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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 7 page essay that discusses how Emile Zola expects the reader to perceive the character if his heroine in Nana. The writer argues that Nana is Emile Zola's expose of the decadence of France's late Second Empire period and that it may seem, at first glance, to be a nineteenth century version of Sex in the City, as his heroine is rapacious, a sexually amoral creature who is the inevitable result of a family that was ravaged by alcoholism and abuse. The context of the novel makes it clear that Zola portrays Nana as an indictment against late nineteenth century French society and the societal structures that spawned and shaped her to be an archetypal destructive force for evil rather than an actual person. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khnana.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
His heroine is rapacious, a sexually amoral creature who is the inevitable result of a family that was ravaged by alcoholism and abuse. As this suggests, Zola pictures Nana as
the natural product of the worst slums of the city, as her childhood has already been presented in a previous work, LAssommoir. Nana takes lovers as she wishes, lives
as she wishes, and is intent on living life on her own terms. While this may sound as if Zola was picturing an emancipated "modern" woman, the context of the
novel makes it clear that this is not the intention that Zola, as a nineteenth century author, had in mind. Rather, than presenting Nana as a role model for women,
she is presented as an indictment against late nineteenth century French society and the societal structures that spawned and shaped her to be something of an archetypal destructive force for
evil rather than an actual person, complete with sympathies, empathy and even occasional flashes of conscience. Nana captivates men due to her beauty, but Zola makes it clear that
she has no other positive quality other than her beauty. She is ignorant, stupid, greedy, and capricious. Zola pictures her ruining the fortunes of several men with frivolous demands
for gifts, which, having been received, fail to hold her interest. Zola also paints an unsympathetic picture of the men whom Nana uses, wringing money from them and then discarding
them so like so much used tissue. The men are, generally, hedonistic hypocrites who seem to be as oblivious as Nana to the mental and physical consequences of their actions,
and the corrupting nature of the pleasures that they so readily seek. The book opens by picturing Fauchery, a drama critic, waiting to see play in Paris, entitled "The
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