Essay Questions

Why was this considered to be a temperance novel?

The temperance movement was essentially against the consumption of alcohol, believing that it was indeed the "demon drink" and that it led to the disintegration of one's life, morality, and humanity. There is much in this novel to substantiate the group's claims. Coupeau is a loving, responsible and hard-working man before his accident; when he is recuperating and unable to do very much, he turns to drink to assuage his depression. This is the moment in which his life begins to disintegrate.

Abuse of alcohol leads him to become idle. This means that he loses the ability to work hard for a living, to support his family and to earn the respect of his wife and daughter.

He becomes argumentative, and subsequently abusive. This causes the lives of his wife and daughter to unravel as well. His daughter runs away from home and becomes a prostitute, whilst his wife loses her money, becomes idle and drinks herself to death. It would be difficult to put forward a positive case for alcohol in the light of the events in the book, which is why it was considered at the time of publication to be a temperance novel, although Zola himself denied this, claiming the book was about a great many things, not just the negative effects of alcohol.

In what ways is this a novel about society and class?

Gervaise is a hard-working and high-achieving woman who has managed to make a great success of her life, opening the laundry she has dreamed of opening since she was a little girl, and making a great success out of it. Yet, she still feels that her neighbors look down on her for being working class, despite her financial stability She is not wrong in this assumption; they view her with great disdain, and do not feel that she is as good as they are.

Trying to bridge the class divide, Gervaise spends more and more of her money on lavish entertaining, attempting to impress the neighbors and show them that she has just as much money as they do; however, this does not achieve her goal, and in fact merely drains her resources. The novel strives to show that the working classes cannot travel through society in the same way the middle classes, despite their financial achievements or business acumen. Gervaise and Coupeau were born working class and will die working class, no matter what occurs in the course of their life to change their fortunes. When Gervaise dies alone in the house and is undiscovered for several days, the neighbors even view that with disdain.