Monsieur Grandet plucked the rather imposing masculine housekeeper Nanon from the bottom rungs of the social order and installed her among the serving class. Madame Grandet finds solace from her husband’s insane outbursts of anger over perceived violations of his niggardly financial code in religion and only begins to take up the arms of insurrection against the dominant authority of “Goodman” Grandet when the cause becomes preserving her daughter’s right to love as she chooses. Madame GrandetĮugenie’s mother and the target of her father’s greatest outburst of miserly anger over spendthriftery. As an heir to a fortune, however, things are so dandy for Charles: his father’s suicide essentially leaves him without recourse to anything but dodgy dealings with the love-infused gift of money from the naïve Eugenie. To put it diplomatically: Charles Grandet is the very model of a dandy.
What better way to ensure fortunes were kept well within the family than by having members of the family marry each other, after all? Poor Eugenie falls for her cousin Charlie who, it must be admitted, does somewhat fulfill the image of what a male version of a Paris Hilton-type heir might look like. Charles GrandetĮugenie’s cousin, but keep in mind that during this period and within this social class, cousins were fair game for romance. Eugenie gets the last laugh on her father’s destructive lust for money which continually increases his net worth by spending it on those he would have felt least deserved it. For instance, the nifty little profit he manages to make for himself under the guise of keeping his brother from the ignominy of bankruptcy. Not just a man who wouldn’t spend a dollar when a quarter would make do, Monsieur Grandet attempts to fool not just others, but himself into thinking that he efforts to save or make a little more money are in the name of the greater good. "Goodman" GrandetĮugenie’s father, on the other hand, stands right up there alongside Ebenezer Scrooge as one of literature’s all-time misers. In fact, by the time the novel named after her draws to a close, Eugenie stands proudly as one of literature’s greatest anti-spoiled rotten heiresses. She is loyal to her friends and stays to care for her parents as they age and wither away. She is the heiress to a fantastic fortune, made all the greater by the character of her father (more on than later.) Instead of being the center of a novel about a vapid young girl overwhelmed with money who knows not how to spend it wisely, however, Eugenie ultimately is painted by the author as one of his most admirable heroines a young woman who instead of living for the love of income, lives simply for love.
We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Įugenie Grandet should by all rights be an 1800’s version of Paris Hilton. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.
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