Rent Cousin Bette

Synopsis

Balzac’s heroine is a rejected spinster who brings down an aristocratic family. One of the last novels in his massive literary project, LA COMEDIE HUMAINE, COUSIN BETTE provides a grim view of human depravity and greed. On the novel’s vast canvas, every class of society is portrayed, connected by the petty passions, loves, and hates that they all have in common. COUSIN BETTE brilliantly embodies Balzac’s naturalist belief that human personality, and hence human destiny, is shaped by environment and uringing. The novel is also fascinating in its depiction of the varied behavior patterns open to women in early 19th-century French society, from the use of beauty and deceit to advance in a man’s world, to the ruthlessness of Cousin Bette, who is not beautiful and who must get by only on her wits.

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