Lust and Violence in Emile Zola’s "Thérèse Raquin"

Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin is significantly different in tone and content from my book club’s previous selection (Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin). The latter was based mainly on feudalist-era courtship rituals and the joys and disappointments of love, whereas the former revolves around an adulterous affair, a brutal murder, and an unsettling exposure of humans’ animal nature. More broadly, the text aims to show the potential for, and associations between, lust and violence which people are susceptible to given the right circumstances. Zola aims to present and analyze this aspect of human nature in a strictly scientific not moralistic manner, or in his own words “the way a surgeon approaches the patient on the operating table”. In this the book falls short; despite Zola’s attempt to be a scientific investigator of humans’ dark side, the book oozes religious metaphors and moral lessons throughout. Nonetheless, he does succeed in providing the reader with a gripping narrative full of unexpected twists which make the text quite the page-turner. This quality, plus the relatively simple plot and short length (about 200 pages), ensured the relative ease of finishing the book (some readers may even get to the end in one sitting).

The story takes place in mid-19^th century France, and Thérèse Raquin is the main character. She is half-French and half-Arab, the offspring of a French officer and an Algerian woman who met and copulated in one of the Empire’s North African colonies. Both her parents die when Therese is a toddler.  She must therefore go and live with her aunt Mme Raquin and the latter’s son (and Thérèse’s first cousin) Camille, a sickly and egoistical child smothered with love and devotion by his mother. Despite Camille’s unhealthy disposition and vulnerability, he and Mme Raquin live a cloistered life of bourgeoisie comfort and serenity, characterized with simplicity, tedium, repetition, and monotony. Thérèse’s nature is not suitable for this existence; she needs adventure, nature, excitement, exploration, danger, movement, risk, and passion. But economic necessity means that her needs, which are felt at the primal and visceral level, are unmet, causing untold misery and rage which she suffers in silence. Despite the immense inner anguish and turmoil, Thérèse is docile and therefore obeys the rules of the household.

As a young adult her fate takes a turn for the worse when Mme Raquin decides that Camille and Thérèse, first-cousins who were raised as siblings, should become husband and wife (in the 19^th century it was common practise for first cousins to marry). Like so many other events in the book, the scheme is born from selfish and ignoble motives: Mme Raquin fears for Camille’s well-being after she dies, and is desperate to ensure his needs will be met when she can no longer care for him. Thérèse would be perfect because, Mme Raquin believed, she and Camille grew up together and she actively helped tending to the needs of sickly young boy. What could possibly go wrong? It was right for Camille and God would ensure the rest. The reader, of course, can see the folly of Mme Raquin’s decision, since they were wholly unsuitable as lovers. Thérèse felt no attraction towards the sick, soft, sensitive, and puny Camille, while he felt little desire beyond those of the simple and monotonous activities of the petit bourgeoisie: work, reading, sleeping and eating. And even if there hypothetically existed some small degree of suitability between them, Camille still did not make a desirable partner because he was what today we would call “a spoiled brat”. His mother’s smothering love and devotion to his every need meant that he never really developed the independence of spirit and emotional maturity which are essential to healthy and fulfilling romance.

This unfortunate context sets the stage for the main event of the book. During the first year of their loveless and monotonous marriage, Laurent, Camille’s old friend, enters the picture. Laurent is, at least physically, what we might call an alpha-male: tall, muscular, confident, healthy, and aggressive, in other words, everything that Camille is not. He is a frequent visitor to the Raquin household, and is well liked by the entire family. Mme Raquin develops a motherly affection for Laurent and Camille enjoys his company. Meanwhile, Thérèse (unsurprisingly) develops an animal lust for him. Given Thérèse’s passionate nature and unhappy marriage, there is a sense of inevitability to her feelings. As a docile and inexperienced female, she cannot act on them, but when Laurent decides to initiate the affair by brutally and aggressively kissing her, she cannot resist and surrenders entirely to her desire. After one of their love-making sessions, Thérèse tells Laurent:

I used to wait for you to come, and I would walk around your chair so I could pick up your breath and rub my clothes against yours. It was as though your blood was sending waves of heat towards me as I went by, and this sort of burning mist that wrapped around you drew me and kept me beside you, much as I tried, inside me, to break away….”

With this affair, Thérèse finally found an escape from the emotionally stifling confines of her existence. But, as often happens, unintended consequences occur. What began as a passionate affair becomes a maddening and obsessive love which induces desperation about the unsustainability of their situation. They want to live together as husband and wife so that they can fully enjoy each other, but Camille stands in the way. And this is where their animal lust transforms into the equally animal-like desire to kill the obstacle to the fulfillment of their desire. Laurent, as the stronger and more conniving party, develops a scheme to make it look like an accident, and takes the lead in executing the plan. The three of them go on a boat ride, and Laurent pushes Camille off the boat knowing that the latter cannot swim and will surely drown, while Thérèse looks on, distraught but fully acquiescing to the crime. When they return to the shore, they convince the authorities, friends, and crucially Mme Raquin that it was a horrible accident, and that Laurent even tried to save Camille. This deception allows them to proceed with their usual lives— Thérèse as Mme Raquin’s adopted daughter, and Laurent as the well-liked family friend and frequent visitor. In order to allay any suspicion, they decide to wait at least 18 months before marrying, and Laurent’s clever shenanigans ensure that the engagement seems natural and beneficial for all involved, especially Mme Raquin who will be able to live out her final years surrounded, and tended to, by her loved ones.

But then comes another unexpected twist: the murder seems to have calmed their sexual lust for one another. In fact the beastly, overwhelming, and obsessive sexual desire dissipates entirely. Without it, the whole point of the murder is meaningless; they killed Camille so that they could satisfy the uncontrolled need to fully give themselves to one other. They are unable to unravel their plans to elope, and after eighteen months, they proceed with the marriage hoping that the lull in their lust is temporary and that it will fully return in the marriage bed. They could not have been more wrong; after the officiation of marriage, rather than marital bliss, they experience a descent into unspeakable misery and madness. Camille’s ghost, metaphorically as it were, enters the marriage bed and creates an invisible but insurmountable barrier between them. A lack of desire soon turns to mutual loathing, hatred, and disgust, forcing them to recognize not only the pointless of the crime, but, particularly for Thérèse, its sinfulness. And this is where the religiosity and moralism of the story become unambiguous.

In the introduction, I mentioned Emile Zola’s stated aim in writing Thérèse Raquin, namely to analyze the dark side of human nature using the approach of the scientist rather than the moralist. He only partially succeeds in this endeavour, especially in the section on the animal like attraction between Thérèse and Laurent. She was an attractive and passionate young female in a deeply unsatisfying marriage to her sickly first cousin, while he was an available and willing alpha-male. The strong chemistry seemed to be beyond their will to resist, and when they finally sleep together it induces a maddening obsession for more, leading to unrealistic expectations of eternal bliss. The association between this animal-type lust, obsessive physical desire, and the potential for violence, also is amply accounted for in human affairs, and Zola does an excellent job in elucidating the underlying psychological mechanisms that drive these tendencies. But one cannot ignore the moral lessons in the text that have little to do with science. The most obvious is the consequence of the crime, especially the deep sense of regret and descent into madness, the continual presence of Camille’s ghost, and the very religious belief that following one’s primal needs, rather than tradition or some abstract moral rule, leads to disaster.

Other non-scientific aspects of the book emerge when Thérèse and Laurent make various attempts to escape their despair. Laurent rediscovers painting and finds that he is actually talented, and yet to his horror he also finds that all his works are unconsciously and involuntarily producing images that resemble Camille, which only increases his insanity. Both Laurent and Thérèse also turn to adultery and to drink, and both find that it only provides a temporary reprieve. The religious implication could not be more obvious: they could not escape from the reality of their crime because the immorality of it is woven into the very fabric of reality. Therefore, there was no escaping it except through death, and death would occur in one of three ways. Either they confess and face the guillotine, murder each other, or commit suicide. The first path required the courage to face the truth, confess, repent, and leave the rest in God’s hands. But both are full of fear, and in one last desperate and futile attempt to escape reality, they secretly, and with almost perfect synchronicity, decide to murder each other.  Their plots are discovered simultaneously, at the moment before the dirty deed was supposed to take place, foiling their plans. Rather than face the full horror of their crime and its consequences, they commit suicide together.  

As in all classical tragedies, there is a sense of inevitability in this final act of desperation. It was ultimately the outcome of circumstances that each had little control over, namely Thérèse’s unhappy marriage and monotonous bourgeoisie life, the animal-like chemistry between her and Laurent, and her consequent inability to resist his advance. When this turns into an all-consuming and obsessive love, Camille is the obstacle to its fulfillment and becomes the object of murderous hatred. If humans were only animals, there would be little reason to presume that the crime would represent an obstacle to their wishes. Nature, after all, is indifferent to the killing sexual rivals. But the book suggests otherwise; in the realm of human affairs, morality is inscribed in the very fabric of nature, which means that ultimately they could not escape their immoral conduct. Keeping it secret, or trying to escape the consequences with alcohol and sex, only made things worse. The only solution to their immoral conduct, then, was to reveal the truth and face the consequences with honesty and courage, while the alternative was an ignominious death. A fire and brimstone priest could not have expressed it better.