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The Art of the Flashlight: Violent Technique in Les Rougon-Macquart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Jared Wenger
Jared Wenger*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The average man pictures Zola as a writer of brutal novels, the patron-saint of all novelists labelled by present-day critics as naturalistic, vigorous, earthy, bestial, or disgusting. This much is obvious: any reader who scans the Rougon-Macquart cycle for violent effects finds a profusion of them in every one of the twenty novels. Certain readers, however, feel that Zola's violence, no matter how obvious, is not entirely banal and is worthy, even, of careful study. Let us begin, therefore, by jotting down, in correct order and without regard for squeamish tastes, the really brutal moments of the series. A list of them resembles strikingly, at first glance, the programs of old melodrama. Perhaps, like such programs, our list also should be printed in various sensational sizes of type; for, as we shall see later on, Zola's work has distinct affinities with the melodrama. At any rate, here, in tabloid fashion, are the incidents we propose to study.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1942 , pp. 1137 - 1159
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Note 1 in page 1137 Les Rougon-Macquart, 20 titles, 20 vols, of Œuvres complètes: Émile Zola (notes et commentaires de Maurice Le Blond; texte de l'édition Eugène Fasquelle), 46 vols. (Paris: Bernouard, 1927–28).

Note 2 in page 1138 Dickens uses this same incident in his Bleak House, and, on the score of its truthfulness, got himself into much argument with the critics: see his Preface to the novel. Zola may have found his “little blue flame” in the episode of Natasya Petrovna's blacksmith in Gogol's Dead Souls; but Gogol's intention is ironical, while Zola is extremely serious.

Note 3 in page 1139 La Fortune des Rougon, pp. 47 ff., 52 ff., 90, 134, 148; also pp. 86, 109.

Note 4 in page 1139 Ferdinand Brunetière, Honoré de Balzac (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, [1905]), pp. 110–111.

Note 5 in page 1140 Balzac parallels: Terre, pp. 95, 192–193, 324, 549; Assommoir, pp. 54, 132, 438; Rêve, pp. 10, 71, 93, 142, 158; also Bonheur des Dames, pp. 18, 236; Pot-Bouille, pp. 23, 140, 216; Conquête de Plassans, pp. 256, 264; Curée, pp. 90, 171. There are also overtones of the artist Manet in the iridiscent puddles of L'Assommoir.

Note 6 in page 1140 Cf. the present writer's “Speed as a Technique in the Novels of Balzac,” PMLA, March, 1940.

Note 7 in page 1141 Elizabethan construction: Terre, p. 313; Bête humaine, p. 277; ch. x; Assommoir, pp. 451, etc.

Note 8 in page 1141 Terre, Part iv, ch. vi; cf. also the hasty conclusion of the lengthy marriage scene in the same novel.

Note 9 in page 1141 Ironic construction: Assommoir, p. 293.

Note 10 in page 1141 Serial construction: Assommoir, pp. 199–200; ch. vi.

Note 11 in page 1142 Melodrama: Bêle humaine, pp. 24–25; Assommoir, pp. 430 ff.

Note 12 in page 1142 The same coincidence was used by Édouard Brisebarre and Eugène Nus in the melodrama, Les Pauvres de Paris, adapted by Dion Boucicault as The Streets of New York (mother and son, begging in the street, meet one another).

Note 13 in page 1143 Farce: Pot-Bouille, ch. ii; p. 360 (cf. Labiche); and passim; Page d'amour, pp. 262, 266. Compare also the bourgeois wedding-scenes in Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie and L'Assommoir.

Note 14 in page 1143 Burlesque style: Assommoir, p. 137; Terre, pp. 225, 393, 452–453; Fortune des Rougon, pp. 110, 258; Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, pp. 145, 261, 350; Curée, pp. 119, 221, 258, 267–268; Pot-Bouille, pp. 129, 180, 309, 320, 398; Faute de l'abbé Mouret, p. 360; Œuvre, pp. 36, 361; Nana, chs. v, viii; Page d'amour, pp. 262, 266.

Note 15 in page 1144 J. G. Patterson, A Zola Dictionary (London: Routledge, 1912).

Note 16 in page 1145 Ordinary man: throughout La Terre, Germinal, La Débâcle; physical warmth, Débâcle, p. 51.

Note 17 in page 1145 Stylistics: Terre, pp. 251, 271, 399; Bête humaine, p. 34; Assommoir, pp. 6, 49–50, 431; Son Excellence Eugène, pp. 53, 65, 131, 193, 372; Curée, p. 45; Argent, p. 19; Pot-Bouille, p. 394; Bonheur des dames, p. 142; Ventre de Paris, p. 23; Œuvre, pp. 20, 272.

Note 18 in page 1146 Paul Reboux, Charles Muller, A la manière de, 2 vols. (Paris: Grasset, 1914), i, 168–174.

Note 19 in page 1146 Nudity: Curée, p. 262; Faule de l'abbé Mouret, pp. 267, 330; Docteur Pascal, p. 102; Nana, ch. xii; S. L. Whitcomb, The Study of the Novel (Boston: Heath, 1905), p. 114.

Note 20 in page 1146 Argent, p. 374; Docteur Pascal, p. 132.

Note 21 in page 1146 Vulgarity: Assommoir, pp. 239, 382, etc., etc.

Note 22 in page 1147 Cf., also, his summary trial and execution to Milady's in The Three Musketeers.

Note 23 in page 1147 Giants: Débâcle, pp. 14, 496, 500; Assommoir, p. 174; Ventre de Paris, pp. 74, 123, 212; Bonheur des Dames, p. 150.

Note 24 in page 1147 Imbecile and degenerate: Argent, p. 161; Pot-Bouille, pp. 44, 253, 352, 416; Faute de l'abbé Mouret, pp. 35, 279; Docteur Pascal, pp. 60, 68, 215; Assommoir, p. 237; Terre, p. 423; Germinal, pp. 431 ff.

Note 25 in page 1148 Adolescent: Assommoir, p. 159; Ventre de Paris, p. 73; Bonheur des dames, pp. 7–8; Faute de l'abbé Mouret, p. 166; Docteur Pascal, p. 29; Fortune des Rougon, p. 20; Curée, pp. 43, 104.

Note 26 in page 1148 Cf. Faute de l'abbé Mouret, pp. 267, 330.

Note 27 in page 1148 Comparison to animals: Rêve, p. 14; Curée, p. 186; Faute de l'abbé Mouret, p. 35; Germinal, passim; Conquête de Plassans, pp. 264, 347.

Note 28 in page 1149 Animals: Bête humaine, pp. 294, 302; Terre, pp. 52, 103, 316, 337; Débâcle, pp. 88, 387, 399, 422, 424, 425; Rêve, p. 30; Docteur Pascal, pp. 239, 283; Page d'amour, p. 44; Joie de vivre, pp. 48, 124, 161, 187, 230–233; Eugène Rougon, pp. 62, 122, 195; Faute de l'abbé Mouret, pp. 34, 79–81, 267, 279, 399; Ventre de Paris, pp. 206, 294; Nana, chs. v, x; Argent, p. 385; Germinal, Part iv, ch. vii; Part vi, ch. v; Part vii, ch. v.—Note, incidentally, that a tortoise is a leading character throughout one whole chapter of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Cf. also Frank Norris's sheepherder in The Octopus who can hypnotize a whole flock of sheep. Also compare the heartrending description. in La Débâcle: “Il fallut près de cinq minutes au cheval pour mourir”—its reproachful eyes on the men to the last moment—with the leopardess in Balzac's Passion dans le désert.

Note 29 in page 1150 Incidental brutality: Bêle humaine, pp. 46, 139; Débâcle, p. 81; Terre, pp. 392, 464, 467, 481; Assommoir, pp. 109, 139, 233, 273; Docteur Pascal, p. 283; Joie de vivre, pp. 81, 182, 269; Ventre de Paris, pp. 15, 99; Bonheur des dames, pp. 181, 348; Conquête de Plassans, pp. 212, 217; Rêve, p. 179; Curée, p. 130; Fortune des Rougon, pp. 148, 333; Son Excellence Eugène, p. 99.—We must note again a resemblance to Eugène Labiche and his sadistic farcical subjects: for example, L'Affaire de la rue de Laurcine.

Note 30 in page 1151 A scene which has its parallel in the stealthy meeting of Balzac's Chouans.

Note 31 in page 1152 “Romantic vantage point”: Bête humaine, p. 161; Nana, ch. v; Ventre de Paris, p. 183; ch. iv; Page d'amour, pp. 130, 321, 346; Bonheur des dames, p. 318; Conquête de Plassans, p. 109; Rêve, ch. iv; Argent, p. 356; Eugène Rougon, p. 281; Fortune des Rougon, p. 341.

Note 32 in page 1152 Note how the rhythm of carriages is a favorite device with novelists of this period—in Flaubert's Éducation sentimentale, in Daudet's Le Nabab and in Maupassant's story, A cheval.—Also the funeral processions in Balzac's Père Goriot, Ferragus, in L'Éducation sentimentale and Le Nabab (where the bust of Balzac presides over the description); and, finally, in the related art of painting, Gustave Courbet's celebrated “Funeral at Ornans.”

Note 33 in page 1152 Cf. the irony of the finale—Rougons at supper while their nephew is being shot—with Frank Norris's imitation in the supper-table scene of The Octopus.

Note 34 in page 1153 Cf. a similar scene in Balzac's Médecin de campagne.

Note 35 in page 1153 The dramatis personae: Docteur Pascal, pp. 72, 116–117 (survey of living members of the Family); Nana, chs. iii, iv, v; Œuvre, ch. xi; Ventre de Paris, pp. 123, 310; Page d'amour, pp. 331, 334; Pot-Bouille, pp. 102, 421 (singing of the Huguenots chorus); Rêve, pp. 30, 180; Curée, p. 304; Eugène Rougon, p. 56; etc., etc.

Note 36 in page 1153 The epic refrain: Débâcle, pp. 343, 397, 355, 356, 396. Cf. the dramatis personae of the stalled train and of the railroad wreck, Bête humaine, pp. 206, 299.

Note 37 in page 1154 Contrary to Balzac and Dumas, with whom the violent technique tends to decrease with the years.

Note 38 in page 1154 Moving-picture technique: Bêle humaine, p. 60; Assommoir, pp. 233, 355; Germinal, Part vi, ch. iii; Assommoir, p. 199. Mark Twain used a similar suspension in his description of the opening of the battle of Orleans in Joan of Arc (girl at window with wateringcan); Barbey d'Aurevilly also in Le Chevalier Des Touches (rescue scene, old woman at window).

Note 39 in page 1154 Note how Zola uses the rhythm of the laundry-sticks to give unity to the episode—another case of “pattern” in the novel.

Note 40 in page 1155 Fights: Assommoir, pp. 19, 29; Terre, pp. 285, 308, 316, 332; Nana, ch. vi; Ventre de Paris, p. 135.

Note 41 in page 1155 Domestic sadism: Pot-Bouille, pp. 269, etc.; Nana, chs. vii, viiii, xii; Argent, pp. 341, 375–376.

Note 42 in page 1155 Cf. Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony (London: Oxford, 1922), pp. 413 ff.; G. Polti, Les Trente-Six Situations dramatiques (Paris: Mercure de France, 1895), p. 132; also a similar theme in Thomas Burke's “The Chink and the Child” (in Limehouse Nights, New York: McBride, 1917) and the more famous motion picture founded thereon, Broken Blossoms; also James Joyce's Counterparts (1914).

Note 43 in page 1155 Embarrassment: Bonheur des dames, pp. 123, 242; Ventre de Paris, p. 130; Assommoir, p. 211.

Note 44 in page 1156 Bête humaine, p. 335. Zola likes to give his villains and abnormal characters yellowish eyes: the gold-specked eyes of Buteau (Terre, p. 443) and the greenish eyes of little Jeanlin (Germinal, p. 432).

Note 45 in page 1156 Conquête de Plassans, p. 347.—Cf. the epic ending of Germinal (p. 532), where La Maheude resembles Niobe surrounded by her dead. Or the scene of Vulcan at the forge, referred to above.

Note 46 in page 1156 Georges Polti, Les Trente-Six Situations dramatiques (Paris: Mercure de France, 1895). Cf. Carl E. W. L. Dahlström, “The Analysis of Literary Situation,” PULA, li (Sept. 1936), 872–889 (based on Polti's classification).

Note 47 in page 1156 Polti's dramatic formulas always take the equation of a struggle between forces.

Note 48 in page 1157 Cf. the antithesis between Posture and Gesture in the present writer's “Violence in the Dramas and Dramatizations of Dumas père,” Romanic Review, October, 1940.

Note 49 in page 1157 Light: Bête humaine, p. 92; Curée, p. 41; Ventre de Paris, p. 13; Œuvre, throughout.

Note 50 in page 1157 Perhaps the classic instance of this “arrested motion” is seen in the famous passage from Germinie Lacerteux which describes “l'entrée aux champs.”