Money is the hallmark of the new age of capitalism, while fatherly love is an outdated patriarchal residue, both of which make up the contradictory character of Gao Lao.
In society, Mr. Gao is a wealthy man who follows the times and chases after money. However, within the family, he is a laggard of the times. He still retains a piece of love for his late wife and daughter, which reaches a pathological and crazy point, and he puts the love of blood relatives on a higher position than money, so the money is exhausted, and this "fatherly Christ is like a wild dog, and died tragically in the apartment.
For the sake of his daughters, he hired the best teachers to read, practicing arts, horseback riding and other elegant family education; until they grew up, and gave them each 800,000 francs dowry, married to a decent person in society. He will be his eldest daughter Anas Dazi betrothed to the count of Resto, as a noblewoman; will be his youngest daughter, but Pena married to the banker Nuqin Gen, as a capitalist wife, thus stepping into the threshold of the noble family; he in order not to lose the decency of his daughters, but also stopped the flour business to move into the people called the "private almshouse" of the Vogel apartment; Even for the sake of his daughters, he could scrimp and sell his possessions for the sake of his daughters' free spending.
In the old man's view, his daughters can be in the upper class to establish a firm footing, respected, their own face will also have a light, and will be again by the upper class and the eye of the eye. The old man loved his daughters, but his daughters didn't understand his wishes, and in the end they abandoned him, leaving him to die alone in the attic of the Vogel's apartment.