"The Old Man" is the work that best embodies Balzac's artistic style. The ambitious figures who appear in sequence in the novel, such as Lastigne, Viscount Bosion, Voltaire, and the protagonist Gao Laotou, together form the overall structure of the novel, making the content more bizarre and touching. "The Old Man" can be said to be the prelude to Balzac's "Human Comedy".