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-19th 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 19th 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.
