The Earth by Émile Zola (Book Analysis)

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of The Earth by Émile Zola. It provides a thorough exploration of the novel’s plot, characters and main themes, including land, class and property. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 52-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of Émile Zola
• Presentation of The Earth
• Summary of The Earth
• Character study
  • Jean Macquart
  • Françoise
  • The Buteaus
  • The Fouan family
• Analysis of The Earth
  • Naturalism
  • The myth of the earth
  • A depiction of the peasant world

About The Earth

The Earth is the 15^th novel in Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart cycle. It paints a strikingly detailed portrait of small-town life in rural France, and refuses to shy away from the less pleasant aspects of peasant life – particularly with regard to the lengths that the characters are prepared to go to in order to preserve their connection to the land. Indeed, it is generally considered to be Zola’s most graphically violent novel, and the publisher of the first English translation was even prosecuted for obscenity in 1888.

About Émile Zola

The novelist and journalist Émile Zola was one of the most celebrated writers of 19^th century France. He was the leading figure of the literary school of naturalism, which drew on the scientific advances of the time and sought to explain human behaviour through meticulous observation. He is best known for Les Rougon-Macquart, an ambitious cycle of 20 novels which tells the story of one extended family under the Second French Empire and which illustrates his approach to literature.

Zola was also an influential social thinker: he vocally condemned the Dreyfus affair, and his famous article J’accuse played a major role in the eventual exoneration of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus.