J'Accuse (Emile Zola in general)

Member Name: Helix

Product:	Emile Zola in general
Date:	22/07/01 (313 review reads)
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This french author is without doubt the champion of literary naturalism. Writing towards the end on the 19th century. Zola influenced by Balzac attempted to use interconnecting novels to portray french society between 1852 and 1870, the so called Second Empire. Zola’s epic cycle of books containing over 22 novels, coherently explores the relationships between two branches of the same family : the Rougon’s and the Macquarts. Zola created his family encompassing a broad range of social types: on the one hand a legitimate branch with an inherited social advantages of education and wealth , the other illegitimate social outcasts. Within the first branch , the legitimate Rougon’s, the author investigates the driving force behind the economic expansion under the Second Empire -the middle classes. While the Macquarts divulge the lower class characters. As with all family’s the genetic traits can be traced through the original parents and down through successive generations. There is recurrent theme inflicting individuals with tainted blood. alcoholism and inherited madness. Zola’s predilection for cynism means that the family history is one of decline and fall. The Rougon’s suffer genetic degradation whilst the Macquarts a victim to both social and genetic disasters. In perhaps one of his most recognised works Germinal, Zola address the problems faced by a mining community, charting the effects of environment on the miners. The physical effects are explored to some length with the Maheu family being typical of all mining families in villages of the time,

The naturalism movement was inspired by the adaptation of the principles and methods of natural science within are and literature. Extending the ideas of realism it was aiming at an unselective representation of reality, a slice of life without being morally judgmental. Realism and naturalism differ as naturalism assumes scientific determination leading to an em
phasis on man’s accidental, physiological nature rather than on his moral qualitites. Characters are viewed as helpless products of heredity and environment as such they had little will or responsibility. Zola saw himself as a detached experimenter who subjected his characters to a series of tests and treated the outcome as a scientist treats his data. Despite claiming complete objectivity the literary naturalists retained biases inherent within the deterministic theories. Although they faithfully reflected nature, it was a nature ‘ red in tooth and claw’.

If you are thinking of tackling a Zola novel, instead of reading Germinal, the staple of the ‘A’ level course and first year university syllabuses, try Therese Raquin. This is a post mortem of love. The basic gist if the book are Lovers who murder the husband, the novel then becomes a study of how the couple degenerate as they deal with the reality of their crime. The first few lines sets the tome for the book, dank and dark. When this book was first publishes critic’s called it a quagmire of pornography but don’t let this put you off

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