Why is therese raquin naturalism

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. This novel is all of these things. More specifically, it falls under the category of Naturalism , which is a subgenre of Realism.

Allow us to explain. Realist literature focuses on the everyday lives of ordinary people—usually people of the lower and middle classes. Now, the distinction between Realism and Naturalism can be a bit blurry.

Generally speaking, these genres have three things in common:. Phew, that was a mouthful. This theory says that people lack free will; we're all just victims of circumstances and biology that are out of our control.

Sometimes, the challenge is to see who discovers the culprit first: the reader or the detective. But Zola also plays with the crime genre by making his only eligible detectives - police commissioner Michaud and his friends - ridiculous and useless. Old Michaud has a trove of murder stories, but he is conspicuously bad at recognizing the murder right under his nose.

A typical member of the bourgeoisie would be a minor to mid-level official Grivet , Michaud or a small merchant Mme Raquin. Such individuals were not surrounded by massive material wealth, though they would have financial security and would take part in popular recreations, perhaps even have some worthwhile yet limited knowledge of culture and the arts. Yet the bourgeoisie was often criticized as a conservative segment of society. In Marxist accounts of history, this middle class group is often contrasted with the proletariat: the dynamic working class that moves along social and historical improvement.

In his depiction of Grivet, the Michauds, and even Camille, Zola takes a few standard bourgeois characteristics to satirical extremes. Grivet, Camille, and Olivier are proud of what they have accomplished in life, even though they have done little more than find a way to fit in and make money. It should be noted, though, that Zola was an equal-opportunity offender. These medical and psychological concepts are outgrowths of the once-popular theory of the humors, which divided humanity into four primary personality types: choleric angry , melancholic pensive , phlegmatic sluggish , and sanguine energetic.

Camille could easily be classified as phlegmatic, but Zola avoids applying this adjective directly. As Zola moved forward to compose his later novels, he would become less interested in temperament and more interested in another much-discussed biological topic: the influence of heredity. Even though Laurent is a foil for Camille, the two men are more similar than they at first appear. Laurent is of hearty peasant stock, the picture of virile masculinity, while Camille is a sickly young man with little power.

Despite Laurent's physical prowess, he aims for a life of leisure and idleness, the kind that has plagued Camille. Mme Raquin has nursed her child from the clutches of death throughout his childhood, but she cannot protect him from murder.

Zola may be responsible for many of the conventions that one would associate with Naturalism and so naturally you could extend this logic to argue that his work defines the genre.

It is the disposition of the Naturalist writer that assumes an amoral attitude to the plot and acts somewhat as a voyeur rather than a judge. The fact that Laurent almost personifies the cat may suggest that animal and man are alike in the very basic sense of instinct. I think that the Naturalist author assumes a similar stance to this cat as he remains a quiet and unbiased third.