Joshua Fung
Thérèse Raquin
Notes on the author:




Born in 1840 in Paris to an Italian immigrant and his French wife; moved to the
provinces when he was three before moving back to Paris in 1858
His father died in 1847, leaving Emile and his mother very impoverished
Zola’s literary influences include Honore de Balzac who is largely claimed to have
started the Realist tradition (and is most famous for his La Comedie humaine), along
with Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary) whom Zola described as “the pioneer of
the century, the painter and philosopher of our modern world”.
Other influences include Edouard Manet (allusions to Manet with Francois the cat and
the young lady at the Morgue in chapter 13), close friend Paul Cezanne as well as
scientist Claude Bernard who pursued scientific objectivity throughout his career.
Context of the author:





Zola grew up in abject poverty in Paris, making him very familiar with the underbelly
of the city.
He was a flaneur, spending a lot of time strolling through the streets of Paris.
Socially and historically, it was a time of great change for Paris with Baron Haussman
undertaking a grand reconstruction of Paris on behalf of Napoleon III, now
recognized as Haussmannization between 1853 and 1870.
Culturally, the Romantic Movement was prevalent in artistic circles at the time, led by
the visual Impressionists (Manet, Monet); and finding a counter-reaction in the
strands of Realism and soon, Naturalism, that began emerging in literature.
This was all underpinned by progress in scientific theory which strongly influenced
the emergence of Naturalist writers such as Zola.
Critical reception:




The book was a succès de scandal, receiving a particularly critical review from Le
Figaro which branded it “a pool of mud and blood” and “utter filth that is
contemporary literature”
Others lambasted it is “a tormented work”, filled with “crude colours”,
“brutality”, and “mire blood and bestial love”.
At the time, it was regarded as border-line pornographic, characterised by filth and
depravity
At the same time, it was also the beginning of a new literary movement – the
Naturalists, and drew high praise from certain quarters, not least Edmond and Jules de
Goncourt who praised the novel’s “admirable autopsy of remorse”
Joshua Fung
Notable quotes by the author:






“In Therese Raquin, I set out to study temperament, not character”, describing
Naturalism as “Nature seen through a temperament” (here, temperaments were an
extension of contemporary scientific thought originating with the medieval concept of
‘humours’, comprising: bilious, sanguine [Laurent], nervous [Therese], lymphatic
[Camille], and phlegmatic).
“My aim was primarily scientific”; “each chapter analyses a curious
physiological case”.
In the preface to the second edition of Therese, published in 1868, Zola claims that his
aim “has been above all scientific” and that “I have merely performed on two
living bodies the analytical work that surgeons carry out on dead ones.”
“I am an artist . . . I am here to live out loud”
On art, “a corner of reality seen through a temperament”
On a Naturalist novelist, that he must “see society from a broader perspective,
paint it in many and various guises”
Naturalist philosophy







For Zola, Naturalism was the systematic, objective, and scientific extension of ideas
established by the Realist writers. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as ‘stark
realism’.
The idea was to paint as accurate a picture of reality as possible, with verisimilitude
an important criterion for novelists of this school.
In literary terms, this philosophy manifested itself in images of humanity trapped in
certain circumstances which then reduced them to mere animals. In this sense, there
are strong elements of natural determinism in the writings of the Naturalists.
This is reflected in Zola’s writing where he claims to have chosen “protagonists . . .
deprived of free will and drawn into every action of their lives by the
predetermined lot of their flesh”, and attempted to “search out the beast in them,
and nothing but the beast”.
In attempting to be absolutely true and faithful to the subject matter, the Naturalist
describes physical objects and environments in minute detail, oftentimes far beyond
the patience of the reader.
Therese Raquin was indubitably, a product of the intellectual and scientific climate of
the 1850s and 1860s, drawing on Hippolyte Taine’s three-fold criteria of heredity
(race), environment (milieu), and historical context (moment) in order to progress
through the novel.
In Therese, most stress is laid upon environment, with heredity fading as the novel
progresses and the ‘set-piece’ locales in the novel somewhat abstracted from the
historical context.
Joshua Fung
Chapter-by-chapter analysis
Chapters 1 – 5
Summary and analysis:
The first five chapters of Therese are pivotal in fleshing out the Naturalist framework for the
novel. Bearing all the hallmarks of this philosophy, chapter 1 is notable for its absence of
characters – instead, almost characterizing the setting, and firmly establishing the tone, mood
and atmosphere underpinning the events of the narrative. Saturated with signs of sickness and
death, and painted with a palette of dark colours and half-tones (‘bluish’, ‘yellowish’, and
‘greenish’) to produce a chiaroscuro, the effect of the opening scene from a literary point of
view is to introduce readers to a milieu redolent with the values of the plot, reflective of the
author’s own personal background, and one which foreshadows the tale of twisted desire,
crime, and violence which is to come. Functionally, it is the claustrophobic Passage du Pontneuf with its nameless populace and melancholic air which provides the scientific controlled
environment for Zola to begin his experiment on temperaments.
With environmental factors hypothetically installed, the subsequent chapters are an
exploration of the backgrounds, motives, and desires of the main protagonists. Chapter 2
informs readers of the repressive atmosphere of molly-coddled care that Therese, and her
cousin, Camille have been brought up in – essential for the latter’s survival, but stifling and
oppressive for the half-Arab orphan with her nervous temperament and iron constitution.
Here, the cynical selfishness of the characters begin to be exhibited, Camille displaying an
irrepressible ego despite his physical weakness, Mme Raquin marrying Therese to Camille
without so much as request for consent (and really, only with the comfort of her final days in
mind), and Therese, silently holding in her contempt for this ultimately, dysfunctional family.
Chapter 3 signals a change in environment for this original family triangle, brought about by
Camille’s vacuous desire to go to Paris and become a small cog in a large organization (Zola
never denies himself a chance to mock the petty ambitions of the French lower middle-class).
This drags Therese away from the momentary liberation she felt at the house with the garden
running down to the Seine, locating her in the damp and dingy quarters where the audience
first discovers her in the first chapter. Therese’s proto-existentialist anxieties at first entrance
into their depressing haberdashery, further heightened at the Thursday rituals with its host of
4 minor characters introduced in the next chapter, all serve to notify readers of the increasing
antagonism she towards her environment and the banality of her existence. The comically and
sardonically hyperbolic descriptions of Old Michaud, his son Olivier and his wife Suzanne,
along with Camille’s superior, Grivet, while injecting anachronistic bursts of humour to
lighten the mood, also remind readers of the contempt that Therese feels for her social
company and circumstance.
Finally, the introduction of Laurent – the first real virile man in the novel – is presented as a
release for Therese’s repressed existence, emotional atrophy and sexual frustration. Not only
are they physically compatible, their temperaments are ideally suited with Laurent’s peasant
stock and sanguine temperament a perfect match for Therese’s nervousness. The physical
juxtaposition between Camille and Laurent is consistently stressed as this change in
Therese’s social environment prompts a slight change in her behaviour. We are, nevertheless,
Joshua Fung
always reminded that the nature of their attraction is purely physical, Therese aroused and
disturbed by the male pheromones and pungent odours emitted by Laurent.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 1



On the Passage du Pont-neuf, it is a “dark, narrow corridor . . . paved with
yellowish, worn stones . . . acrid dampness . . . black with grime”. It is filled with
“mean, soiled shadows” and the shops are “full of darkness, gloomy holes” filled
with items “yellow with age” and wearing a “mournful appearance”. It is
personified as a sickly person “stricken with leprosy and crisscrossed with scars”.
The shops are “oozing humidity from every crack” with their wares “faded to a
dirty grey”.
Outlines of the main protagonists are introduced, Therese with the “serious, pale face
of a young woman . . . and her short but strong chin” who remains “calm and
motionless” for hours on end. The more cheerful Mme Raquin is also introduced with
her “placid, chubby face”, as is the “small, puny and listless in manner, with a
thin beard and his face covered in freckles” Camille, bearing all the appearances of
a “sickly, spoiled child” who is constantly “shivering with fever”.
A key characteristic of Therese is her “air of contemptuous indifference”,
something that is mysterious at first but is swiftly explained in proceeding chapters.
Chapter 2



Diseased as a child, Camille “remained small and stunted . . . spindly arms and
legs . . . poor, pale little face.” As a result of little schooling, he “remained in his
ignorance . . . an additional weakness in him” and had a “vicious streak of
egotism . . . caring only for his own well-being” on top of it all. This was fostered
by the “atmosphere of tender care with which his mother encased him”; yet
ironically, he is described as having an “unquiet spirit” despite his physicality (or
lack thereof). Of sexual impulses, Camille appears almost asexual with “none of the
urgent desires of adolescence . . . not a shudder passed through him”.
Therese on the other hand had “an iron constitution and (yet) was treated like a
sickly child”, this convalescent life “imposed on her (and) drove her back into
herself.” Nevertheless, despite her outward calm, she retains a “feline suppleness . . .
a mass of energy and passion dormant within her torpid frame.” This existence
has clearly impacted her though, giving her face a “pale, slightly yellowish tint, and
she became almost ugly through being kept from daylight.” This repressive
atmosphere of care has ensured that Therese lives an almost dual existence with “an
appearance of calm that hid violent fits of passion” and an “ardent and
passionate existence” beneath her gentle manner. Constantly, she is likened to an
animal with “wild dreams” as she watches the Seine run by.
Upon Therese’s marriage to Camille, the “only alteration that took place in her life
that day” was to move to Camille’s bedroom.
Joshua Fung
Chapter 3


Camille’s “silly ambition” upheaves the whole family and forces Therese into an
even more detestable environment. Upon entering her new abode, “she felt as though
she were going down into the clammy earth of a pit. She shuddered with fear and
a feeling of nausea rose in her throat”. This marks a new low ebb in Therese’s
existence, “living in this dank darkness, in this dreary, depressing silence, (she)
would see life stretching in front of her, quite empty, bringing her each evening
to the same cold bed and each morning to the same featureless day.”
The Seine continues to maintain its sinister presence. As Camille watches it flow by,
“His mind was blank”, foreshadowing his unwitting victimization at the hands of his
wife and friend.
Chapter 4

Zola mocks the Raquin family’s Thursday domino evenings, mockingly calling it a
“whole palaver . . . a madly jolly (though respectable) orgy”. Games are tense,
after which “the players argued for two or three minutes, then silence fell once
more, broken by sharp clicks.” For Therese, these evenings were “torture for her”
and at times she would “suffer hallucinations, thinking that she was buried in a
vault together with mechanical bodies whose heads moved and whose arms and
legs waved when their strings were pulled”. For her, these guests were “paper
dolls grimacing around her.”
Chapter 5




The character of Laurent is introduced, a “tall, square-shouldered young fellow”
who is “tall, strong and fresh-faced.” Therese “had never before seen a real
man”, with his “plump cheeks, his read lips and his regular features with their
sanguine beauty.” She is particularly infatuated by his “broad, short neck, thick
and powerful” and fists who could have “stunned a bull”. Coming from true
peasant stock, his whole body was swelling with “well-developed muscles beneath
his clothes, and the whole body, with its thick, firm flesh.”
Laurent is described as being “lazy, with strong appetites and a well-defined urge
to seek easy, lasting pleasures . . . (wanting) nothing better than to lie idle,
walling in constant indolence and gratification.” Also, “This world of animal
pleasures had left him with urgent lusts.” Ironically, despite his physique, his ideal
lifestyle is that of Camille’s, being babied and looked after by the people around him.
Of his art, Laurent has no general passion for the discipline with his sanguine nature
making his canvases “beneath criticism”. Discussing his nude models, “Camille
listened to him and looked at him with naïve astonishment. This feeble boy,
whose soft, prostrate body had never felt a shudder of desire.”
Therese’s reaction to Laurent is to appear to be “hunched and gathered into herself;
she was listening” intently to his stories of sexual experience, the “sharp, strong
smells that he emitted disturbed the young woman and plugned her into a kind
of nervous anxiety.”
Joshua Fung
Chapters 6 – 11
Summary and analysis:
This section of the novel details the development of the relationship between Laurent and
Therese, establishing another triumvirate relationship – the adulterous triangle between
Laurent, Therese and Camille. However, Zola deviates from the romance archetype (‘love
triangle’) where the women is the object of desire between two competing men. Instead,
Therese is almost an accessory to the crime (if not its instigator) of Camille’s murder, with
the real antagonistic relationship not between Laurent and Camille who are good friends, but
rather between Camille and Therese (though the former is too self-absorbed to realize it).
It is in chapter 6 that a running motif is introduced to the audience – Laurent’s portrait of
Camille. Badly drawn, it is suggestive of the husband’s death by drowning, and is a
paradoxically and prophetically accurate representation of the imminent development of the
plot. Its further use as a mise en abyme, in particular, through the use of prolepsis and
analepsis will be discussed as it proves a duplication and then reflection of, arguably, the
climax and turning point of the novel. In terms of its narrative function though, the
‘successful’ painting of Camille’s portrait gives the chance for Laurent to take Therese as his
mistress, beginning their adultery with an act indicative of the violence and brutality of the
narrative as a whole. It is interesting to note that Laurent’s motivations behind taking Therese
as his sexual companion is mostly economic and self-centred, with little thought of love but
only the fulfilment of his insatiable libido. This perpetuates Therese’s treatment as a
commodity – in the first five chapters, to be the wife to Camille; and now, to be the mistress
of Laurent. The only difference this time though, is that upon consummation of their
adulterous ways, Therese becomes fully consenting to this new twist in her story.
Zola is keen to stress the inevitable and natural development of Therese and Laurent’s
relationship. Whilst the latter’s initial incentives were as aforementioned, almost purely
financial, he is now stunned to find Therese beautiful, and to discover himself thirsting not
just for his mistress. Therese herself, for the first time, is given a voice as she releases her
pent-up fury at and frustration with the Raquin household, proclaiming her love to Laurent
whom she views as having released her from the torment of her daily existence.
Beyond the interiors and details of their relationship, an additional effect are the changes
experienced by Therese and Laurent. Viewed as a whole, these 8 months of unrestricted and
passionate love-making are the happiest the protagonists of Zola’s tragedy ever will be.
Therese, previously reserved and contemptuous, is now reckless and adventurous, revelling in
her open deceit of Mme Raquin and the Thursday guests. She even becomes more cheerful,
throwing herself into the daily undertakings of a housewife where previously, despite all of
Mme Raquin’s efforts, she had refused obstinately. Laurent for his part enjoys, although
maintaining his sly peasant caution, is thrown aback by the transformation of his mistress; at
the same time, enjoying his new place in the Raquin household – possessing a mistress in
Therese, a friend in Camille, and a mother in Mme Raquin. It is in chapters 7 and 8 that the
theme of deceit comes to the forefront, Therese and Laurent committing their acts of adultery
in broad daylight and right under Mme Raquin’s nose! Therese seems to take particular
gratification at these acts of deception, all the more enjoying the daily façade she puts up in
front of Mme Raquin and Camille.
Joshua Fung
Nevertheless, this merriment is soon put to a halt when Laurent is reprimanded for missing so
much work. Increasingly, Camille is positioned as the obstacle to Therese and Laurent’s full
indulgence in their passions; one that plants the idea of murder in their minds. It is Therese
who first prompts Laurent to contemplate murder, and Laurent, with his brutal peasant
reasoning, who plots and devises the best possible way to carry it out. Their ideas are
supplemented in chapter 10, by a conversation with Old Michaud and Olivier who suggest
that many criminals go unpunished. This Thursday evening is also significant in illustrating
the tension between cultural norms and instinctual behaviour. While Laurent and Therese
maintain their coolness towards each other in public, they invest all their passion in a sociable
handshake while at the same time, sharing the mutual desire to inflect a sexual wound.
Chapter 11 is the climax of the novel. Fond of taking strolls every Sunday, it is one of these
Sabbaths that Camille, along with Therese and Laurent decide to go out of Paris for a walk.
Throughout the day, cold gusts of wind act as leitmotivs bringing with it the scent of death
and murder. Entranced by his mistress’ swaying hips, Laurent can wait no longer to rid
himself of the nuisance Camille has become, drowning him in front of Therese while the trio
are on a boat. This is not before Camille sinks his teeth into Laurent’s neck, wrenching a
chunk of flesh from it and leaving a permanent scar which is to grow in significance as the
mental hell of the protagonists intensify in the later chapters.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 6







Readers are introduced to Laurent’s little garret on the “Rue Saint-Victor, opposite
the Port Aux Vins”, a street where Zola spent much of his impoverished youth as
well. His art technique is described as “stiff, dry, like a parody of the primitive
masters”, undertaken with a “hesitant hand and a naïve precision that gave the
face a sulky look.”
Therese is inadvertently drawn to Laurent – “she came there as though drawn by
some force, and stayed as though pinned to the spot . . . contemplative
absorption.”
Noticing this, Laurent begins to consider Therese as his mistress – “I’m sure that she
likes me; so why shouldn’t it be me rather than anyone else? . . . Though she is
ugly, when it comes down to it”.
Though he says: “I might get myself mixed up in something unpleasant”, his final
decision is swayed by economic concerns: first, that “she would cost him nothing . .
. even economics told him to take his friend’s wife”; second, “it had been a long
time since he had satisfied his needs”; and third, “this affair was one that could
not have undesirable consequences” – a highly ironic statement. Furthermore, he
thinks that “All the Raquins would be attending to his enjoyment”, marking the
start of the adulterous triangle.
“The portrait was vile, a dirty grey colour, with large, bluish-purple blotches . . .
dull and muddy . . . greenish mask of a drowned man” and mouth like a “twisted
line . . . and made the sinister resemblance even more striking.”
The start of Therese and Laurent’s adultery is with a “violent gesture”, Laurent
“crushing her lips with his”.
“The act was silent and brutal.”
Joshua Fung
Chapter 7







Zola is always keen to stress the “necessary, inevitable and entirely natural”
development of their relationship – “They settled easily into their new situation,
quite calmly and shamelessly.”
For the first time, readers get direct insight into Therese’s thoughts as she begins
to voice her thoughts in a “precise, self-assured voice”. She talks about how
Laurent “can’t love me as I love you” and reveals awareness of her heredity: “I
belong to her (African mother) in my blood and my instincts”, as well as her
disdain for the Raquins: “they buried me alive in this vile shop . . . they stifled
me with their bourgeois comfort and I don’t understand why there is any red
blood left in my veins”; “leading the same dead life . . . I used to think about
throwing myself into the Seine”.
Zola goes into much detail describing Therese’s transformation and release:
“With the first kiss, she revealed the instincts of a courtesan.”; “All the
instincts of a highly-strung woman burst forth with exceptional violence . . .
that African blood burning in her veins, began to flow and pound furiously in
her thin, still almost virginal body.” She begins to exhibit great recklessness –
“She was throwing herself into adultery with a kind of urgent candour,
careless of danger, feeling a sort of pride in taking risks.”
Laurent, on the other hand, is shocked at the strength of their passion – “amazed
at finding his mistress beautiful. He had never seen this woman . . . lithe and
strong . . . radiant, with moist lips and gleaming eyes . . . sinuous and twisting
. . . released hot waves of passion, a penetrating, acrid fever in the air.”
“He did not yet accept her, but he gave in to her” as their “liaison disturbed
him considerably”, each one of their new meetings bringing yet more
“passionate ecstasies.”
Laurent’s “sly peasant caution” never abandons him, yet “The lovers could
never have found a safer place than this room where no one thought to look
for them.”
Francois, the cat, makes a significant appearance in this chapter. “Solemn and
motionless, he was looking at the two lovers with wide-open eyes . . .
examining them carefully, without blinking, lost in a sort of diabolical
trance.”
Chapter 8



Laurent revels in his new life – “he had become the wife’s lover, the
husband’s friend and the mother’s spoiled child. Never had his appetites
been so well satisfied.”
Therese “felt a biter pleasure in fooling Camille and Mme Raquin”,
deceiving them “to perfection, thanks to the training in hypocrisy that she
owed to her upbringing”; and “how happy she was to deceive them with
such triumphal impudence.”
“The frightful play-acting, this life of deception and this contrast between
the burning kisses of daytime and the feigned indifference of evening”
Joshua Fung



Zola highlights their physical compatibility – “Nature and circumstances
seemed to have made this man for this woman . . . Together, the woman,
nervous and dissembling, the man, lustful, living like an animal, they
made a strongly united couple.”
Zola describes their passion as such: “It was like a lightning flash of
passion, swift, blinding, across a leaden sky.”
“This life of alternating calm and storm lasted for eight months. The
lovers lived in a state of complete beatitude. Therese was no longer bored
and no longer desired anything.”
Chapter 9



Prevented from continuing their daily meetings, Laurent realizes, “He needed that
woman to live as one needs to eat and drink”; “Desire had been working silently
inside him, without his realizing it, and had eventually cast him, bound hand and
foot, into the savage embraces of Therese.” Lust becomes his primary appetite –
“obeying his instincts, letting himself be driven by the will of his body.”
Therese plants the idea of murdering Camille in Laurent’s mind: “There’s only one
journey from which no one returns . . . But he will bury the lot of us”, “If my
husband were to die . . .” and “People do die sometimes . . . Only, it’s dangerous
for those who survive.”
For Laurent’s part, “In the passion of adultery, he had begun to dream about
killing . . . ‘I shall kill him, I shall kill him’ ”. His “brutal peasant reasoning . . .
suggested adopting this quick expedient”, “he would marry Therese, become the
heir to Mme Raquin, resign from his job and stroll around in the sunshine.”
Chapter 10


Restrained by cultural norms, “They would have liked to carry off shreds of the
other’s flesh clinging to their fingers. There was only this hand squeeze to
quench their desire; they put their whole bodies into it.”
“Little beads of sweat shone at the roots of Therese’s hair and a chill draught
made Laurent’s skin shiver imperceptibly.”
Chapter 11




On a “thick, acrid and scorching Sunday”, the three friends go for a stroll. While
Camille is asleep: “This poor creature, with his thin, twisted body . . . deformed
by sleep, gaping in a foolish grimace”, Laurent who has existed in “a state of
resentful celibacy”, “slipped quietly over to the young woman; he kissed her
shoe, then her ankle” in the “great voluptuousness stillness and shade.”
“The two banks, dark brown in colour, flecked with grey, were like two broad
bands meeting at the horizon”; “Nothing is more painfully calm than dusk in
autumn”; “The countryside . . . feels death approaching with the first cold winds
. . . plaintive murmurs of despair.”
As Laurent drowns Camille, Therese is “gripped by a vague sense of terror”. After
the deed, she “burst into tears.”
“She had a nervous crisis and burst into terrible sobs . . . Nature was assisting in
the sinister piece of play-acting that had just taken place.”
Joshua Fung
Chapters 12 – 17
Summary and analysis:
The murder of Camille marks a change in the shift of the novel’s focus and a subtle alteration
in Zola’s literary style. Whilst previously he had been engaged with subject material tracking
the desires of his protagonists and the ways in which they attempted to satiate those urges,
Zola now switches tack to chart the psychological (in pre-Freudian terms it would still merely
have been physiological) consequences of Camille’s death for Therese and Laurent, as well
as for their relationship. In terms of the writing style, chapter 13’s ‘Morgue scene’ is perhaps
the clearest indicator of the increasingly gothic stylistic focus of Zola’s diction and images.
Upon murdering Camille, Laurent does an admirable job of covering his tracks. Immediately
recruiting Old Michaud and Olivier to help him deliver the unfortunate news to the
understandably heart-broken Mme Raquin, there is a perverse self-assurance in Laurent’s
actions, indicative of the relief he feels at having ‘accomplished’ the crime. While Laurent
appears to bear no guilty conscience whatsoever, Zola stresses the waves of anxiety that
Therese encounters, the suggestion being that the act of murder has been a step to far for her
nerves.
Chapter 13 is critical in marking Zola’s point of departure towards gothic horror. It begins
introducing what would be a constant thorn in the side of Laurent – Camille’s bite – which
would later grow to become a nexus of erotic and punitive energy. This is a very significant
symbol throughout the novel, not only functioning as a reminder to Laurent (and Therese) of
their heinous deeds, but also representative of the fine line between sexual desire and
brutality which is a hallmark of Therese Raquin. Laurent’s visits to the Morgue are motivated
by complex desires: most elementally, the need for closure and a sense of administrative
finality to the murder; more disturbingly, a perverse attraction to death heightened by his
drowning of Camille. Zola also takes the opportunity to introduce his audience to a vile
society where the Morgue is treated as a form of louche theatre, different elements of society
– young women, connoisseurs of death, the lower middle-class – attracted by these
‘spectacles of death’, drawn together by their shared necrophilia. When Laurent eventually
does spy out the corpse of Camille, he is transformed in the words of the narrator from
‘Laurent’ to ‘The murderer’. More importantly, this scene, with its perspectival inversion of
the subject-object relationship between Camille’s corpse and Laurent, presents the structuring
irony pervasive throughout the rest of the novel that in death, Camille is more of an obstacle
to Laurent and Therese’s relationship than he ever was alive. The medical lexis employed in
Zola’s description of the drowned corpse soon veers towards gothic horror, indicative of a
wider shift in the diction of the novel. It is also this scene which, one suspects, is the catalyst
for the hallucinations and fear encountered by Laurent later.
Therese and Mme Raquin, on the other hand, do not venture out of the house in the three days
after Camille’s death. However, after a period of time, things once more reach a new
equilibrium. The Thursday guests, driven by their selfish desires to resume their weekly game
of dominoes, eventually return with little thought for Camille in their egotistical minds.
But while the lives of these guests have not changed much despite the death of their friend
Camille, chapter 16 is devoted to tracing the noticeable changes in the temperament and
behaviour of Therese and Laurent in the 18 months after the murder. There is almost an
Joshua Fung
undercurrent of optimism even, both protagonists being presented with the potential to live
separate lives anew, without the weight of their past. Therese appears more well and cheerful,
becoming more ‘womanly’ – reading more romantic novels and even fancying herself in love
with a student, for a week! Laurent himself becomes more tranquil, settling into a life of
domicile inactivity, keener than ever to satisfy his desires with food and a brief fling with a
model. The common denominator in both their changes is the slight repugnance they feel at
each other’s touch, as well as their inability to reach the dizzying heights of passion made
possible by their relationship, prior to Camille’s death; nor do either of them seek such a
passionate love during this interlude.
Nevertheless, this new-found independence for either of them is illusory and short-lived.
Once more, it is prudence and calculation rather than passion which stirs Laurent. Upon
contemplating the idea that he killed a man, only to not reap all the benefits he had
considered, he firmly decides to marry Therese, whom he now also fears will confess all to
the Law. This thought becomes more firmly entrenched by Laurent’s experiences returning to
his garret one night. Gripped by a childish terror which prompts wild imaginations of
criminals waiting to murder him, and repeated hallucinations of Camille greeting him at the
back door of the haberdashery instead of Therese, Laurent increasingly views marriage with
Therese as the only way to put an end to these nightmares. Once more, this is another
example of the way in which sexual desire and mental terror become intertwined in the minds
of the protagonists as a result of Camille’s murder. Every time Laurent attempts to dream of
Therese, he is greeted by Camille, now in death, an even greater obstacle than he ever was
alive. That Therese experiences the same nightmares feeds into the physiological theories of
the time which suggested that traumatic events bind the people who experience them
together. For all the positivity of chapter 16, the night-time encounters of both the
protagonists in chapter 17 reminds them, and the readers, that they share a bond unlikely to
ever be broken.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 12



Therese’s immediate reaction to Camille’s murder is suggestive of the way in which
she will be gripped by terror and self-reproach –gripped by thoughts of Camille
“taller than life, rising straight up out of the muddy water. This inescapable
vision fuelled the fever in her blood.”
Upon making all the public statements, “Laurent felt a wave of warm joy filling his
flesh with new life”, performing his role as grieving friend with “incomparable skill
and self-assurance”, underneath feeling an “animal satisfaction”.
“It seemed to Laurent and Therese that the blood of the other was flowing into
their chests through their joined hands . . . this furious squeezing of hands was
like a crushing weight bearing down on Camille’s head to keep it under the
water.”
Chapter 13

Camille’s bite is “like a hot iron on his skin . . . as though a dozen pins were
gradually piercing his flesh.”
Joshua Fung






At the Morgue, Laurent is “weighed down by the humidity of the walls”,
“shivering and staring at these greenish rag dolls whose frightful grimaces
seemed to mock him”.
“The drowned man’s head broke into a laugh”; “You would have taken her for
a courtesan lying on a bed if there had not been a black stripe on her neck” –
this image is an allusion to Manet’s painting, Olympia.
Laurent takes in all these sights with “a burning sensation in his heart”, and though
“his flesh rebelled” he was “absorbed in a kind of fearful lust.”
“The Morgue is a show that anyone can afford, which poor and rich passers-by
get for free.”
On Camille’s corpse, “death had made a marble statue of him”, “Camille was
hideous . . . His face still seemed firm and stiff . . . muddy, yellowish tent . . .
grimace . . . the lips were twisted . . . giving a horrible sneer”. His body was “a
heap of decayed flesh . . . greenish chest as black lines . . . gaping hole
surrounded by dark-red strips”.
Upon leaving the Morgue, Laurent felt as though “a pungent odour were following
him around.”
Chapter 14

Therese is clearly traumatised by the murder: “Her limbs were shivering and red
with fever . . . She had aged.”
Chapter 15


“Every face had a look of egotistical self-satisfaction. These people were
embarrassed, none of them having in their minds the slightest living memory of
Camille.”
“Therese still belonged to him, body and soul.”
Chapter 16





Therese “seemed more well, more cheerful and more gentle”, “She became
inquisitive and chatty, in short, a woman”, “Never had Therese known such
peace of mind.”
“Reading new novels opened horizons that were new to her; until now, she had
loved only with her blood and her nerves; now she started to love with her
head.”
“This sudden love of reading had a considerable influence on her temperament.
She acquired a nervous sensibility which made her laugh or cry for no reason.
The equilibrium that had started to be achieved inside her was shattered.”
“She became aware of goodness and gentleness . . . and she knew that she could
not kill her husband and be happy.”
On the new state of their relationship: “They experienced in their crime a sensation
of gratification so intense that it sickened them and made their embraces
repulsive”, “love no longer appealed to them” and “When they shook hands, they
felt a kind of unease at the touch of their skin.”
Joshua Fung




Laurent “went through various phases of calm and excitement”, enjoying “a
feeling of profound tranquillity” at first before he “lapsed into inactivity,
becoming more feeble, more cowardly and more cautious than ever. He got fat
and lazy.”
Afraid of the guillotine, “He felt the cold edge of the blade on his neck. While he
was doing it [the murder], he had gone straight ahead . . . Now he . . . was seized
by a dizzying sense of horror.”
“With his face pink and plump, his belly full and his head empty, he was happy”,
“He just felt more fat and contented. That was all.”
“In any event, was he not bound to Therese by ties of blood and horror? He felt
her crying out and twisting inside him, he belonged to her.”
Chapter 17







On his walk home one night, he saw “monstrous shapes . . . huge, strange shapes”,
with the cellar “a mass of darkness that scared him.” At home, he fell into a sort of
“anxious reverie . . . The balance was upset and the hot fever of earlier times
shook him once more.”
“The blood had rushed suddenly to his neck and his neck was burning . . . He
imagined it eating into his flesh . . . devouring his neck.”
“But now the thought of Therese brought with it the spectre of her husband . . .
it was Camille who opened to him . . . greenish and horribly disfigured . . . with a
ghastly laugh, showing the tip of a blackened tongue”.
“In his furious obstinacy, he kept on going towards Therese and kept on coming
up against Camille’s corpse.”
“She will kiss my neck and I won’t feel that frightful burning sensation.”
“The scar was turned purple by the rising flow; it became bright and bloodfilled, standing out red against the plump white neck . . . Laurent felt sharp
pricks, as though someone were sticking pins into the wound.”
“Each of them doubtless guessed the terror they had shared”, they yearned for the
moment when they could “united against the drowned man.”
Chapters 18 – 21
Summary and analysis:
It is in chapter 18 that Zola begins exploring the consequences on the temperaments of his
protagonists of the traumatic drowning of Camille. While previously he is careful to note the
complementary nature of their early passions; now, he stresses the unity of their thoughts,
emotions and mental agony. This was in keeping with theories of the time which suggested
that shared trauma had the effect of binding the victims together. In this sense, thrown
together by nervous trauma, Therese and Laurent’s reciprocal penetration is both
physiological and psychological. This is reinforced by the shared nightmares of Camille that
both experience, and later on in chapter 21, the joy (albeit, very brief) they feel on their
wedding day.
Joshua Fung
From this point onwards, Zola devotes the rest of the novel into investigating ever more
deeply the mental agony of his protagonists. In chapter 18, it is described as a ‘mental
collapse’ with both of them being visited by the ghost of Camille, suffering insomnia, and
Laurent visualising a flow of drowned men as he stares dully into the murky waters of the
Seine. Yet, neither is devoid of hope – both seeing marriage as a solution to their nights of
horror. For Therese, marriage is the product of a renewed passion, arising from a rising panic.
Laurent’s embrace is the only one that can protect her against these terrible visitations. For
Laurent, his motivations are more rationale: he seeks to reap the benefits of his labour
(murdering Camille), effectively installing himself into the drowned man’s place of privilege
within the Raquin household, and further, benefit from Mme Raquin’s 40, 000 francs of
savings. For both, readers are always given the sense that their union is borne, less out of
love, and more out of desperation.
Spurred on by this new mission of theirs, Therese and Laurent go about with their secret
campaign of planting the idea of marriage into the minds of Mme Raquin and the Thursday
guests. Therese, neither fully concealing nor revealing the depths of her mental agony, affects
‘an attitude of despair and melancholy’ which disturbs Mme Raquin and alerts the other
guests. Laurent for his part attends carefully to all the needs of the household, presenting
himself as a kindly and altruistic soul who wishes only the comfort of the family his close
friend has left behind. A year of this play-acting reveals the deep-seated hypocrisy and
deceitfulness of Therese and Laurent. But it eventually pays off, the thought of marrying
Therese and Laurent striking Mme Raquin like ‘a shaft of light’ – in truth, motivated by
egotistical thoughts of constructing a new, warm household for her final days to be lived out
in peace. The ease with which Mme Raquin and the Thursday guests are manipulated into
carrying out the plans of Therese and Laurent is at once both humorous and satirical, Zola
mocking the stupidity of characters he finds shallow and irritating. However, upon extracting
a ‘yes’ from both parties at the end of chapter 19, the deception does not end there but in fact
perpetuates. For while Therese and Laurent affect an image of demure love, they shudder at
each other’s touch – suggesting to readers that perhaps they have even deceived themselves.
The wedding day itself, described in chapter 20, gives several premonitory clues of how
doomed their wedlock is. Though both wake with ‘the same profoundly joyful though’, it is
not in positive anticipation of a renewed love; but is instead, in negative expectation that
marriage will protect them against the drowned man. More significantly is the bite of Camille
which becomes intermittently more vivid, as if speaking out angrily against this unholy
union. The endless self-cloning visions of Camille, manifested in his ghost, his corpse, his
painting, and this bite will push the couple to their brink of insanity as physical and psychic
symptoms become indifferentiable. The wedding ceremony and dinner itself is sombre,
Therese and Laurent both dull and morose. Grivet’s poor jokes of ‘future children’ fails to
lighten the mood, and in fact, adds an additional anxiety on the burdened minds of the bride
and groom. As narrator, Zola explains that ‘their desires had worn out’, highlighting once
more that any joy they feel is not passionate anticipation, but rather, the hope of no longer
being afraid.
Their wedding night, detailed in chapter 21, begins a series of increasingly horrifyingly
gothic scenes that crescendo until the final lines of the novel, with Zola unfolding the very
texture of hallucination as each new chapter progresses (from chapter 21 onwards). While a
new Raquin trio has been established in the household (consisting of Therese, Laurent and
Joshua Fung
Mme Raquin), in the bedroom, the adulterous triangle of Therese, Laurent and Camille is
reconfigured as the infernal triangle, Camille replaced by his ghost. Despite the romantic and
erotic atmosphere of the bedroom, neither Therese nor Laurent can bring themselves to
consummate the marriage, finding in each other’s company a heightening of the terror that
they had felt alone. The structuring irony in the novel is revealed here: that ‘they had killed
their desire for one another when they killed Camille.’ A tragic truth which dooms their union
from the very first night. There are several things to note about the events of this night: first,
the characterization of the couple as being one – in body and soul – is reinforced by their
apparent ability to read the thoughts of each other, each following the devastating thoughts of
the other to the same horrifying conclusion about Camille. Second, the visual, tactile and
acoustic dimensions of their hallucinations ensures they are surrounded by horror at every
avenue of perception, the synaesthesia they encounter between the senses connecting with
other themes of the migration between the living and the dead, fantasy and reality. Third, the
recurring symbolism of Therese’s legitimate kiss symbolically healing the wound of
Camille’s bite. Yet, upon extracting the kiss by force, Laurent becomes a broken man to
discover that it does not heal, and that, he does not in fact love this woman.
There are other elements as well. The appearance of Francois the cat as well as the portrait of
Camille which has negligently been left in the room by Mme Raquin. Cumulatively, Zola’s
diction becomes less anatomical and scientific, and more horrific – suggesting that while he
was conducting a thought experiment of sorts, he was still first and foremost, a writer of
enthralling fiction.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 18







“An affinity of blood and lust had been established between them. They
shuddered the same shudders, and their hearts . . . ached with the same terror.”
“They had only one body and one soul to feel pleasure and pain”
“The chain suddenly tightened and they experienced such a shock that they feel
attached to one another for ever.”
“Every night, the drowned man came to them, while insomnia kept them lying
on a bed of burning coals, and turned them over and over with iron pincers.”
“And yet, it was with a feeling of vague despair that they took the final decision
to get married openly.”
“Therese wanted to get married solely because she was afraid and her organism
demanded Laurent’s violent embrace.”
“The truth was that, through this killing, he had sought to guarantee a tranquil
and idle life for himself and the satisfaction of all his appetites.”
Chapter 19


“He [Old Michaud] congratulated himself on being the first to have the idea of
this marriage which would bring all the former enjoyment back to their
Thursday evenings.”
“The two lovers shuddered at each other’s touch. They stayed there, with fingers
gripped and burning, in a nervous embrace.”
Joshua Fung

“In any event, the little family’s future was assured.”
Chapter 20






“Laurent and Therese both woke up in their separate rooms with the same
profoundly joyful thought . . . They would no longer sleep alone and could
protect one another against the drowned man.”
“Camille’s bite was quite red . . . The sight of this blemish standing out on his
neck was upsetting and annoying for him at this particular moment . . . enduring
this kind of sharp pricking”
“throughout this long day, he had felt the drowned man’s teeth digging into his
flesh”
“They ate, answered questions and moved like automata.”
“In the wait, their desires had worn out and all the past had vanished.”
“They were losing the violent, lustful hunger and even forgetting their joy the
same morning, the deep joy that had overtaken them both at the idea that from
now on they would no longer be afraid.”
Chapter 21













Their bedroom is “all white and perfumed, to make a nest for these fresh, young
lovers . . . the atmosphere was serene and peaceful, bathed in a sort of drowsy
voluptuousness”. It is like a “fortunate oasis . . . designed for sensuality and to
satisfy the needs of the mystery of passionate love.”
“A reddish flame would spurt out of the wood and reflections, the colour of
blood, played over the murderers’ faces.”
“Their minds troubled and their bodies dead. This outcome struck them as a
horrid, cruel farce.”
“Once Camille’s ghost had been raised, he came to sit between the two
newlyweds, opposite the blazing fire.”
“They felt that there was a corpse beside them”
“At times, they thought they could hear one another speaking aloud . . . sight
became a kind of hearing strange and fine; so clearly could they read their
thoughts on the other’s face”
“A rush of blood to his head made the patch larger and coloured it in fiery red.”
“The wretch held out his burning neck . . . counting on the woman’s kiss to calm
the thousand stings piercing his flesh.”
“This kiss, obtained by violence, had broken him . . . he no longer loved this
woman and that she no longer loved him.”
“They had killed their desire for one another when they killed Camille.”
“Terror made him see the canvas as it really was . . . showing the grimacing face
of a corpse against its black background.”
On Francois: “The creature must know everything: there were thoughts behind
those round, oddly dilated eyes.”
“Their flesh and their hearts were quite dead.”
Joshua Fung
Chapter 22-25
Summary and analysis:
As foreshadowed earlier in the novel, Therese and Laurent’s marriage proves a most doomed
and unfortunate union. Immediately, readers are struck by how everything that either of the
protagonists expected from marriage has not come to fruition, but further, that marriage has
even worsened their predicament. Chapter 22 brings the concepts of temperaments to the
forefront of the novel once more as Zola traces the modulations and transfigurations
undergone by Therese and Laurent since the start of their relationship – explaining that the
equilibrium between their complementary natures was disrupted by the murder; and that their
continued interaction has only served to allow Therese’s nervous temperament to dominate
even Laurent’s sanguine one. In doing so, Therese has come to play the dominant role in this
relationship. Whilst previously it was Laurent who initiated their initial brutal act of sex,
Camille’s murder and even their marriage, it is now Therese’s nerves which are plunging him
into a ‘state of nervous erethism’. Therese herself is finding her own nerves over-stimulated,
leaving the cumulative effect of a deeply unbalanced marriage, in terms of temperament that
is. However, though elements of guilt and ‘conscience’ do emerge in some parts of the novel,
Zola maintains the amorality of the novel and its protagonists, insisting that any semblances
of such sentiments are not the product of conscience but the physiology of his subjects,
affecting their mental states. Increasingly as well, though never written in the perspective of
Camille’s ghosts (and understandably so), Camille comes to dominate their bedroom. In
chapter 22, their reaction is to shrivel away in fear, wearing their clothes under the sheets and
fearing any physical intimacy.
This is brought to an end in chapter 23 when Laurent, unable to bear this state of affairs any
longer, lapses into ‘raging madness’, violently embracing Therese who herself reciprocates,
in an attempt to forcefully dispel the corpse that sleeps between them. Images of heat and fire
are increasingly employed, not to convey the passion or ecstasy of their intimacies, but rather
to communicate their mental agony and hopes to dissipate their sin in a sort of material hell.
Therese attempts to seal Laurent’s bite wound with the fire of her kisses but does not
succeed; both attempt to fight the horror of Camille through brutal sex but end it, exhausted,
even more terrified, and defeated by the sinisterly punitive Camille. Further irony is derived
from the fact that all these struggles to dismiss their fear has only plunged them into deeper
depths of mental torture and anguish. It is also important to note, beginning with chapter 21,
the absence of naturalising phrases such as ‘as if’ when describing the phantom of Camille.
This denotes the deterioration of the protagonists’ abilities to differentiate between reality and
fantasy, their hallucinations subsequently becoming concrete apparitions and real
manifestations of their joint neuroses.
Chapter 24 extends the time frame of the two previous chapters to allow readers to witness
the harrowing daily existence of Therese and Laurent. Here, Zola makes use of the natural
duality of day and night to describe the double life led by the young couple. As spring returns
and the external world brightens its gaze (the sinister Seine even running with a ‘caressing
sound’), Therese and Laurent find solace in their separation during the day – Therese
becoming the idyll of bourgeois homemaking, finding pleasure in tidying up and light
snoozes during the day; and Laurent enjoying his existence outside the accursed Raquin
household, napping during lunch. This day-time sleep is necessary to make up for their nights
Joshua Fung
of restless insomnia, another realistic minutiae added in by the ever-detailed Zola.
Meanwhile, their dread at being left alone in each other’s presence gives Therese and Laurent
new-found appreciation for Mme Raquin and the Thursday guests. Ironically once more, the
depths of their mental agony are hidden precisely by their reaction to it – to more openly
welcome the mindless chatter and gentle noises of the people around them to drown out their
inner demons. Yet, by the end of chapter 24, even this mild relief is put in threat as Mme
Raquin is struck by paralysis, ‘turning into a thing’.
Unwilling to see the profits of his crime go to waste, Laurent remembers the economic
considerations which drove him to infiltrate the Raquin household in the first place. Suffering
nightly tortures, he decides that at the very least, he should profit during the day, quitting his
job and setting up an artist’s studio on the Rue Mazarine. Zola, a subscriber to the belief that
art came from a kind of neurosis or disorder of the nervous system, marks the unbelievable
superiority of Laurent’s artistic skills now. Whilst previously described as crude, stiff, and
muddy, Laurent’s technique is now ‘sound and solid . . . with magnificent brush strokes.’ As
much is noted by a successful artist friend of Zola whose only criticism of his muchimproved artistry is that all his characters have a similar physiognomy, and in particular, a
certain grimace. This causes Laurent to realize that all his paintings mask a hidden Camille
within them, even his drawings of animals, leaving him to despair that his final outlet has
been denied him by the ever-present Camille. The tragedy in Laurent’s life is that he never
has all the necessary attributes, at one time, to make a good artist. Much like Therese, Laurent
is bridled and stifled by his temperament, a symbolic cage of pre-determinism which he will
never break free from.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 22









“The equilibrium had been disturbed and Therese’s over-excited nerves had
taken control. Suddenly, Laurent found himself plunged into a state of nervous
erethism; under the influence of her fervent nature, his own temperament had
gradually become that of a girl suffering from an acute neurosis.”
“In this great body . . . she had nurtured a system of astonishing sensibility . . .
now his sense became less crude.”
“His nerves developed and came to dominate the sanguine element in him”
“His remorse was purely physical . . . His conscience played no part in his
terror”
“It was like the onset of a terrifying disease, a sort of hysteria of murder . . . His
passion for Therese had infected him with a dreadful malady, that’s all.”
Therese’s “original temperament had been greatly over-stimulated . . . She was
overwhelmed by events and driven towards madness.”
“Camille had drawn up a chair and was occupying this space . . . There was a
wide gap between them. This was where the body of Camille lay.”
“They would touch the body, they would see it lying like a greenish, rotten lump
of meat and they would breathe in the repulsive odour of this heap of human
decay.”
“Therese was not a widow: Laurent found himself married to a wife who already
had a drowned man as her husband.”
Joshua Fung
Chapter 23






“The excess of his suffering brought him out of his numbness . . . he was invaded
by a dull irritation that overcame his cowardice and restored his memory.”
“trying to cauterize the place with the fire of her kisses . . . it felt to him as
though a red-hot iron had been placed on his neck.”
“And so they fought, groaning and struggling in the horror of their embrace.”
“And in their sobs, it seemed to them that they could hear the triumphant laugh
of the drowned man, as he slid back beneath the sheets, sniggering.”
“They had been unable to drive him out of the bed; they were beaten.”
“The paroxysm of passionate love that they had tried to reach in order to kill
their fears had now plunged them even more deeply into the pit of terror.”
Chapter 24






“young couple started to lead a double life”
Setting: “Spring came . . . Down below the river ran with a caressing sound, and
up above the first rays of the sun were gentle and warm.”
“She imagined that she had been buried alive and thought she was in the earth at
the bottom of a communal grave, with the dead milling around her. The idea
calmed her and consoled her.”
“She [Mme Raquin] was turning into a thing. Therese and Laurent were
horrified to see the vanishing of this person . . . whose voice roused them from
their nightmares.”
“It was as though in each one of them there were two quite distinct beings: a
nervous, terrified creature who would shudder as soon as dusk came, and a
numb, forgetful one who breathed freely as soon as the sun rose.”
“They seemed calm and happy, instinctively hiding their woes.”
Chapter 25







“He felt that Laurent was acquiring an air of distinction . . . while the stance of
the whole body was more dignified and more relaxed.”
“The technique was sound and solid each piece standing out against a grey
background with magnificent brushstrokes . . . implied the most advanced
aesthetic sense.”
“developing a woman’s sensibility in him and giving him sharper, more delicate
feelings.”
“rose to the ecstasy of genius; the sickness of the spirit, as it were, the neurosis
that was afflicting his being, was also developing a strangely lucid sensibility in
him.”
“taking whatever disguise the painter chose to give him, but always keeping the
general character of hi physiognomy . . . grimace”
“Yet always the drowned man was resuscitated, by turns as angel, woman,
warrior, child and bandit.”
“It seemed to him that the hand no longer belonged to him.”
Joshua Fung
Chapters 26 – 29
Summary and analysis:
The perspective of Mme Raquin returns to the forefront in chapters 26 and 27. Reduced to
complete paralysis, this new state of affairs heightens Therese and Laurent’s domestic terrors
as it was her quiet chatter that had delayed the onset of their terrible nights. Now, still as a
statue, the ‘couple’s life became unbearable’, both attempting to draw as much comfort from
this barely living corpse as they could. Mme Raquin, though, is herself happy, ‘happy in the
dedication and affection of her dear children.’ Using only her eyes to communicate, these
take on a ‘celestial beauty’, invested with all the love and warmth remaining in her being.
The Thursday guests, initially put out by her diminished health, eventually learn to
accommodate this new turn by simply treating Mme Raquin as if nothing had happened to
her. In particular, Grivet pronounces that he has an infallible bond of understanding with her,
employed to macabrely comical proportions in the next chapter.
However, all this is to change when Therese and Laurent, occasionally forgetting Mme
Raquin’s presence, begin to openly quarrel in front of the paralysed corpse, allowing her to
intuit the exact nature of their relationship and the circumstances of Camille’s death!
Suddenly, all that she has believed crumbles – Mme denying God, goodness, and charity; and
all her love turning to hatred. This evocation of God by Mme Raquin in chapter 26 marks an
increasingly religious (or anti-religious) note in the novel, beginning first with this denial of
all altruism, and extending into Therese’s rituals of forgiveness in chapter 29. Interestingly as
well, Zola materialises the Naturalist convention of characters trapped by pre-determined
circumstances in the person of Mme Raquin, who feels helpless at this new knowledge due to
her physical incapacity. In this sense, Mme Raquin has become a part of the hopelessness
growing ever pervasive towards the end of the novel. Whilst previously she lived ignorantly
blissful, now she is just as vengeful, hateful, and sentimentally brutal as the two main
protagonists.
Despite her vegetative state, Mme does make one final attempt to reveal the true identity of
Camille’s murderers to the Thursday guests. Mustering all her energy, she is able to trace:
“Therese and Laurent . . . ” but is never allowed to complete as Grivet, consistently and
comically, ‘interprets’ what she really means to say. Amidst the frustrating and depressing
subject matter of these chapters, this scene stands out as one dripping with dark humour and
dramatic irony. Eventually, the Thursday guests take it to mean: “Therese and Laurent are
taking good care of me”, the complete opposite of what Mme Raquin and readers know she
intended. This incident also serves to highlight the imbecilic and idiotic nature of the
Thursday guests, not just to readers, but also to Mme Raquin herself. Whilst previously it was
only Therese who despised them, Mme now realizes just what shallow and annoying persons
comprise her Thursday evening coterie.
If chapters 21 to 25 are concerned more with the effects on temperament of the doomed
marriage and the hallucinations suffered by Therese and Laurent, these subsequent chapters
instead trace the descent into amplified rancour, violence, and brutality within their
relationship. Faced with the daily agony of their marriage, whatever semblance of their love
remained turns to hatred and anger at the way in which their crime has ruined their lives.
Their daily arguments involve throwing the ghost of Camille at each other, denying their own
parts in the crime (with little success), and eventually ending with bull blows and savagery.
Joshua Fung
Even more distorted and perverse is the notion that for them, these fights are a kind of
sleeping pill which allows them to combat insomnia and reach a state of rest at night.
Meanwhile, Mme Raquin, for her part, derives her only existential pleasure from watching
her dear children brutalize each other, comprehensively situating her within the violence of
the narrative where previously she was without.
This cycle of bouts of denial is broken in chapter 29 when Therese adopts a new tact. Her
overstretched nerves snapping, she turns to large displays of remorse and regret to chase
away the ghost of Camille, employing Mme Raquin as the ‘prayer-stool’ of her pardon. There
is a subtle commentary on the religious doctrines of repentance and forgiveness in this
chapter, though the overarching sentiment is that of Therese’s hypocrisy. These cleansing
rituals are not so much the product of true guilt but rather a temperamental reaction motivated
by a self-serving desire for forgiveness. This annoys Laurent as he begins to fear that Therese
will really be forgiven by Camille, leaving him the ghost’s only target. This annoyance is
furthered by Therese’s praises for Camille and bold claims that not only has she been
forgiven, but also that: ‘Camille loved me and I loved him.’ Therese’s sadomasochistic
pleasure at being struck by Laurent, and Mme Raquin’s ‘exquisite sense of pleasure’ at
witnessing this domestic violence was shocking then, and remains startling now. Yet, it
serves to communicate the dominant note of these chapters – useless motion and inescapable
paralysis. Though Therese and Laurent are violently dynamic, it neither progresses the novel
nor regresses it, maintaining it at an equilibrium of brutal violence which makes for
intentionally unpleasant and frustrating reading. By the end, so cyclic and repetitive are their
arguments that: ‘All their rows would end in blows’, Laurent eventually getting the brainbursting impression that he is Camille.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 26







“She was useful only in preventing them from having to endure each other’s
company; she had no right to live by herself.”
“Friends of the family could not praise the goodness of Therese and Laurent too
highly.”
“What was going on in this unfortunate being who was just enough alive to
observe life without taking part in it?”
“Her feelings were like those of a man . . . buried alive: gagged by the fetters of
his own flesh, he hears the dull thud of spadefuls of sand above his head.”
“For more than sixty years, God had deceived her”
“reality of life as it was, mired in a bloody slough of passion . . . denying love,
denying friendship, denying charity. Nothing existed except murder and lust.”
“When the transformation was complete, there was darkness inside her.”
Chapter 27


“considering her aunt’s hand, pale beneath the harsh light of the lamp, as a
vengeful hand about to speak.”
“They were staring at the vengeful hand with anxious eyes, when, suddenly, the
hand was seized with a convulsion and dropped flat on the table.”
Joshua Fung

“The guests started to praise the young couple who were being so kind to the old
lady.”
Chapter 28







“Each was the cause of the other’s suffering. So, gradually, hatred rose up inside
them”
“In the nervous agitation of their crime, love had become hatred.”
“They were angry at their crime and in despair at having for ever ruined their
lives.”
“They would have relished their crime. But their bodies had rebelled, rejecting
the union between them”
“Their whole beings were ready for violence . . . Their arguments became a kind
of drug for them, as a means of reaching sleep by draining their nerves.”
“they would protest their innocence and attempt to deceive themselves”
“A bright spark of joy glowed in her eyes when Laurent raised his broad hand
against Therese’s head.”
Chapter 29










“Her overstretched nerves snapped . . . she relapsed into pity, tears and regrets,
hoping that these would bring her some relief.”
“Therese humbled herself, smote her breasts and spoke words of repentance,
without having anything more in the depths of her heart but fear and
cowardice.”
“She subjected the paralysed woman to daily use, making her a kind of prayerstool, a piece of furniture before which she could confess her sins and ask for
pardon.”
“The paralysed woman could perceive the egotism behind these outpourings of
pain.”
“This is how she became the plaything of Camille’s murderers, a doll whom they
dressed . . . and used according to their needs and whims.”
“To put the final touch to his annoyance, Therese would start singing Camille’s
praises”
“Camille loved me and I loved him.”
“She experienced a fierce, bitter pleasure at being struck . . . she would sleep
better at night when she had been well beaten in the evening.”
“he came to think that he was Camille; he identified with his victim.”
“All their rows would end in blows.”
Joshua Fung
Chapters 30 – 32
Summary and analysis:
The structure of Therese Raquin is such that there is very little denouement. The narrative
action ends with such an increasing escalation of hostilities between the remaining three
protagonists that Zola claims ‘this state of war’ must end – concluding as it were with the
double suicide of Therese and Laurent in the final sentences of the novel. By this point, both
had tried everything to overcome their doomed circumstances, and fulfil their desires. They
have murdered Camille, gotten married, denied their responsibility in the drowning, repented,
and turned to vice, all to no avail. The final one, detailed in chapter 31 is another one of many
ironies in the novel – that Laurent and Therese, finally able to indulge in a relatively
independent existence and satisfy their animal desires, find no joy in doing so. For these two
characters, opportunity and temperament have never lined up to allow them the
accomplishment of their desires – Therese Raquin then being a narrative of tragically
thwarted desire.
Chapter 30 opens with a final effort of resistance from Mme Raquin. Unable to bear the
torment of her existence any longer, she attempts to commit suicide herself, only to decide
that she will find greater pleasure in bearing witness to the inevitable disaster between
Therese and Laurent. This schadenfreude within a character portrayed as almost cherubic
throughout most of the novel is an indicator of how much the lives of the protagonists have
deteriorated and regressed. Yet, Zola is keen to remind readers in these final chapters that
despite the massive changes in their circumstance, their physical surrounding remains the
same dingy, dark, and depressing arcade as the start of the novel. Despite all of Therese’s
attempts to escape the monotony of her existence, she ends up right where she has started, in
the same haberdashery, with the company of the same gaggle of Thursday buffoons. Any
thought of escaping the Passage du Pont-Neuf where the ‘damp and dirt seemed to have been
designed especially for their desolate existence’ is silenced by fear and cowardice, the
protagonists increasingly characterized by fear and paranoia of having their crimes
uncovered. This marks a further decline in their relationship. For whilst previously they had
been at least able to scheme and manipulate in unison; now, they are alone in this world,
instead scheming against each other.
Therese and Laurent’s final attempt to free themselves is to pursue a life of earthly pleasures.
Laurent, suspicious of Therese’s movements, is relieved at the thought that she is only
prostituting herself along the cafes that line the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. Witnessing this, he
is once more merry, demanding 5,000 francs from Therese which he at once squanders on a
riotous existence. Nevertheless, both eventually are drawn back to the dirty and semiabandoned haberdashery, wearied but not rescued by their hedonistic existence, and
increasingly contemplating the paradoxical solution of murder as a solution to murder.
Following the ‘best’ dominoes night at the Raquin household, Therese and Laurent
manoeuvre to murder each other only to realize their mutual intentions. Cracking under years
of agony, they each drink half a glass of poisoned sugar water, collapsing into a final embrace
in death. There are certainly elements of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in this tragic
conclusion to the novel. Yet, a final irony is that in death, they appear to have fulfilled all
they pursued in life. Recoiling at the touch of each other’s skin while alive, they now readily
embrace each other, ‘weak as children’; while Therese resisted granting Laurent’s neck a
Joshua Fung
legitimate kiss in life, he now receives it willingly in death. Zola’s diction is telling: Therese
is once more the young woman of chapter 1 and Laurent is her rightful husband, with Camille
holding no more power on them. All this is taken in by Mme Raquin, who takes delight in
this final scene. All loose ends are mostly wrapped up, and Zola provides a fitting end to a
brutal novel.
Key Quotes:
Chapter 30







“To sleep properly the sleep of death, she had to lapse into insensibility feeling
the sharp joy of revenge . . . a dream of hatred satisfied, one that she would
dream throughout eternity.”
“They were obstinate in their hatred and cruelty.”
“So they stayed, out of cowardice; they stayed and grovelled in the horror of
their existence.”
“She let him kick her almost to death and the next day she had a miscarriage.”
“Laziness, the animal existence that he had dreamed of, was his punishment.”
“His worst suffering, one that was both mental and physical, came from the bite
that Camille had inflicted on his neck.” Its “sharp pricking . . . never failed to
terrify him” and Laurent regarded it as a “living wound . . . which would awake,
redden and gnaw at the slightest hint of anxiety” , “some creature”, or “alien
flesh”. It was “the living, devouring memory of his crime everywhere with him.”
“He told himself that the cat . . . would denounce him some day if he were ever to
speak.”
Chapter 31







“Without waiting any longer, he set off calmly, happy and reassured.”
“All he managed to do was to make himself more depressed . . . he found nothing
in his intoxication but melancholy and sadness.”
“His being had cooled . . . food and kisses only irritated him.”
“Vice was not doing her any more good than the pretence of remorse.”
“Mistrust was added to hatred and this mistrust finally drove them mad. They
were afraid of one another.”
“This state of war could not go on for much longer”
“They felt an imperious need to kill one another and obeyed this need like wild
animals.”
Chapter 32



“Olivier would commonly remark . . . that the dining room had a ‘whiff of
honesty’ about it. Grivet, not to be outdone, called it the Temple of Peace.”
“They understood . . . As they mutually read their secret plans on their
devastated faces, they felt pity and horror for themselves and each other.”
“A supreme crisis overwhelmed them and drove them into each other’s arms, as
weak as children. They felt as though something soft and loving had awoken in
their breasts.”
Joshua Fung


“It was like a shaft of lightning. They fell, one on top of the other, struck down,
finding consolation at last in death. The young woman’s mouth fell against the
scar on her husband’s neck left by Camille’s teeth.”
“Mme Raquin, silent and unmoving, stared at them . . . crushing them with her
merciless gaze.”