Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die beiden Brüder
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love big social novels, family quarrels over money, and sharp portraits of a whole society, with painters, soldiers and rival claims to a family fortune.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
The Two Brothers is a novel by Honoré de Balzac, set in Paris and in the provincial town of Issoudun in the years after Napoleon's fall. It is also known in English as The Black Sheep, and in French as La Rabouilleuse. Balzac placed it in his huge series The Human Comedy, among the scenes of provincial life. It follows a widow, her two grown sons, and a family fortune that sits in the hands of a weak man in the countryside.
You get a story of money and blood ties, told with Balzac's eye for rooms, clothes, debts and habits. You meet a gentle painter, a swaggering soldier, a hard-faced housekeeper, and a gang of bored young men who torment a town for sport. Along the way the book asks who deserves a family's love, and who simply takes it. Let us begin with the widow and her two sons in a poor Paris household.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A widow's two sons, two roadsFree
- 2A rich inheritance in Issoudun
- 3The Knights of Idleness make mischief
- 4Philippe falls, Joseph rises
- 5What the novel says about money and love
- 6How Balzac builds his world
Punkt 1 von 6
A widow's two sons, two roads
The story opens with Agathe Bridau, a widow living in Paris on very little. Her husband was a government clerk, and his death left her short of money and short of help. She has two sons, Philippe and Joseph, and the book begins by showing how differently she treats them.
Philippe, the elder, is a soldier who served under Napoleon. He is handsome, loud and sure of himself, and his mother adores him. She sees in him the glory of the old Empire and forgives him almost anything. Joseph, the younger, is quiet, thin and odd looking. He wants to be a painter, and his mother thinks he is wasting his life.
Balzac makes this favoritism the root of the whole book. Agathe gives her love to the son who flatters her, and she gives her money to him as well. The son who works and asks for nothing is treated as a burden. Readers soon feel the unfairness, and they sense it will cost the family dearly.
The household is small and cramped, and Balzac shows how little room there is for mistakes. Every coin counts. Joseph studies his art in poor lodgings, and his mother cannot see his talent. Philippe, meanwhile, drifts away with his debts and his pride. From the first chapters you can see that both brothers will be tested by money, and that their mother's blindness will make the tests harder.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about Die beiden Brüder
What is The Two Brothers by Balzac about?
It is about a Paris widow and her two sons, a loyal painter and a reckless soldier, and the struggle over a family fortune held by a weak relative in the town of Issoudun.
Is The Two Brothers the same as La Rabouilleuse or The Black Sheep?
Yes. Balzac wrote it in French as La Rabouilleuse. English translators have used different titles, including The Black Sheep and The Two Brothers, for the same novel.
What does rabouilleuse mean?
It is a local word for a girl who stirs the water of streams to drive crayfish into her net. It becomes the nickname of Flore Brazier, who began life as a poor country girl.
Is The Two Brothers part of The Human Comedy?
Yes. Balzac placed it among the scenes of provincial life in his series The Human Comedy. You can read it alone, though some characters also appear in his other novels.
Is The Two Brothers hard to read?
The characters and the family conflict are easy to follow and keep you reading.