Community at the table: commensality in the novel Father Goriot by Balzac

Abstract

Our objective is to understand commensality as a social phenomenon through the novel Father Goriot by Balzac, which constitutes our research corpus. The story takes place in a pension in a poor neighborhood in Paris, called Maison Vauquer. In this setting, the dining table appears as a background for eating habits, as well as disagreements and disharmony in the group and in the community. From there, the question of what constitutes this community can be raised. In order to reflect upon it, we will use the notions of unavowable community and inoperative community by Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy. These communities are not possible in communion, but in estrangement. Therefore, we are able to consider the table of Vauquer’s pension as a place of both hostility and hospitality; with signs of the individual and the collective; and where conflicts and disorder prevail.