In the following essay, Thiher claims that Balzac transformed the novel from philosophical allegory to a discussion about the nature of knowledge, and explores the author's attempt to offer a reality in his novel that would compete with the supposed total truths posited by scientific discourse.

In the following essay, Caruth maintains that in Le Colonel Chabert, a novel about a ghostly claim to property, Balzac illustrates how the law, functioning as historical memory, recognizes and yet fails to understand those traumatized by history.

In the following essay, Peterson investigates the scientific notion of proof in the artistic context of Balzac's Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu.

In the following essay, Farrant discusses Balzac's shorter works—stories, articles, and fragments—and their relationship to and development into his longer works, exploring in the course of the discussion the idea of brevity and the role of the fragmented in Balzac's fiction.

In the following essay, Moyal argues that in Les Chouans and Un épisode sous la terreur, two works set during the French Revolution, Balzac deliberately minimizes the changes that took place during the period and depicts the private spheres of characters as limited, full of compromise, and lacking in choice and freedom.

In the following essay, Haydock considers the influence of the novella Séraphita on Melville's novella Billy Budd, Sailor.

In the following essay, McCarthy explores the attention Balzac paid in his novels to the craft of writing as well as to the reader's creative activity of reading, using for her analysis reception theory and touching too on other literary theories that examine the relationship between author, text, reader, and meaning.

In the following essay, Bresnick investigates the role of genius in The Unknown Masterpiece and considers how it impacts Balzac's aesthetics in the novella.

In the following essay, Lowrie provides a stylistic analysis of “Facino Cane,” focusing on the structure of the frame story.

In the following essay, Heathcote explores the representation of the themes of creation, dissolution, and recreation of difference in Honorine in terms of space, time, sexuality, and language.

In the following essay, Mileham discusses the metaphor of movement through space in La Duchesse de Langeais, arguing that the spatial dynamics are represented in two modes: games and rituals.

In the following essay, Yates maintains that Balzac identifies with his character Dr. Horace Bianchon and examines the five texts in which he appears as narrator to expose the author's understanding of the social condition of women as well as his essential misogyny.

In the following essay, Pasco explores the use of allusion in the neglected novel Pierrette, focusing on references in the work to the eighteenth-century novel Paul et Virginie and to the case of Beatrice Cenci, the young girl who was abused by her father, whom she later killed.

In the following essay, Majewski analyzes the influence of Delacroix's paintings on Balzac's novella La fille aux yeux d'or.

In the following essay, Shuh argues that in his short story “Adieu,” Balzac comments on historical narrative and indeed competes with the genre in his fictional account, maintaining too that the madness in the novel represents historical trauma.

In the following essay, Hutton explores the concept of community in “Le Colonel Chabert” and “Adieu” and employs David Bleich's epistemology to gain insight into the two stories.

In the following essay, Weber examines the function of dreams in Balzac's “L'Auberge rouge” and “Sur Catherine de Médicis,” and Gérard de Nerval's Aurélia.

In the following essay, Toumayan establishes thematic and “intertextual connections” among Barbey d'Aurevilly's “La Vengeance d'une femme” and Balzac's La fille aux yeux d'or.

In the following essay, Mileham analyzes the complex, weblike structures of the motif of conspiracy as it is developed in Balzac's novels, discussing how the author uses the metaphor of fabric to articulate this theme.

In the following essay, Sharpley-Whiting explores the role of sexual and racial differences in the novella La fille aux yeux d'or.

In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in 1976, Frappier-Mazur argues that Balzac's use of metaphor elaborates on human identity and character and attempts to create an eternal human image in a specific historical moment.