'Sleeping Beauty' as Ironic Model for Eugénie Grandet

Fairy-tale, being myth, is by nature a historical. This means that it is not situated in material reality as is Balzac's novel, the action of which is rooted in a specific spatio-temporal point. Thus, the irony of a narrative superstructure with a clearly historical character being based on an infrastructure derived from an a historical model. The fact that the model shows Love conquering Death in timeless but fertile non-materiality adds ironic strength to the novel's observation of Money working in tandem with Death to crush Love and ensure the sterilizing victory of Time. (JEG)