Le Pere Goriot characters

Also known as Eugène

Appears from the start

An ambitious but inexperienced law student from an impoverished provincial noble family. Living cheaply at the Maison Vauquer, he hopes to enter fashionable Parisian society through distant family connections and must decide what compromises he will make to advance.

Also known as Father Goriot

Appears from the start

An elderly former vermicelli manufacturer who has fallen from the Maison Vauquer's best rooms to one of its poorest. Other boarders mock his shabby appearance and unexplained visitors, while his intense concern for his two married daughters governs his remaining life.

Appears from the start

A commanding, broad-shouldered boarder at the Maison Vauquer who presents himself as a retired tradesman. Genial, cynical, and unusually well informed about other people's secrets, he takes an interest in Rastignac and offers blunt lessons about how Parisian society rewards money and ruthlessness.

Appears from the start

The widow who owns and runs the shabby Paris boarding house bearing her name. She measures residents by what they pay, watches their affairs with avid curiosity, and maintains a surface of domestic respectability over an establishment shaped by scarcity and gossip.

Appears from the start

A disinherited young woman living at the Maison Vauquer under Madame Couture's protection. Her wealthy father refuses to recognize her in favor of her brother, leaving her pious, vulnerable, and dependent while she continues to hope for paternal acceptance.

Appears from the start

Victorine's older guardian and companion at the boarding house. A respectable widow and distant relation, she gives the rejected young woman maternal care and supports her efforts to reconcile with her father.

Appears from the start

A medical student and fellow boarder who becomes Rastignac's friend. Practical, observant, and less dazzled by high society, he supplies medical judgment as the crises inside the boarding house intensify.

Appears from the start

An older unmarried resident of the Maison Vauquer, outwardly austere and pious. She closely observes the other boarders and forms a conspicuous pair with the passive Monsieur Poiret.

Appears from the start

A faded former government clerk living at the Maison Vauquer. Indecisive and deferential, he usually follows Mademoiselle Michonneau's lead and attracts little notice on his own.

Also known as Madame de Restaud

Appears from the start

Goriot's elder daughter, married into the aristocratic de Restaud family. Beautiful and intent on maintaining her place in society, she keeps her father's visits separate from the polished household and social world in which she moves.

Also known as Madame de Nucingen

Appears from the start

Goriot's younger daughter, married to the wealthy banker Baron de Nucingen. Excluded from some aristocratic circles she longs to enter, she sees Rastignac's name and connections as potentially useful while he sees her as a route into Parisian society.

Appears from the start

Rastignac's elegant, socially powerful cousin, whose salon offers him an entrance into aristocratic Paris. She understands the cruelty beneath fashionable manners and advises him that success requires calculation as well as charm.

First appears in chapter 2

An Alsatian banker and Delphine's husband. Extremely wealthy and financially controlling, he treats marriage and property as connected instruments, leaving Delphine's apparent luxury dependent on arrangements she does not command.

First appears in chapter 2

Anastasie's fashionable lover, a gambler and social opportunist whose debts place increasing demands on her. His hold over her contributes to the financial pressures that she passes on to Goriot.

First appears in chapter 3

A police agent who approaches Michonneau and Poiret with information about Vautrin and a proposal for identifying him. His intervention brings the hidden world of crime and surveillance directly into the boarding house.