"Trap" by E. Zola: description, summary, reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Emile Zola's book "The Trap" made a lot of noise during the first publications. Some called it pornography, others admired the courage and frankness of the story. Even today, the work causes a lot of controversy about its value and super-task. Further in the article - interesting information about Zola's book "The Trap" and a summary.

About the book

Zola's novel "The Trap" is the seventh work in a huge twenty-volume cycle called "Rougon-Macquart". The first publication of The Trap took place in 1877. It was with this book that the period of loud, widespread and extremely scandalous fame of the writer began. He was scolded and deified, asked to be banned and the novel was replicated in volumes unprecedented for that time. About thirty times the book was published in the shortest period after publication, and it was also the first novel by Zola, translated into several foreign languages \u200b\u200bat once. The reason for the popularity was an unprecedented naturalism for its time, revealing all the ins and outsthe life of the French proletariat, mired in alcoholism, violence, debauchery and poverty.

About the author

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was born and died in Paris. This French writer stood at the origins of naturalism in literature, being the leader and popularizer of this trend. In his works, he tried to show the degradation of French society during the period of the Bonapartist Second Empire, when the rich prospered, and the poor, trying to keep up with them, turned out to be even lower than before. It is curious that in Russia Zola's work began to be successful earlier than in his native France. In the Russian Empire, even his earliest works were already a success. After the revolution of 1917 on the territory of Soviet Russia, Emile Zola became the first singer of the disadvantaged proletariat in bourgeois countries, but by the age of 30-40 he fell under an unofficial ban due to explicit scenes in his novels.

Summary

"Trap" Zola begins with a description of the main character of the novel - Gervaise Macquart, and her way of life. She lives in a shabby little room with her lover Auguste Lantier and her two sons: Claude, eight years old and Etienne, four. Lantier treats the woman very rudely, steals and sells her clothes, after which he leaves with another mistress to revel on the proceeds. Gervaise seeks solace at the Trap Bar, where a local roofer named Coupeau confesses his love for her and proposes marriage. They play a modest wedding, in which, it seems, there is not a singlea man happy for the newlyweds - all the relatives and friends of Coupeau and Gervaise are quarrelsome, constantly swearing gossips. From Coupeau's sister, Madame Lorille, Gervaise receives the nickname "Kromusha".

Spouses spend four years in labor and savings. They have a daughter, Nana. Gervaise dreams of her own laundry, diligently manages the household. Kupo is hardworking, kind and caring towards his wife and daughter. Everything changes when, during work, Kupo falls from the roof and barely survives. All the family's savings are spent on his treatment, but the good neighbor of the spouses, the blacksmith Gouget, who is secretly in love with Gervaise, lends her 500 francs, and she opens a laundry.

Thanks to the fulfillment of her cherished dream, a woman becomes prettier and does not pay attention to gossip about her and Guzha. Meanwhile, Kupo is gradually getting better, but he is no longer the same person as before - he is no longer interested in work, he sits around and drinks all day. Laziness and alcoholism are also infected by his wife, gradually acquiring debts and at the same time arranging constant feasts to show everyone that they are doing well.

On Gervaise's birthday, Coupeau returns from the "Trap" in an embrace with Lantier, about whom almost nothing has been heard all this time. He begins to live with his spouses. Guget offers Gervaise to give up such a life, but she does not want to leave her family and laundry, although she loves the blacksmith. Soon, a sexual relationship is rekindled between her and Lantier.

Having learned aboutrelationship between Gervaise and Lantier, Gouget falls ill with grief. The laundry is in decline, drunken Lantier and Coupeau beat Gervaise every now and then. Soon the couple are forced to move to a closet on the outskirts, since they and the children have practically nothing to live on. Now Kupo beats not only his wife, but also his daughter, suspecting that she is a prostitute.

Soon Nana leaves the house, and Gervaise herself goes to the panel. A prostitute and an alcoholic, she literally dies of hunger, but still does not find the strength to commit suicide. Kupo dies after another drinking right in the "Trap", a few months later his wife dies. Quote from the book:

Death took her little by little, piece by piece; the vile existence that Gervaise had prepared for herself was coming to an end. No one really knew why she died. Everyone spoke his own, but the truth was that she died from poverty, from dirt and fatigue, from an unbearable life. Died of her own disgust, as Lorilla was told. One morning a bad smell spread in the corridor, and the neighbors remembered that Gervaise had not been seen for two days; when they entered her closet, she was already decomposing.

The novel ends with the funeral of the main character - only an old drunkard friend from the "Trap" came to see her off on her last journey.

Scandal scenes of the book

The first shocking scene of the novel is the scene in the laundry room - Gervaise gets into a fight with Virginie - Adele's friend, with whom Lantier went to party. The women scold, fight, and at the end of the fight, Gervaise removes the pantaloons from the opponent and, in front of everyone, slaps her buttocks with a beater.

The wedding of Gervaise and Coupeau is one of the most famous scenes in the work of Emile Zola. This is not a happy event, but an ordinary drinking party, where everyone - on purpose or by accident - manages to offend the newlyweds.

The birth scene in which Nana is born is described by the author with particular cynicism - between contractions Gervaise continues cleaning and frying cutlets. Quote from the book:

Well, what of the fact that she will give birth? This does not mean that you should leave Coupeau without lunch! But she barely had time to put down the bottle of wine; she no longer had the strength to get to the bed - she fell to the floor and gave birth right there, right on the matting.

One of the most disturbing scenes in the novel is when Gervaise and Lantier return home from The Trap to find the room covered in drunken Coupeau's vomit. Out of anger, the woman agrees to give herself to her former lover and, right in front of little Nana, hides in his room.

Trap

Emile Zola titled this novel with the same name as the tavern, in which almost all the turning points of the work take place. He wanted to emphasize that for the poor in spirit, the main trap is all such institutions that call for an idle life of debauchery and alcoholism, leading away from work and family values.

Main actors

• Gervaise Macquart is the main character of Zola's "The Trap". This is a middle-aged, slender, shabby woman, limping on one leg. She workswas a laundress and is the mother of first two, and then three children. Gervaise's main problem is her vanity - she cannot accept the problems surrounding her and prefers to put up with hard drinking and poverty, instead of fighting and changing the situation.
• Coupeau is a roofer, Gervaise's husband. At the beginning of the work, he is a hardworking person and a caring family man, but his character breaks down after an injury.
• Auguste Lantier is Gervaise's lover and cohabitant. A brazen, cruel man with a hedonistic outlook on life.
• Guge - a blacksmith, a neighbor of the couple Coupeau, secretly in love with Gervaise. The most positive character in the whole novel.
• Nana is the daughter of Gervaise and Coupeau, a "vicious child", as Zola writes about her. She leaves home, works as a prostitute, and blames her mother for setting a bad example.

Criticism

Already during the very first publication in the Parisian newspapers "Trap" Zola was subjected to severe criticism from writers, which attracted great attention to the novel, even the most ordinary inhabitants. The book was called pornographic, dirty and disgusting, and the writer himself was called a rude person, laughing and mocking his reader. The most authoritative opponent of the book was Victor Hugo.

The few who defended the book cited Gustave Flaubert and his book Madame Bovary as an example. Twenty years before the publication of Zola's The Trap, Flaubert was equally viciously criticized for the scene of Emma's death alone. Filled with much more detailed abominations "Trap"defended with the words: "Twenty years have passed since the time of Bovary, and contemporaries are still afraid of the underwear."

Reviews from readers

Modern readers still cannot agree on the book "The Trap" by Zola. Someone is still shocked by the extreme frankness of the book, deeper readers are frightened by the times themselves, which the author has only described in detail. Here is what some anonymous readers of the book write on a literary website: "It is not clear why Zola himself is being scolded for the novel? Was it really his fault in such a life and such morals? Those who scold the work simply do not want to face the truth."

Screenings

In 1931, the film "Struggle" was released in the USA, loosely retelling the plot of "The Trap". All characters and storylines are adapted for American realities of the late 20s.

The only true film adaptation of Zola's The Trap is the 1956 film Gervaise. It was shot by the famous French director Rene Clement. The plot of the book is not shown verbatim, and it has significant differences from the book, however, all the main lines and characters are preserved, and the mood of the book is conveyed. Starring Maria Schell, François Perrier and Jacques Arden. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language, BAFTA (Best Film and Best Foreign Actor), Bambi (Best Foreign Actress) and a Venice Film Festival Award for Directing.

In addition to film versions, theatrical productions of "The Traps" have been regularly performed since the book's release - not only as ordinary performances, but also as an opera. There are also many audio versions of the work in different languages. In one of these productions in the original language, the famous actress Simone Signoret voiced the main role.

Related Books

As mentioned above, Zola's "Trap" is part of a cycle. Most of the stories have little to do with each other, but this book has a previous and subsequent history. In the first novel of the series, called "Career of the Rougons", the main character of "The Trap" Gervaise Macquart is briefly mentioned. A short episode tells how she ran away from her native village to live with Lantier in a poor area of Paris.

The ninth novel of the cycle is called "Nana" and tells, as the reader could already guess, about the fate of the daughter of Gervaise and Coupeau. Since "Nana" is one of the most famous works of the writer, some publishing houses publish this novel along with "The Trap", where they call the novel "the preface to "Nana"".