SOURCE: Yates, Susan. “Women in the Discourse of Balzac's Horace Bianchon.” Australian Journal of French Studies 36, no. 2 (May-August 1999): 173-87.

In the following essay, Yates maintains that Balzac identifies with his character Dr. Horace Bianchon and examines the five texts in which he appears as narrator to expose the author's understanding of the social condition of women as well as his essential misogyny.

One of the major vehicles used by Balzac to express his beliefs about women in the Comédie humaine is Dr Horace Bianchon.¹ As a doctor, Bianchon is presented as a shrewd and dispassionate observer of human nature par excellence² and moreover, by virtue of his special access to the private lives of his patients, as an expert on women. Seen in his role as physician, he is most often sympathetic and courteous in his attitude to women, covering up their secrets and defending their interests...