Tales Of The New Babylon

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Marx emphasised that its "great social measure…was its own existence."
In this essay I will discuss La Débâcle, and Zola’s apparent lecturing tone. For while Zola exposed many social sores he had never previously attempted to put forward ideas for healing them. I will discuss how Zola felt that it was not the Prussians who brought down the Second Empire, but the corrupt society of France, and its epicentre, Paris. This will bring me onto the Paris Commune, where I will introduce Marx’s theories into the fold.
The research and documentation carried out in preparation for La Débâcle was immensely in depth, and although overburdened with the sheer weight of the documentary material, Zola took great care not to lose sight of the individual in the vast panorama. Conscious of the danger of having the two armies emerge as his heroes, he constructed the novel in such a way as to protect the individuality of several dozen characters through whose ...

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while Maurice is intelligent, egoistic, volatile and frivolous. When the two men establish a profound and unbreakable friendship, the symbolism is complete.


"Here, surely, was the spirit of brotherhood which had existed in the early days of the world…Maurice could here his own humanity in the sounds of Jean’s heartbeats."


The symbolism personified in Jean and Maurice continues through to the end of the novel. While the disparate qualities of the French character are welded together for the common good, all goes well. But when the intellectual, reckless Maurice escapes from Jean’s steadying influence, the parting is disastrous. Maurice joins the rebellious ...

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