The theme of Balzac's Comédie humaine is primarily that of the struggle to amass money and achieve power.
This is seldom more evident than in Eugénie Grandet, one of the earliest and finest of the novels in his great work. The love of money and passionate pursuit of it are seen as a driving force in post-Revolutionary France, and are studied in detail in the character of Grandet.
In a house in provincial Saumur lives the miser Grandet with his wife and his daughter, Eugénie, who both suffer under the stifling shadow of his obsession with gold. But the arrival of her cousin, Charles, causes Eugénie's own desires to burn. The inevitable collision with her father, and the tragedy which follows, is described by Balzac with irony and characteristic psychological insight.