betrayal. These two characters often find themselves juxtaposed in Eugene's consciousness, creating a dialogue between evil and good that satisfies the topos of duality present throughout the novel: Vautrin is both an asset and a detriment to the pension, Pere Goriot has both the I check that you are in total servitude, Mlle. Victorine is both a pauper and a member of the nobility. Good and evil are found in everyone, and therefore everyone must hide one or both of them. Eugene serves as the framework upon which all these conflicting emotions and plots play out as he strives to make his way in society. Vautrin also has merits; “In a word, that villain said [Eugene] more about virtue than [he had] ever gotten from men or books” (104). The complication becomes even deeper when Eugene begins to reveal what is happening late at night in the boarding house." He was about to return to his room when suddenly he heard a sound that was difficult to describe... suddenly he saw a dim glow on the second floor, coming from from Mr. Vautrin's room. "How many mysteries for a family pension!" he said to himself. He went down a few steps, listened and heard the tinkling of gold... 'You have to stay up all night if you want to know what's happening. around you in Paris!'" (33) This passage is the first moment in which Eugene learns of the conspiracies that will eventually envelop him. Although he doesn't know exactly why, he is "distracted by suspicion" (33). The novel is constructed in a very precise manner: the chapter titles segment the work into specific themed scenes, and the scenes all artfully come together at the end, when a tragic death conveniently unites everyone both physically and thematically. Yet beneath this construction there is a world of small and significant connections: Père Goriot with his two daughters, the daughters with each other, Eugene with his aunt, his aunt with high society, and that society with the Maison Vauquer. , through the connection of Pere Goriot and Eugene. The connections within the pension itself are also significant, because it appears as a contrasting framework to the salons of high society. It is between these two worlds that Eugene navigates. Money is also an important factor in linking the conspiracy to the novel plot. Everyone in the book has tons of them or none at all---significantly, there is no middle ground, creating both a metaphorical and physical no man's land that Eugene crosses, and never notices, on his way between these two poles . There is never a physical description of his journey, as if there is nothing to see, as if he is passing through a world that does not exist. And any kind of legitimate job does not make the accumulation of wealth possible, as Vautrin astutely points out to Eugene: "You have ten years of hardship, you have to spend a thousand a month, have a library, a study, lead a social life." , kiss the hem of some lawyer's robe to get some memoirs, lick the dust of a court with your tongue If such a career led to something useful I wouldn't say no, but try to find five lawyers in Paris who earn more Of. fifty thousand a year at fifty! Bah! I prefer to indulge in piracy.