Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

82.Lost Heroines: Zola's Nana, Dreiser's Carrie, Crane's Maggie, Lolita!

                                                                    The Face of a Diseased Society

           "A Woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from  a masculine point of view."This passage from Henrik Ibsen exemplifies the plight of a young woman in Emile Zola's novel Nana, a story in which the young heroine serves as a metaphor of a diseased French society plagued by the desire for wealth and pleasure.  Nana, an orphan left to survive on the streets, much like Dreiser's Sister Carrie and and Crane's Maggie: Girl of the Streets, faces a harsh and cruel environment that exploits rather than respects its citizens. Paradoxically, the protagonist's beauty only serves to destroy her, morally and physically.   Alone, and unable to find a person to befriend her, Nana succumbs to a life of prostitution. Zola, in essence, scorns his country which encourages vice at the expense of youth and humanity. Nana's life on the stage, along with her suffering companions, their jealousies, financial difficulties, and fast-paced Parisian lifestyles, combines to exacerbate her own tragic demise. To survive, she must adopt a set of values contrary to her nature, selling herself as a  commodity to the highest bidder.   In essence, Zola strongly indicts a material society whose of values of  greed and self-gratification supersede the needs of the human heart.

              In the story, Zola vividly describes the life of the theater, its glory and infamy, but more so, he depicts  the heroine's desperate attempt to escape from the clutches of moral corruption. The novel fills one with a sense  of revulsion for the cruelty and selfishness of those who capitalize on exploitation. No culture, despite its level of sophistication, should permit an immoral deed that  destroys its victim so totally and irrevocably.  In this respect, Nana's life parallels Nabokov's Lolita, condemned never to experience true physical or spiritual fulfillment.   The heroine's costly theater lifestyle sadly transforms her into a victim of its own cloth. To sustain her extravagant habits, Nana visits the Tricon for customers.  She now only values wealth and its advantages. Her new life carries fatal consequences, however.  George Hugon, a young suitor who proposes yet is rejected, commits suicide. Mrs. Hugon informs the heroine that the government had imprisoned  her only son Phillipe for robbing the military to support the beautiful actress' expenses. As the tragedy worsens, Nana grows heartless, leaving one victim after another.  Zola uses the metaphor of the "sow who devours men" to depict the Nana's morally depraved condition. At this stage, her transformation into a world of corruption is complete. Nana returns from Russia with trucks of wealth, only to find her son dead from smallpox, a disease which also takes her own life. Following her death, Nana's acquaintances meet in her room to reminisce. As they congregate, shouts announce that war is declared against Germany and soldiers enter the city. Nana's sisters in vice  soon associate themselves with the leading military officials who, as Zola caustically notes, mold the destinies of men. As Nana's companions exit the hotel, one by one, they witness the horrifying appearance of the heroine's rotting face.  Much like Tolstoy's Anna Karenina  and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the heroine's tragic life ends in  in suffering and futility, a commentary on society and its misplaced values. In closing, Zola leaves one with his image of moral decay, the result from which he hopes to encourage French society to place the needs of humanity above those of greed and self-gratification.

                                                                                  Works Cited

 Zola, Emile. BEST KNOWN WORKS OF EMILE ZOLA.  New York: The Book League of America,                      1941.