Father Goriot, published in 1835, is a novel by Honore de Balzac set in a Parisian boarding house during the Bourbon Restoration, where the lives of Goriot, a father devoted to his two daughters, Vautrin, an escaped convict living under a false identity, and Rastignac, an ambitious law student from the provinces, intertwine. As Rastignac enters high society, he discovers a world governed by wealth and status, while Goriot exhausts his fortune for his daughters and is abandoned by them. Through the father’s tragedy and the young man’s ambition, the novel explores how greed and social climbing erode family affection and moral integrity.