Trier, Universiẗat, Diss., 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2010 Jun 1.

Cette thèse de doctorat porte sur l’analyse du thème de l’animalité et de la bestialité dans L’Homme qui tue d’Hector France, roman écrit en 1878 et La Bête humaine d’Émile Zola, roman qui date de 1890. Ces œuvres constituent deux regards croisés sur la France, l’un sur un pays vu de l’intérieur et l’autre sur un pays diagnostiqué à la lumière de sa politique coloniale. L’enjeu est de mettre en relief jusqu’à quel point ces deux œuvres contemporaines l’une de l’autre, à la fois se répondent mutuellement et se séparent inéluctablement. Dans leurs parcours, dans leurs positions politiques et idéologiques, dans leurs rapports à la France, dans leurs modes d’intervention dans l’actualité brûlante de l’époque, tout sépare France et Zola. Mais à force de creuser dans les différences, des ressemblances peuvent surgir. Au-delà de la parenté thématique de leurs œuvres dans le récit qu’elles font de la condition humaine à l’aune de l’animalité et de la bestialité, des accointances qui se tissent, de près ou de loin, entre les figures auxquelles donne lieu la métaphore de la bête humaine, des destinées similaires sinon identiques de certains personnages, les écarts sont si importants pour oser les occulter par un simple recensement de motifs, de thèmes et de mythes communs aux deux auteurs. Ce sont ces écarts qui sont extrêmement précieux. Plus les disparités se distendent entre les deux écrivains, plus les motivations de ce rapprochement deviennent plus justifiées et plus fécondes. Lire Zola et France l’un par rapport à l’autre, et éventuellement l’un contre l’autre, c’est repenser une partie importante de la carte littéraire de la deuxième moitié du XIXe. Cette redéfinition passe par la nécessité de mettre face à face le centre et la périphérie, le blason et son ombre, le monument et son fantôme / The present doctoral thesis aims at the analysis of the theme of animality and bestiality in Hector France’s The Man who Kills (L’Homme qui tue), a novel written in 1878 and Emile Zola’s The Human Beast (La Bête Humaine) which dates around 1890. These two works represent two crossed visions on France, one on a country viewed from outside and the other on a state diagnosed in the light of its colonial politics. The purpose is to highlight the extent to which these two contemporaneous works at once mutually respond to and yet inescapably break off from each other. In their plots, in their political and ideological positions, their relationships to France, their modes of intervention in the blazing events of the time, everything separates France from Zola. However, digging deep into the differences, certain similarities can come up to the surface. Beyond the thematic link between their works that belies the narration they make of the human condition to either animality or bestiality, the more or less interwoven acquaintances, between the figures resulting from the metaphor of the human beast, or the similar if not identical destinies of certain characters, the gaps are too important to be overshadowed by a mere inventory of motifs, themes, and myths common to both writers. It is these very gaps which are extremely genuine. The more the disparities widen up between the writers, the more the motivations of this merging become more justified and fruitful. To read Zola and France in relation to each other, and eventually the one against the other, is to re-think over an important part of the literary map of the second half of the nineteenth century. This redefinition follows from the necessity of bringing face to face the centre and the periphery, the blazon and its shadow, the monument and its phantom

<p>An analysis of Zolas Nana focusing on male desire. Through a study of the narrtive structure and the polemic relation between the concepts of “Nature” and “Culture” it is shown that opposing ideologies are imbedded in the text. Nana is a symbolic character, in large, a myth created by male desire that eventually becomes a manifestation of that desire. At the same time, however, the character Nana evolves from being a mirrored image of male desire into a more stable and real individual and this process is also an answer to when and why she dies,underlining the fact that she initially was a creation emanating from male desire and in losing those symbolic functions she loses her function in the novel.</p>

An analysis of Zolas Nana focusing on male desire. Through a study of the narrtive structure and the polemic relation between the concepts of “Nature” and “Culture” it is shown that opposing ideologies are imbedded in the text. Nana is a symbolic character, in large, a myth created by male desire that eventually becomes a manifestation of that desire. At the same time, however, the character Nana evolves from being a mirrored image of male desire into a more stable and real individual and this process is also an answer to when and why she dies,underlining the fact that she initially was a creation emanating from male desire and in losing those symbolic functions she loses her function in the novel.

Univ., Diss. u.d.T.: Spieker, Annika: Der photographische Blick bei Emile Zola--Freiburg im Breisgau, 2006. / Literaturverz. S. 249 - 255.

abstract: ABSTRACT Emile Zola is considered one of the fathers of 19th century French Naturalist literature. He is famous for his eloquence, sarcasm and is well known for being a provocateur. He wants to follow the principles of science: observation of his characters in their living environment (or milieu). He holds that individuals inherit physical and personality traits from their ancestors, such as atavism, which can be passed from grandfather to father and father to son. This assumption leads to Social Darwinism and impacted Zola like many other European intellectuals who believed in the new social sciences. Religion was going extinct on the old continent and the trend was to apply these theories to literature and humanities. The author also captures the political and social unrest of a struggling working class in his novel Germinal, where starving miners rebel against the bourgeois class that exploits them. Baldomero Lillo is a Chilean naturalist follower of Emile Zola who found inspiration in Germinal to write Sub Terra-short stories depicting the grim life of the coal miners. The author knows them well since he shared his existence with the miners in Lota, in the southern region of Santiago. Unlike Zola, Lillo, who was less educated and less inclined to trust science, opts for a compassionate Naturalism which relates more to his culture and personal inclinations. Le milieu or el medio ambiente in the Sub Terra stories is dreadful and the author seeks to expose the master/slave relationship in a society that still resembles the European Middle Ages. Le milieu, that is to say the external forces that surround the miners (their geographical, social and political environment), eventually engulfs and condemns them to a life of servitude and misery. Determinism on both continents decides the fate of each member of the society. &#8195; / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. French 2012

No description available.

It is my purpose in this thesis to show any influence that Emile Zola's Naturalism had on the novels of Blasco Ibáñez.. Because the novels of the Spanish author contain many suggestions of the Zolaesque theory of Naturalism, many literary critics have assumed that he did obtain much of his inspiration from this source; they have even called him the "Spanish Zola." I shall try to determine how much he imitated Zola's Naturalism, and to show to what extent it is correct to call him the "Spanish Zola."

This thesis argues for the cultural space of late nineteenth-century Parisian shopgirls as a position of power. The shopgirls' role in society is an ambiguous position connecting fashion consumer culture, class divides, gender and identity perceptions, and the workspace. Using James Tissot's Femme à Paris series, specifically the image Demoiselles de Magasin, and Emile Zola's novel Au Bonheur des Dames as primary sources, I examine the role of the shopgirl as a liminal position within the definition of the iconic 'La Parisienne' woman. By looking at women's work and the role of shopgirls in the boutique and department store world of fashion and consumerism, we can see how shopgirls' unique position gives historical significance to this kind of work. By looking at painting and literature as primary media, we can see how pervasive the shopgirl and La Parisienne imagery really at this time. Using a feminist approach, this thesis shows how the shopgirl occupies a particular social space for women in nineteenth-century France, perhaps even a somewhat influential position in Parisian culture, as she is a primary facilitator in the fashion world for transmitting 'taste'— a marketable branding tool of French fashion that permeates the iconic ideals of French fashion.