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31.More information
From the first works of romantic inspiration, to his last great utopian novels, Zola's work is replete with multiple variations linked to the transformation of the cultural and social realms and the evolution of the author on an ideological and political level. Nevertheless, behind these very real modifications, one finds a portrait of a world that remains unchanged and places his work in a stasis. A striking illustration is the particular concept of “woman” that, notably acquired from Michelet, fills his novel from beginning to end. We examine here how this character manifests, from La confession de Claude to Travail, through Germinal, a profoundly conservative vision of the word that is the background to more progressive aspects visible on the surface of his work.
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37.More information
My objective is to offer an approach to the relationship between women and power that takes into account the kinesic appropriation of social space by the female body. In historiography, mobility has never been a feminine attribute. Culturally conditioned to be passive, woman as portrayed in nineteenth-century fiction is like a fragile ornament who must stand in wait of he who travels, undertakes, acts—her father, husband or lover. In the society where spaciality is in the service of power, because “women are at the window and men are at the door” (Zola, Germinal), the woman who comes out, by deciding to leave or by adventuring alone into the urban space, is an individual who, consciously or not, moves toward confrontation with the social order. A woman's free expression of her wishes in the geographic and social space is in no way a passing distraction: such seemingly capricious boldness involves an act that engages her whole existence. For such an act is not only one of revolt, it is also one of transgression that resembles a rite of passage. After a woman dares to cross, symbolically, the threshold of her dwelling, things will no longer be the same; moreover, every notable change in her existence begins with an act: that of leaving, which is itself prolonged by wanderings.
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38.More information
“Je tiens le discrédit actuel de Zola pour une monstrueuse injustice qui ne fait pas grand honneur aux critiques littéraires d’aujourd’hui.” 1 L’oeuvre de Zola est si “actuelle” et les remous qu’elle a provoqués encore si récents, et parfois si profonds, dans l’opinion publique française; l’auteur de Mes Haines a fait surgir tant de protestations passionnées, que l’appareil critique n’encombre pas encore l’étudiant qui s’attaque à un romancier de cette envergure. Il semble, en vérité, que c’est par l’oubli que la génération de 1900 se soit vengée de Zola et aucune réputation littéraire - sauf peut-être celle d’Anatole France vingt ans plus tard - n’a souffert une “déflation” plus rapide. Plus injuste aussi, comme Gide le constate dans son Journal. Car Zola est plus que …