Extract
[...] Laughter can be interpreted as a sign of superiority. Having broken free from the codes of society, Rastignac the cynic notes the naivety of his friend who is a thousand miles away from understanding the functioning of a world where talent is not enough to succeed. He recognizes his intellectual value, but reproaches him for believing that society is virtuous: that's why he treats him as a 'fool'. 5 « His Gascon voice, his experience of the world, the opulence he owed to his know-how, acted on me in an irresistible way. [...]
[...] « Opulence: Rastignac's wealth is flashy and it's a proof of the success that an immoral life brings, in contrast to Raphael's ascetic life. Appearance prevails over being. The acceptance of The Magic Skin is thus prepared: Raphael begins to renounce morality and austerity. 6 « He killed me in the hospital, unknown like a fool, led my own funeral procession, threw me into the poorhouse. A striking and concrete vision of decline, with a realistic evocation of terrible places: the hospital is the place where everyone who has nothing ends up, Raphael has changed because he no longer saw the hospital in the same way when he worked in his room, being sure to succeed one day: like Aquilina, I envisioned the hospital without terror?' « [The poorhouse is the common grave. [...]
[...] He manipulates the antithesis. The comparison is pleasant and relevant. In the salons, Rastignac saves his strength, then he acts: he meets an important person, he takes advantage of an opportunity (financial for example), he makes a witty remark. CONCLUSION This page is important in the economy of the Comédie humaine and of the novel. With Rastignac, Balzac applies his principle of recurrence of characters: in Le Père Goriot the young provincial "risen" to Paris from his native Angoumois is not yet the cynic that we see at work here, when he gives his advice to his friend, in a masterful lesson that subverts traditional values. [...]
[...] The Magic Skin, The Woman with No Heart - Honoré de Balzac (1831) - Rastignac's Counsels French Literature - Linear Text Explanation - Balzac, The Magic Skin. BALZAC, THE MAGIC SKIN, II "THE WOMAN WITHOUT A HEART" [LES CONSEILS OF RASTIGNAC INTRODUCTION In 1826, at the age of twenty-two, Raphaël de Valentin had lost his father who had come to Paris, with him, to 'tempt the devil'. Ruined, he settled in the Latin Quarter, at the Hôtel Saint-Quentin where he wrote, in a wretched room, a Treatise on Will (like Balzac himself). [...]
[...] I established myself as a great man. From my childhood, I had struck my forehead, saying to myself like André de Chénier: 'There is something there ' As he mounted the scaffold in 1794, Chénier would have exclaimed: 'It's a pity, though; there was something there The Romantics love this young poet who died in his prime and therefore could not give full expression to his genius. Rastignac catalyzes his friend's desire, he gives a method to an ambition that was already in him. [...]
