Émile Zola was born on April 2, 1840, in Paris, France. He lost his father when he was about seven years old. Later, in 1962, he started to work at the Hachette publishing house, but was forced to leave his work at that publishing house, which he did not like his controversial texts.
The writer, who died on September 29, 1902, in Paris, was one of the main names in French naturalism. His works, therefore, present an objective, scientific, realistic and deterministic look at French society in the 19th century. So, Zola produced important naturalist works, such as germinal and the human beast.
Read too: Victor Hugo – French romantic who also addressed social issues
Biography of Émile Zola
Émile Zola was born on April 2, 1840 in Paris, France. However, the family soon moved to Aix-en-Provence, where the novelist lived his childhood. After the author's father died in 1847, the mother, due to financial difficulties, moved with the child to her parents' house.
Zola studied at the Bourbon College with the painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), his childhood friend. At the age of 13, he was already writing literary texts. Later, when the writer was 18, the family moved to Paris, where his mother worked as a maid.
After two years of studies in Paris, Émile Zola decided to study law, but in his first attempt at admission, he failed the oral exam. In the second, he failed the written test. Thus, the author dropped out of college, and while looking for a job, he was supported by his mother.
He got a job at the docks, a job he endured for just two months. From then on, he decided to live far from his family and went through great difficulties. However, in 1862, started working at Hachette publishing house. He also worked on the newspaper L’Événement. Later, due to his texts considered controversial, he was forced to quit both jobs.
The author married, in 1870, Éléonore-Alexandrine Meley (1839-1925), and began to devote himself to his career as a novelist, which reached its peak in the 1880s, when Zola joined naturalism. So to write your romancegerminal, the writer traveled to northern France and had contact with the miners and their workplace in 1884.
In 1898, Zola came to the defense of Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), unjustly convicted of treason. Thus, his letter to the president of the republic, published in the newspaper L’Aurore, with the title of J’accuse!!!, provoked the revolt of the authorities, who sued him for defamation and sentenced him to one year in prison.
In order not to serve the sentence, the novelist fled to london. However, in 1899, with the release of Dreyfus, Zola's exile came to an end and he returned to France. Three years later, in September 29, 1902, the writer died in Paris, suffocated due to a clogging in his fireplace. His wife was with him, who survived.
Read too:Alexandre Dumas – French romantic author whose works are world renowned
Characteristics of Émile Zola's work
Zola's main books are set in period style naturalism. Therefore, they present narratives written with objectivity, as opposed to romantic sentimentality. The plots are structured through a scientific look about nineteenth-century French society. Thus, the characters are part of the author's not only literary but also scientific experience.
O determinismis the main feature of naturalism. In this way, the characters are built based on the scientific theory, in vogue at the time, which argued that the The individual's destiny is determined by his race, the environment in which he is inserted and the historical context in which he lives. So, the racism of the naturalist narrator is, mistakenly, reasoned.
Furthermore, the characters are ruled by their animal instincts, mainly the sexual, and not for reason. Therefore, it is common to report sexual acts and violent attitudes in naturalistic works. This animalization of human beings is called zoomorphization. Furthermore, the focus on sexuality ends up showing the prejudices of the storyteller in relation to female sexuality and homosexuality.
Works by Émile Zola
![Cover of the book Germinal, by Émile Zola, published by Estação Liberdade publishing house.[1]](/f/a2e50684c0e2341e5afc3d35d147f858.jpg)
- Tales to Ninon (1864)
- Claude's confession (1865)
- my hate (1866)
- the mysteries of Marseille (1867)
- Therese Raquin (1867)
- Madeleine Férat (1868)
- the Rougon fortune (1870)
- the regalia (1871)
- the womb of paris (1873)
- New tales to Ninon (1874)
- The Conquest of Plassans (1874)
- the Rabourdin heirs (1874)
- The crime of Father Mouret (1875)
- the minister (1876)
- the tavern (1876)
- a love page (1878)
- the rosebud (1878)
- nana (1879)
- Madame Sourdis (1880)
- the experimental novel (1880)
- Captain Burle (1882)
- the dirty clothes (1882)
- the ladies' paradise (1883)
- the joy of living (1884)
- germinal (1885)
- The work (1886)
- The land (1887)
- The dream (1888)
- the human beast (1890)
- The money (1891)
- the downfall (1892)
- Dr. Pascal (1893)
- Lourdes (1894)
- Pomegranate (1896)
- Paris (1898)
- Fertility (1899)
- the truth on the march (1901)
germinal
The book germinal it is one of the main works of European naturalism. He talks about the reality of workers in coal mines in France of the nineteenth century. These characters are exploited, exercise their craft in subhuman conditions and live in great misery.
The work, therefore, presents sociopolitical criticism when showing the social inequality inherent in the capitalist system. Thus, the workers decide to go on strike, stimulated by the young Etienne Lantier, a fellow who works in the mine of Voreux, a means of dehumanization.
However, Etienne only gets the job when Fleurance, the handcar operator, dies. Before, however, the young man meets the character Boa-Morte, who has worked in that mine for 50 years. The old man has been coughing for weeks:
“He cleared his throat again and spat black.
"Is it blood?" Etienne dared to ask.
Good Death slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
'It's coal. I have so much charcoal in my body that it's enough to warm the rest of my days. And it's been five years since I set foot down there. I had all this stored up, it seems to me, without knowing it. Better, even conserve!"
When the strike starts, the futile and bourgeois Mrs. Hennebeau, wife of the director general of the mine, is concerned only with marrying her nephew Paul to Cécile. she prefers to ignore the degrading reality in which miners live:
"Mrs. Hennebeau, however, was amazed to hear of the misery of the miners of Montsou. So they weren't happy? People who had a house, coal and medical care, all at the company's expense! In her indifference to that flock, she only knew about them the lesson learned, with which she marveled visiting Parisians; and, having ended up believing what he recited, he was indignant with the ingratitude of those people."|1|
See too: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas – work that inaugurated Brazilian realism
Phrases by Émile Zola
Next, we are going to read some sentences by Émile Zola, taken from the texts my hate, Dr. Pascal, the truth on the march and the womb of paris:
- "I believe that the future of humanity lies in the progress of reason through science."
- "Truth and justice are sovereign, for they alone ensure the greatness of nations."
- "To hate is to love, is to feel a warm and generous soul, is to live largely on contempt for shameful and stupid things."
- "What rascals honest people are!"
- "Class selfishness is one of the strongest pillars of tyranny."
Note
|1| Translation by Francisco Bittencourt
Image credit
[1] Editor Estação Liberdade (reproduction)
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
