On Zola's Germinal

Germinal by Émile Zola


My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Germinal is the one story that made me feel all emotion. It accounts the general unfairness of the world with the separation of people into classes—conventionally the bourgeoisie or the masters, and the serfs and the slaves--and details on the conflicts between them. It also suggests ways upon which such a system could be abolished—presenting many socialist theories, mainly anarchy. In the end, though the capitalists remained victor, since the poor had so much more to lose, the book still gives off a sort of optimism—as it is spring at the time, and hosts a rising tide of a force that would soon surely ‘crack the earth asunder’. The poor have stepped back for now, starved and beaten after dismal months of staging a strike and inciting havoc in the community and the papers, but they refuse to remain the oppressed, and would in the future surely be saved by [another] revolution (seen as the ‘real’ one).

Germinal was most certainly tragic, but one has a lot to learn from it. At one point I’d find myself shaking with mirth, and then with anger and rage the next. My heart went out to the characters, especially to Alzire, at whose death I found myself with tears. I pitied the miners and hated them the same and was especially exasperated by Etienne—oh I do blame him for all that misfortune! And I liked the personality of Maheude as she seemed logical most of the time. When she was seized by bloodlust and ran around like a madman, just as the others, I failed to find this aggravating (as surely I would have and did with the others)—I saw it as simply as the need to release the pent-up emotions that have stocked on for long; she just could not contain it any longer. Catherine only irked me, for her ‘inherited ideas of subordination and passive obedience’ was outlandish (the girls were generally this way, and ‘planted’ with babies even as kids themselves). She was always ready to submit to her man, Chaval, with the simple logic that she was his, as he was the first to claim her.

The poor:

People were, as they have for a long time, held in check by the strength of the hierarchy—the military system which held them down, from pit-boy to overman, by putting each in the power of another. This explains why the Gregoires, one of the owners of the Montsou Mining Company, remained passive and unruffled by the strike, the strikers having a provident fund (though it was a petty one at the time of the strikeand at less than three thousand francs, failed to hold for long) and them joining the International and running all around the province making sure the strike was made general, as they were sure that the old system would remain the same. ‘Oh, I’m sure there is no real malice in them. When they have had a good shout they’ll go home with a better appetite for supper!’ Leon Gregoire only commented even he was trapped in the Hennebeau’s alongside the others, with an enraged thousand scores of people protesting outside. And the bosses seemed to be held in high regard by the miners, even with their detestable situation. There generally are decent people in all walks of life (Maheude said in a discussion with Etienne), and this included the bosses. The bosses were charitable and almost paternal and their one failing was the refusal to see how capitalism was killing off men for generations. They were even held in awe for ‘which the managing director inspired in his ten thousand employees’.

‘I’m all for calmness, it’s the only way of getting along, but in the end they drive you mad.’ Maheu, incensed, had exclaimed. With the coming along of Etienne though, things seemed to change.

Etienne has not been formally educated and he kept his insecurities at bay with the acknowledgement of the need for study. He was a self-professed leader of the miners who he managed to make believe in their ability to overthrow the old system which has gone on for more than a century. ‘When you want everything at once, you end up with nothing’, Rasseneur, jealous of the former’s popularity, told him. It was unfortunate that Etienne was carried along with the perks of being a leader and started to see himself as more than the people he was surrounded with, and not just one of them. His leading of the miners to fighting back was tainted by his ambitions and the hunger to be looked up to (the organization International achieved not much for this very reason). Souvarine (the destructive freak responsible for the destruction of Le Voyeux and the death of Catherine and 13 more others) has proposed in a hypothesis that even after the old system gets abolished, traces of the old system would just carry on naturally, and there again would eventually be a distinction between the rich and the hardworking, and the poor and the lazy. He therefore proposes complete anarchy, a view which coincides with one of Monsieur Hennebeau’s, ‘nonexistence as a way to happiness’.

The man was seen as the master in the house. A woman who was already married at the beginning of the novel was named with the female version of her husband’s surname (In French, everything was either masculine or feminine. There was no such thing as an ‘it’—seen as neuter in English). Maheude, despite her own strong character and obviously important role in the novel, was expected to submit to her husband’s whims—she stood there assisting him even as he ate. She also was expected to produce miracles to continually feed the family, as the hard-earned pay from work hardly sufficed for a family of 10.

Most women were seen as tarts, and picked up their first babies even when they were children themselves (Catherine had her first intercourse before puberty). As for the lack of resources and money to involve themselves in any other than work and the hard job to keep alive, sex and gossip stood to be the only forms of entertainment. An established family was often a big one.

Children, at the age of eight, or nine or ten, were expected to bring back to the family that has provided for them in their first years as useless good-for-nothing infants. When Catherine had run off to work at Jean-Bart with Chaval, Maheu, her father, defeated, simply threw his arms up in resignation, was not new to children setting off early, leaving their parents destitute.

There was a sharp contrast between the way of living of the poor, and the rich: highlighted off by Zola in his comparing the Maheus and the Gregoires. While the Maheu toiled underground in risks of killing themselves, they were often hungry—as they earned less than what’s needed to keep decent meals. They were immersed in credit, at Maigrat’s. The Gregoires meanwhile had not the need for work and stayed at home with earnings of forty thousand francs per year. Monsieur Gregoire was sure that even with this Catherine’s children’s children would keep living in luxury.

It also seemed that most people were not extreme believers, and had no inkling for deep faith in god, especially the poor. They had started to lose hope and thought that god was no more. Maheude exclaimed, ‘Surely we are finished!’ The proposition of a happier life in the next world was only laughed at.

Summing it up, Germinal was a great book--one to learn many things from. Although it almost drove me mad (I often found myself wanting to just rip and tear off the pages), it is one that I recommend that everyone should read. At times crude, moving, and always astonishing, it's a crucial eye-opener.






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