Eugenie Grandet and a Dolls House Comparison

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Balzac does not content creating its characters and giving them definitions, he places them in a social environment and in an era of which it must relate to the characteristics in his work. In "Eugйnie Grandet" Balzac placed the characters in the era, between the Revolution and the end of the Monarchy, that distinguished itself by the industrial development, the entrance of the middle class and consequently "the control of the money". This is for that that one finds "the theme of money" mainly with eugenie and her father among the themes dominating in this novel. Meanwhile In the play ‘’ A Doll’s House’’ written by Henrik Ibsen The nineteenth century saw huge social and economic changes. Society shifted from a largely rural agricultural community of ‘landed gentry’ and land workers, to urban communities based on manufacturing. More than ever before, what defined one’s place in society was one’s ability to make and control money. Those who controlled the money were the bankers and lawyers.it main concerns are about the position of women in society and how it’s brought to life as well as the idea of that only mens are able to take care of buissnes and have absolute control over their families money just like Monsieur Grandet in “Eugenie Grandet’’. Moreover in “A Dolls House” women had a bit more of advantage than in “Eugenie Grandet” since they lived in a more urbanized setting compared to Monsieur grandet’s family which lived in a small province where women had least rights.

Nora is the symbol for the females at the time that the novel takes place ( )and Ibsen believes that women had the right to develop their own individuality. Nora, the main character, is happy with the luxuries of modern society plus materialism, she believes that money equals happinnes just in the contrary as Eugenie Grandet character thinks. Moreover its not entirely Noras fault as for her husband, Torvald, feeds her with this believe. Noras view of the world is basically on material objects, Torvalds view of Nora is of an object to be possesed, his objectification of her is clearly shown through him when he calls her an animala imagenry “my little skyluck”. She is totally dependent

on her husband financially and in other ways as well ( eg. Diet) however we are able to quickly see that she can be a very manipulative person as for when she convinces him that in christmas she must have a little more money:

“Torvald, surely we can let purselves go just a little bit” ( reffering to spending a little more money) and his repsonse to it is “We musn’t waste money, you know” and long after a disscusion she convinces him of giving her extra US$ 40,00 (fourty dollars).

It’s able to analyse that the starting theme to the novel is the importance of money instead of people which we can compare to “Eugenie Grandet”, Monsiuer Grandet attitude’s towards money.

Monsieur Grandet, Eugenies father, would also place money in a more important level than people, including his own family. Grandet is described

by the author, with the use of words, he used people and was pragmatic, he had no principles.

“In matter of finance, Monsiuer Grandet combined the characteristics of the tiger and the boa constructor. Like a tiger he waited for his prey(...) then the jawas

of his purse opened to engulf a pleniude of coins, and he laid down again peacfully , like the gorged python, to digest; impassible , emotionless, methodical.”

The result of this passage describes Grandet as a fierce working men which

is heartless to others. Eugenie, the main character, is totaly the opposite of her father, her discretion and generosity is described with a big delicacy. When Eugenie is first presented to us, readers, is when the author reveals that Madame of Grassins intends to marry her son with Eugenie which is the richest heiress in the province and she wishes to join wealthiness at the same time the Cruchot family had the same intention as the Grassins. Since the beginning

eugenie is referred as a rich girl a heires and not properly described as herself which is a girl that doesn’t cares for money since she was

brought up by her father which was mao d evaca.. Moreover throughout the story we accompany the passion of money which leads to the destruction of the life of a girl that becomes little by little a more mature girl.

Just like Eugenies development of character throughout the novel, Nora does it as well throught the play. We discover that Nora is aware that her life is a charade in page 161 when her interaction with