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The Death of Old Goriot

June 5, 2025December 18, 2025 Peter Starr

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Photos: The New Yorker, Penguin Books

Rastignac gives up on his chance for wisdom, but Balzac clearly holds out hope, against considerable odds, for his implied reader.

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Tagged Balzac, Bildungsroman, conflict resolution, criminality, culture, disillusionment, empathy, experience, family, high society, judgment, meaning, misogyny, narrative, nobility, novel, Old Goriot, Paris, paternal love, pensive ending, possession, reader, realism, shadow of death, tragedy, war, War and Peace, wisdom

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