Eugenie Grandet

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) produced a huge collection of novels, novellas and short stories, earning him recognition as a great master of the novel, as well as one of the creators of literary realism. He collected and arranged his works under the name "e;La Comedie humaine"e;, which he then divided into eight major topics. "e;Eugenie Grandet"e; was placed in the section titled, "e;Scenes from Provincial Life"e;. The story takes place in the French town of Saumur, where a miserly, but respected, man called old Grandet lives with his wife, servant, and daughter, Eugenie. Greedy and power-hungry, Grandet is a dominant force in the novel, as he is in his community and home. Unable to entirely overcome the genetic and learned behaviors inherited from her father, Eugenie Grandet is a wonderfully human character, and her ability to draw sympathy without imposing judgments on the reader is testimony to Balzac's artistic skill as a novelist.