ABSTRACT
Balzac's strategy to contain illustration in La comédie humaine, from the format of the work to its preface, appears in narrative form via his recurring character, the caricaturist/illustrator, Bixiou. In La comédie humaine, Bixiou fails, not because he is a caricaturist or illustrator per se, but because he is part of a commercial visual system that disrupts the writer's hegemonic claim on the portrayal of nineteenth-century France. It limits Bixiou's intelligence just as his status as caricaturist/illustrator limits his potential role as artist. Vautrin's role in La comédie humaine as a sort of authorial alter-ego who knows the city and Parisian society and how to manipulate each is momentarily supplanted by Bixiou, the observant caricaturist/illustrator whose eyes surpass those of the head of the Parisian underworld. Balzac's dismissal of caricature, along with illustration, as eye candy suggests a defensive move in which the writer attempts to discredit his competition.
