SOURCE: "Acts and Scenes: Eugénie Grandet," "Settings, Costumes, and Groupings: Eugénie Grandet," and "Dialogue: Eugénie Grandet," in The Dramatic Construction of Balzac's Novels, University of Oregon, 1940, pp. 26-31, 81-2, 106.

In The Dramatic Construction of Balzac's Novels, Bowen seeks "to reveal by examination of the novels themselves whether there is not something more than just a dramatic pattern running through them and also whether there is not a manner of building according to which the author, consciously or unconsciously, constructed them so as to give them the dramatic form that characterizes his method of composition. " In the excerpt below from that work, the critic delineates the dramatic construction of Eugénie Grandet, providing commentary, as well, on settings, costumes, groupings, and dialogue.

Contrary to Professor Jenkins' statement, "If he [Balzac] had cast Eugénie Grandet in dramatic form, there would have been four acts with a...