Analysis Of Emile Zola s The Kill - 1827 Words

Émile Zola was a French writer, born in Paris the 2nd of April, 1840 and died the 29th of September, 1902. He was considered the father and the leading representative of Naturalism. Zola is remembered not only as the founder and theorist of Naturalism, but as a vigorous narrator of the social and political environment of his times. The Kill (1871) is a novel belonging to the saga Les Rougon-Macquart, a combination of 20 novels written between 1871 and 1893. All of these novels describe how the Second French Empire of Napoleon III was. There were a series of renovations experienced by Paris from 1852 to 1870 and carried out by the emperor and Haussmann. It is a sensationalist novel, with two relevant themes: sex and money. In this essay, I am going to explain these three terms with examples and quotations extracted directly from the book. 2. Historical Framework The Kill is an excellent novel of Zola. It perfectly describes the luxury environment and the showiness of the Parisian bourgeoisie during the time of Napoleon III. This novel takes place in Paris, at a time in which there was a strong development of transport; Paris was overbuilt; railway was carried out; and, there was a powerful economic prosperity. Also, banking network increased and a free-trade pact with England in 1860 was signed, which promoted international trade. In The Kill, the protagonist, Aristide Saccard, is an unscrupulous speculator taking advantages of his friends and acquaintances to get a vastShow MoreRelatedPlato s Allegory Of The Cave2058 Words   |  9 Pagessuccessfully because it conveyed well what was the central ambition of the new generation of painters, namely to capture on canvas how a person or object actually, and fleetingly, strikes the eye and not how we think it ought to look or â€Å"really† is.† (Zola, p. xii) The new generation of artists, those in association with the Batignolles group, many of whom later became famous Impressionist painters, adopted the characteristic features of this modern Parisian, of which were: objectivity and a devotion