The Wild Ass's Skin (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Raphael: Add a description of this character.
• Pauline
• Emile
• Valentin
• Jonathan
• Marquis
• Rastignac
• Brisset
• Gaudin
• Maugredie
• Byron
• Taillefer
• M. Porriquet

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Paris
• France
• Providence
• Magic Skin
• Opera

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Autobiography: Balzac mined his own life for details in the first parts of La Peau de Chagrin, and he likely modeled the protagonist Raphaël de Valentin on himself. Details recounted by Valentin of his impoverished living quarters are autobiographical allusions to Balzac's earliest days as an author: "Nothing could be uglier than this garret, awaiting its scholar, with its dingy yellow walls and odor of poverty. The roofing fell in a steep slope, and the sky was visible through chinks in the tiles. There was room for a bed, a table, and a few chairs, and beneath the highest point of the roof my piano could stand." Although they allow for a degree of embellishment, biographers and critics agree that Balzac was drawing from his own experience.Other parts of the story also derive from the author's life: Balzac once attended a feast held by the Marquis de Las Marismas, who planned to launch a newspaper – the same situation in which Valentin finds himself after expressing his first wish to the talisman. Later, Valentin visits the opera armed with a powerful set of glasses that allow him to observe every flaw in the women on stage (to guard against desire). These may also have been drawn from Balzac's experience, as he once wrote in a letter about a set of "divine" opera glasses he ordered from the Paris Observatory.Similarities exist between Olympe Pélissier and the novel's "Woman without a Heart", but critics and biographers agree that the character is a composite of women from Balzac's life.More significant is the connection between the women in the novel and the women in Balzac's life. Some critics have noted important similarities between Valentin's efforts to win the heart of Foedora and Balzac's infatuation with Olympe Pélissier. A scene in which Valentin hides in Foedora's bedroom to watch her undress is said to come from a similar situation wherein Balzac secretly observed Pélissier. It's probable that Pélissier was not the model for Foedora, however, since she accepted Balzac's advances and wrote him friendly letters; Foedora, by contrast, declares herself outside the reach of any interested lover. Critics agree that the "Woman without a Heart" described in the novel is a composite of other women Balzac knew. The character of Pauline, meanwhile, was likely influenced by another of Balzac's mistresses, Laure de Berny.
• Vouloir, Pouvoir, and Savoir: At the start of the book, the shopkeeper discusses with Valentin "the great secret of human life". They consist of three words, which Balzac renders in capital letters: VOULOIR ("to will"), POUVOIR ("to be able"), and SAVOIR ("to know"). Will, he explains, consumes us; power (or, in one translation, "to have your will") destroys us; and knowledge soothes us. These three concepts form the philosophical foundation of the novel.The talisman connects these precepts to the theory of vitalism; it physically represents the life force of its owner, and is reduced with each exercise of the will. The shopkeeper tries to warn Valentin that the wisest path lies not in exercising his will or securing power, but in developing the mind. "What is folly", he asks Valentin, "if not an excess of will and power?" Overcome with the possibilities offered by the skin, however, the young man throws caution to the wind and embraces his desire. Upon grabbing the talisman, he declares: "I want to live with excess". Only when his life force is nearly depleted does he recognize his mistake: "It suddenly struck him that the possession of power, no matter how enormous, did not bring with it the knowledge of how to use it ... <he> had had everything in his power, and he had done nothing."The will, Balzac cautions, is a destructive force that seeks only to acquire power unless tempered by knowledge. The shopkeeper presents a foil for Valentin's future self, offering study and mental development as an alternative to consuming desire. Foedora also serves as a model for resistance to the corruption of will, insofar as she seeks at all times to excite desire in others while never giving in to her own. That Valentin is happiest living in the material squalor of his tiny garret – lost in study and writing, with the good-hearted Pauline giving herself to him – underscores the irony of his misery at the end of the book, when he is surrounded with the fruits of his material desire.
• Society: Raphael's painting The Transfiguration comforts the novel's protagonist; the face of Jesus Christ is able to "cease the burning torment that consumed the marrow of his bones".The novel extrapolates Balzac's analysis of desire from the individual to society; he feared that the world, like Valentin, was losing its way due to material excess and misguided priorities. In the gambling house, the orgiastic feast, the antique shop, and the discussions with men of science, Balzac examines this dilemma in various contexts. The lust for social status to which Valentin is led by Rastignac is emblematic of this excess; the gorgeous but unattainable Foedora symbolizes the pleasures offered by high society.Science offers no panacea. In one scene, a group of doctors offer a range of quickly formulated opinions as to the cause of Valentin's feebleness. In another, a physicist and a chemist admit defeat after employing a range of tactics designed to stretch the skin. All of these scientific approaches lack an understanding of the true crisis, and are therefore doomed to fail. Although it is only shown in glimpses – the image of Christ, for example, painted by Valentin's namesake, the Renaissance artist Raphael – Balzac wished to remind readers that Christianity offered the potential to temper deadly excess. After failing in their efforts to stretch the skin, the chemist declares: "I believe in the devil"; "And I in God", replies the physicist.The corruption of excess is related to social disorganization in a description at the start of the final section. Physically feeble though living in absolute luxury, Raphaël de Valentin is described as retaining in his eyes "an extraordinary intelligence" with which he is able to see "everything at once":That expression was painful to see ... It was the inscrutable glance of helplessness that must perforce consign its desires to the depths of its own heart; or of a miser enjoying in imagination all the pleasures that his money could procure for him, while he declines to lessen his hoard; the look of a bound Prometheus, of the fallen Napoleon of 1815, when he learned at the Elysee the strategical blunder that his enemies had made, and asked for twenty-four hours of command in vain ...

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by The Country Doctor, and followed by Ursula.

Followed by The Alkahest.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Honoré de Balzac (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 843.7

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( B ) › Balzac, Honore de
• Books › Literature & Fiction › History & Criticism › Criticism & Theory
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Classics
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary