pere goriot Author:honore de balzac "PERE GORIOT can rightly be regarded as one of the greatest of Balzac's novels," writes Henry Reed of this masterful study of a father whose sacrifices for his daughters have become a maniacal compulsion. . . . — In PERE GORIOT the great novelist probes the "bourgeois tragedy" of money, power and despair from two different directions. Through pa... more »rental love Goriot is willingly reduced to poverty so that he may satisfy the demands of his well-married but debt-ridden daughters. On the other hand, Rastignac, the impoverished young man of integrity who is attracted to one of Goriot's daughters, becomes infected with ambition and succumbs to the fever for money and social success« less