Balzac "Gobsek": a detailed analysis of the story and the protagonist. Reading the death scene of Gobsek

The writing

Difficult topic ... How to determine where the values are mental, where the values are real? Say, is gold a mental or real value? I'm talking about gold, because the main character is a usurer. Gold is a mental value, since absolutely no one needs it: it cannot be eaten, it is not suitable for making an ax or a hoe. One philosopher, who is now out of fashion, suggested making toilet bowls out of it. And the philosopher argued that they had already begun to make this useful thing out of gold. Nevertheless - try to live in this world without gold or its paper surrogates. You won’t eat money either, but you won’t be full without it either. So, is gold a mental or real life value?

Obviously, it was meant that I would immediately talk about high human qualities.

For example, loyalty and gratitude. But I read about the life of the Comtesse de Restaud. She betrayed her husband with Maxim, who is none other than the gigolo. For the sake of this bastard, she made the Viscount de Resto almost a beggar ... From another part of the "Human Comedy" we learn that she left her old father to the mercy of fate as soon as he gave his property to his daughters-heirs. Let's finally decide if marital fidelity is a real value or not? Let's add maternal feelings there ... and daughters!
And let's go back to thinking about gold, or money. The whole story told in Balzac's story is the story of the search for money, its significance in people's lives. In relation to money, you can evaluate the characters. Gobsek, for example, is none other than the priest of an old pagan cult. He does not need a golden robe, a golden tiara, or an adamant rod - he still has the unsurpassed power of the Golden Calf behind him, he only distributes and collects gold, which accumulates with him the more he distributes it. Gobseck's clientele (and this is, so to speak, the flower of France) has rams in the stall, which will be slaughtered when the last tuft of the golden fleece has been cut from them by the dexterous hands of the Great Priest.

Nevertheless, they all pray to gold, making it the most valuable, the total equivalent of everything that is in their lives. The narrator in the story is the lawyer Derville. Well done by the author, who transferred the responsibility for assessing the situation to the hero. When something is wrong, then let the wolf eat grass about him. But…

Dealing with money and a moneylender, the lawyer cannot believe that everything in the world is based on money. There is something that cannot be bought with gold or silver. Derville's professional conscientiousness is beyond doubt; people cordially trust him with their money and destinies. However... Looking around me now, I'm asking myself a bad question; maybe gold just hasn't been given a real price yet?

True, there are intimate feelings that are difficult to convert into money. For example, Fanny's love for Derville. But we see how Alastazi, having got into a new debt, buys himself a little more love from Maxime de Tray. So, can you buy? And is it just the amount?

Or does the author deliberately put us in a situation where we have to decide on our own what we will not sell in our lives? Or is there something else we didn't sell for a glass necklace, like the Indians sold the island of Manhattan?

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The writing

Honore de Balzac entered world literature as an outstanding realist writer. It was he who conceived, perhaps the world's largest cycle of novels about the life of the whole society, which he called "The Human Comedy". And in fact, sometimes human efforts expended on trifles, wastefulness, anger, and frivolity seem comical. They look comical until they start ruining someone else's life. So, Anastasi de Resto's romance with a secular young man Maxim de Tray began as a light flirtation that does not cause trouble to anyone. But the shameless lover brazenly breaks into the life of the whole family, as the unprincipled Madame de Resto allowed him to do this. And now the honor of the family, the husband is neglected. Anastasi does not even think about children. Balzac seems to be watching this through the eyes of his hero, the usurer Gobsek. This is a smart person, educated and even wise.

At least in relation to other people's lives. When it comes to money, he has no equal. But here's a miracle: he lived his life not at all wisely. Gobsek did not even notice how money, which first gave him freedom, and then power over people, gradually became his goal, his idol, subordinated his whole life to accumulation, replaced his whole life. He understood that a person needs just so much money so as not to think about it every second. So Fanny Malva is satisfied with this amount, who borrows money from him for linen and threads to work with.

But she borrows as much as she can give, unlike Anastasi de Resto, who does not know the value of money, however, like all other values. The writer psychologically accurately portrays not only the actions of the characters, but also their motives. Balzac is rightly considered a connoisseur of human souls, since he managed to convey the subtlest notes of the souls of heroes, to look into the most hidden corners of the souls of his contemporaries, and, in the end, of all people. Reading his works is very interesting precisely because they are true to life and contain wise observations, answers to many questions that life will always put before everyone.

One of the most important moments of the entire work of the outstanding French realist Honore de Balzac was the desire to recreate a complete picture of the era. Almost all of his works, according to the writer's intention, were parts of the great epic "The Human Comedy", which was supposed to cover all possible phenomena of the life of that time. According to the plan, this epic cycle was to consist of three sections: “Etudes on Customs”, works that depicted the life, way of life and customs of different strata of French society, “Philosophical Studies”, which was supposed to summarize Balzac’s artistic discoveries and his idea of the regularity of life , and, finally, “Analytical Studies”, in which the writer tried to formulate the laws that govern reality.

In the first section (“Etudes on Customs”), Balzac created a gallery of the most typical images of his contemporaries, who had different social status and different professions. The story "Gobsek" is included in its composition. The name of the central character of this work - the usurer Gobsek - has become a household name. Nevertheless, it was in his image that A. Balzac not only described a typical usurer, but vividly reproduced a special psychological type of a person who lives with only one feeling - self-interest in its purest form. Money is the only goal, the only love and vocation of Gobsek. There are many images of self-interested people and misers in fiction, but they are not the same. The miserly knight of A. Pushkin really strives for power, money for him is only a means of achieving it. So he is more like a hidden lover of power than a real greed. Plyushkin by G. Gogol is a petty miser of the “domestic” type. It is no coincidence that people who do not want to throw away yesterday's newspaper or something like that are called “plushkins”: no one will compare them with Gobsek. This image summarizes completely different features of private property psychology, brought to its logical conclusion (although almost absurd from the point of view of a normal person).

Here is Gobsek's life philosophy: “What can satisfy our 'I', our vanity? Gold! Streams of gold. In order to satisfy our whims, time is needed, material possibilities and effort are needed, gold has all this, and it actually gives everything. At the same time, Gobsek does not try to take advantage of the possibilities of gold he mentioned, it is enough for him to have it. Not for something else. For Gobseck, there is no satisfaction other than the realization of his wealth.

Did he have other features? Through the brightness of the main characteristic, his life's most important task, they are almost imperceptible. “He was an automaton who was turned on every day,” Balzac writes about him. Even a person whom he seems to sympathize with, Gobsek lends money only on slightly softened terms than others, and even brings a kind of “ideological basis” to this act, they say, it will be more useful for his character. In general, people turn to usurers only in the most difficult moments of their lives, in despair, when there is no other source to get money. For example, when bankruptcy approaches, and banks refuse credit. In usury itself, as a phenomenon, something cruel was originally laid down, and Gobsek surpasses even his “colleagues” in this: watching people who are at an impasse becomes entertainment for him. There is no mention of empathy at all.

Gobsek, for all his limited goals, is, surprisingly, not primitive. He is able to draw conclusions about the nature of society, to analyze its destructive forces. He also knows the psychology of people. To draw a conclusion about the omnipotence of gold and create your own philosophy regarding this, you also need to be able to think. So, he is an intelligent person, but his passion is stronger than his mind. The power of gold, in which he so believed, makes Gobseck himself a victim, he creates a trap for himself.

What could be more absurd than starving to death in the midst of vast wealth? Gobsek is killed by his own idea of the omnipotence of gold and its immense value. He was so afraid of losing his property that he imperceptibly destroyed them in the physical sense: expensive fabrics, dishes, paintings - everything deteriorated, everything turned out to be lost to the world. If we take into account the presence of the author's intention, this deliberate external absurdity is the natural conclusion of such an attitude to life.

“Is there a God in this person?” - rhetorically asks another hero of the work, Derville. Yes, there is: this is Mammon, in other words, money. Gobsek gave life to serving this ideal. Balzac sternly and ruthlessly condemns the thirst for accumulation and the actual process of enriching a person. Gold does not bring happiness to either Gobseck or others. And even if the image of Gobsek is an isolated case, it testifies to what the path of self-interest leads to, and the artistic skill of the writer makes this warning even more convincing.

Other writings on this work

And refers to "Scenes from a Private Life". The main characters in it are the old usurer Gobsek, the attorney Derville and the Count de Resto family.

The main theme of the work- passion. It is explored in the story on two levels: on the one hand, Gobsek studies human passions (love of wealth, power, women, selfish selfishness, etc.), on the other hand, Balzac himself explores the nature of the old usurer and shows us that even under the mask of a person wise in life can hide one all-consuming and everything-destroying passion - a craving for gold, for accumulation, for constant enrichment.

The life story of Jean Esther van Gobseck, the son of a Jewess and a Dutchman, is presented to the reader through the story of the attorney Derville, who decided to reassure the young girl Camille de Granlie regarding the brilliant position of her beloved Count Ernest de Resto.

Derville met Gobseck when he was a student. The old usurer was 76 years old at the time. The story in the salon of the Viscountess de Grandlier Derville leads a few days after the death of the 89-year-old Gobsek.

Thirteen years of acquaintance allowed the lawyer to make friends and penetrate the secrets of the soul of an adamant usurer who inspires horror throughout Paris. The first impression of Gobsek (by the way, this character has a speaking surname: translated from French, “Gobsek” is “Zhivoglot”) is created colorful description of his appearance, each feature of which metaphorically correlates with wealth, old age or cunning.

The old usurer's face, with its "yellowish pallor," similar to "the color of silver from which the gilding has peeled off," reminds Derville "moon face". Gobsek's eyes "small and yellow, like a ferret", nose - long with a sharp tip, lips - thin, "like the alchemists", facial features - "motionless, impassive, seemed to be cast in bronze". When the usurer raises his tattered cap, his eyes open "stripe of bare skull, yellow as old marble". “All his actions were measured, like the movements of a pendulum. It was some kind of automatic man who was wound up daily. ”. At first, Derville could not even tell how old Gobsek was, since the latter looked either aged to the point of time, or well preserved for all eternity.

art space, in which there is a Parisian usurer, to match his prudent and cold nature. Things in his room are worn and tidy, and the fire in the fireplace does not flare up at full capacity even in winter. Gobseck's room is in a damp house without a yard, with windows overlooking the street. It is no different from the rest of the building, each of which, with its arrangement, reminds Derville of a monastic cell.

The feeling of contentment with the past day and inner joy in Gobseck could only be seen by rubbing his hands and changing the position of the wrinkles on his face. Being a cabin boy in his youth and having experienced a lot of dangers, in his old age the usurer reached a state of peculiar wisdom: he made his own conclusion about life and began to live in accordance with it. Existence, according to Gobsek - "only a habit to a favorite environment". Moral rules are different for different nations, internal passions are destructive for people, and only the instinct of self-preservation is the only thing that is valuable in life. Standing firmly on one's feet in a world immersed in vanity is only possible with the help of gold. It gives everything - wealth, power, position, the favor of women. Passions are best studied and profited from them. The last two things are the main entertainment of Gobsek.

The usurer treats his clients as a means of profit. Gobsek cannot perceive vicious people differently. Only simple, honest, hardworking personalities, such as the seamstress Fanny Malvo, cause participation in it. At the same time, Gobsek helps only those who can return the money taken from him with interest. In Derville, the usurer is captivated by his youth (Gobsek believes that up to thirty years people still retain their reserve of honesty and nobility), knowledge (Gobsek uses his advice), sober mind, desire to work and the ability to clearly express one's thoughts without playing on feelings, but reasoning logically.

Participation in the inheritance affairs of the count de Resto family Gobsek explains simply: he agreed to help the unfortunate father because he trusted him "no tricks". The wife of the Comte de Resto, the beautiful Anastasi, squandered the fortune of the family day after day, lowering it to the young lover Maxime de Tray, and something had to be done about it. Artistic image of the heroine is devoid of unambiguity: she is both an unhappy woman who succumbed to love passion, and a cheating wife (the younger children of Anastasi are not from her husband), and an unstoppable miser striving for wealth, and, perhaps, a good mother, equally wishing good to all children.

For all his rationality, Gobsek, on the verge of death, faces one on one with his individual passion - he dies without leaving behind a will (oral, given in words to Derville - does not count), in a house packed to capacity with rotting delicacies, money and the last the heap of gold he had received, hidden by infirmity in the ashes of the fireplace.

Summary of the novel by Honore de Balzac "Gobsek"