When a woman had a drunkard for a husband, a pig who lived in filth, that woman was to be excused if she sought for cleanliness elsewhere.
Zola’s novel was not exactly greeted with zealous affection by the public. Accustomed to the heavily abridged version of the reality of the underclass presented in popular romantic fiction of the day, Zola’s brutally honest naturalism was quite a shocking change. Today it would be defined as “edgy.” For wealthier readers who could relax in their ignorance that though millions might be poor at least they were happy, Zola’s novel was a like a slap across the face with hand dipped in ice. As for the underclass themselves, the story’s constant metaphorical comparisons of their conditions with animals was not exactly a welcome reminder.
The street was filled with a noisy racket. Exhaust pipes on roofs puffed out violent jets of steam; an automatic sawmill added a rhythmic screeching; a button factory shook the ground with the rumbling of its machines. She was looking up toward the Montmartre height, hesitant, uncertain whether to continue, when a gust of wind blew down a mass of sooty smoke that covered the entire street.
The imagery here described the factory district upon the first arrival of Gervaise reveals illuminates the author’s realism while also manifesting as expressionism. The cacophony of noises coming from within the darkness of the non-stop pumping of black smoke into the air not only situates the reality of the working class life, but also brings it to symbolic life with its hellish implications.
Gervaise…suddenly experienced the sensation of something more unpleasant still behind her back. She turned round and beheld the still, the machine which manufactured drunkards, working away beneath the glass roof of the narrow courtyard with the profound trepidation of its hellish cookery. Of an evening, the copper parts looked more mournful than ever, lit up only on their rounded surface with one big red glint; and the shadow of the apparatus on the wall at the back formed most abominable figures, bodies with tails, monsters opening their jaws as though to swallow everyone up.
The title of the novel refers to a popular drinking establishment. Zola does not shy away from showing the complex but inevitable connection between poverty and alcohol. In this passage, that connection is personified in a terrifying way in which the still inside L’Assommoir reveals its true monstrous identity to Gervaise. It is not mere moral-mongering; Gervaise is given a reason for holding a perspective at odds with the drinkers who cannot see the still for what it is. Remember the excuse given for a woman to search for cleanliness away from home.
Overeating and dissoluteness killed her, according to the Lorilleux. One morning, as there was a bad smell in the passage, it was remembered that she had not been seen for two days, and she was discovered already green in her hole.
Emile Zola is one of the authors at the vanguard of a movement which transformed the literary tastes of the world. Romantic fiction had dominated the novel since its inception and popular short stories were also fanciful tales that made no attempt to portray the reality of life. Realism and naturalism would not become the dominant tone of fiction until after the turn of the century so in 1877 when this novel was published there still existed quite a substantial resistance to realistic depictions of death in particular. In this description of the death of a character (no spoilers) Zola really pushes the limits of what his audience can or would take. This is a depiction of death emptied of every last element of sentiment and caution which defined such scenes in romantic fiction.
