the Shagreen is a novel of Honore de Balzac published in 1831 by Gosselin and Canel in the Romans and tales philosophical , then with the Werdet editions in 1834 in the philosophical Études . An illustrated edition of 1837 at Delloye and Lecou appeals, before Furne, with 124 artists. The Furne edition of 1845 place the Shagreen at the head of the philosophical Studies .

The text knew various pre-publication in the newspapers of time in the form of extracts in the Review of the Two Worlds in May 1831, under the title a vice published one month later in the Reading room and the Robber and the Revue of Paris publishes in its tower a version of the text under the title the Suicide of a poet .

Topic

The young Raphaël aristocrat of Valentine, after having lost all his fortune to pay the debts of his father, is on the point of committing suicide. But before it returned to a antiquitaire, the old man then shows him “a shagreen” having the capacity of exaucer all the wishes of its owner: “If you have me, you will have all, but your life will belong to me” . The old man warns the young man: each exaucé desire will make decrease the size of this skin, symbol of its life: “The circle of your days, illustrated by this Skin, will be tightened according to the force and the number of your wishes, since lightest until most exorbitant”. The young man accepts this diabolic pact, without measuring the warning statements of the antique dealer well. Initially, Raphaël is not worried this warning and launches out in madnesses. It becomes immensely rich, carries out large train, is glory and successes society men. The Skin gets the enormous heritage of an uncle and the love of Pauline to him, her young neighbor. But very quickly the impassioned young man who planned to produce a philosopher's stone (the Theory of the will), becomes a being prematurely out-of-date, devoured by a disease that neither the most erudite doctors, nor the cures in towns of water can save. Becoming aware of the inexorable contracting of the skin, and time which is counted to him, it comes from there to live as recluse, hoping to avoid any occasion to formulate some wish that it is. Its survival becoming its only concern, it notes, that although equipped with an extraordinary capacity, it did anything of it, and it dies corroded bitterness, struck down by a last desire.

Analyzes

Behind the tale of fantasy, the traditional topic of the Pacte with the Devil is found: I offer to you happiness against your life or your heart. He reminds the reader that any thing has a price and that perpetual happiness does not exist. A choice is essential between living more intensely less longer and less intensely longer. It is besides the object of the discussion between Raphaël of Valentine and the antique dealer without age which offers the skin to him.

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