Old Goriot characters

Appears from the start

A young law student from a respectable but nearly penniless provincial family. Ambitious, observant, and conscious of his good looks and noble connections, he arrives in Paris determined to improve his position. Life at the Maison Vauquer and his first glimpses of fashionable society force him to choose how much of his conscience he will trade for success.

Also known as Father Goriot

Appears from the start

An elderly retired maker of vermicelli who lives at the Maison Vauquer. Once prosperous, he has moved steadily into cheaper rooms and surrendered every comfort while remaining passionately devoted to his two married daughters. Other lodgers mock his decline and misunderstand the women's secret visits to him.

Appears from the start

A powerful, genial-seeming lodger at the Maison Vauquer whose penetrating eye and cynical advice unsettle Rastignac. He understands both fashionable Paris and its criminal underside unusually well, and he treats conventional morality as a disguise for appetite and money.

Appears from the start

The widow who owns and runs the shabby Paris boarding house that bears her name. She measures her residents by what they can pay, watches their affairs closely, and combines self-pity with a practical appetite for gossip and profit.

Appears from the start

A gentle young resident of the boarding house whose wealthy father has rejected her while favoring his son. She lives with Madame Couture and hopes in vain for recognition from her family, making her vulnerable to anyone who sees her possible inheritance before seeing her.

Appears from the start

A respectable widow who acts as Victorine Taillefer's guardian and companion at the Maison Vauquer. Protective and devout, she repeatedly helps Victorine seek a reconciliation with the father who disowned her.

Appears from the start

An aging unmarried lodger at the Maison Vauquer, sharp-featured, secretive, and alert to an opportunity for money. She forms an incongruous pair with the passive Monsieur Poiret, whose opinions generally follow her own.

Appears from the start

A retired minor clerk and resident of the Maison Vauquer. Colorless, deferential, and easily led, he attaches himself to Mademoiselle Michonneau and follows her judgments with little sign of an independent will.

Appears from the start

A medical student and friend of Rastignac who also takes meals at the Maison Vauquer. Intelligent, hardworking, and more grounded than many around him, he provides practical companionship amid the boarding house's intrigues.

Also known as Countess de Restaud

First appears in chapter 2

Goriot's elder daughter, now married into the aristocratic Restaud family. Beautiful and socially established, she carefully separates her fashionable life from her father's humble circumstances and is entangled with the dashing Maxime de Trailles.

Also known as Baroness de Nucingen

First appears in chapter 2

Goriot's younger daughter and the wife of a wealthy banker. Excluded from the highest aristocratic circles despite her money, she longs for social acceptance and becomes the focus of Rastignac's effort to enter fashionable Paris.

Also known as Vicomtesse de Beauseant

First appears in chapter 2

Rastignac's elegant and highly placed cousin, one of the leaders of aristocratic Paris. His appeal to their family connection gains him entry to her drawing room, where she explains the rivalries and cruelties governing the society he hopes to conquer.

First appears in chapter 2

Anastasie's fashionable lover, charming in appearance and ruinously dependent on other people's money. His debts place constant pressure on her and reveal the predatory economics beneath polished society.

Also known as Baron de Nucingen

First appears in chapter 3

Delphine's wealthy banker husband. He controls the money attached to their marriage and approaches both finance and domestic life as matters of leverage, leaving Delphine rich in appearance but constrained in practice.