SOURCE: "Productive Years," in Honoré de Balzac, Twayne Publishers, 1979, pp. 41-55.

In the excerpt below, Festa-McCormick examines those elements that make Eugénie Grandet "one of the classics of world fiction, "focusing especially upon Balzac's depiction of the miser Grandet. The critic concludes by exploring the mystery of the identity of the "Maria" to whom Balzac dedicated the novel.

A Modern Tragedy in Bourgeois Setting: Eugénie Grandet

Eugénie Grandet ranks among the classics of universal fiction, almost on a par with Madame Bovary—less ambitious, but equally well constructed, with restraint and poetic dimension. Here too, beyond the life, passions, and tragedy of two or three individuals, a whole town comes to the fore with its customs, prejudices, limitations, and aspirations. In some respects—its economy of means, simplicity, its eschewing of melodramatic or extraneous elements and its unity of tone—it is the most "Classical...