ABSTRACT
The power struggle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie during the Restoration period in France was a form of class warfare carried over from 1789. Honore de Balzac's development of the popular novel in France and the historical novel more specifically depended on continued attention to the demands of readers. Following the 1830 Revolution, the fundamental nature and consequences of modernity took center stage, as signified by Balzac's timely shift from the Waverleyesque representation of national conflict in Les chouans to the investigation of modernization in Le pere Goriot. Le pere Goriot is a novel of "progress" with national implications, though less so because of the symptomatic bridging of class divides and more so because it portrays the consequences of modernity at the heart of daily life for all people. In Paris, where all are "spiders in a pot", harnessing juggernaut is not only a matter of work or pleasure, but also of life and death.
