“He had listened to the various offers. People tried to beat him down, to minimize the value of this splendid prize, this pit that had been completely renovated and refitted, where only a lack of ready cash was preventing production. He would be jolly lucky to recoup a sufficient sum to pay off his creditors.Continue reading “RKS French Literature: The Capitalist Vultures Circling in on One of their Own Mortally Wounded (Émile Zola)”
Tag Archives: “Germinal”
RKS French Literature: Is the Leader of the French Coal Miner Strikers Corrupted by Bourgeois Refinement? (Émile Zola)
“His education was complete, and he was leaving newly armed, a philosopher soldier of the revolution, having declared war on the society he saw around him and condemned. In his delight at going to join Pluchart, at going to be Pluchart, a leader that was listened to, he started making speeches to himself rehearsing theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Is the Leader of the French Coal Miner Strikers Corrupted by Bourgeois Refinement? (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Father Ranvier the Catholic Priest Exploits the Misery of the Striking Coal Miners (Émile Zola)
“He was using the strike-the terrible poverty, the sense of grievance, sharpened by hunger-with the ardour of a missionary preaching to savages for the greater glory of his religion. He said that the Church was on the side of the poor and that one day it would cause justice to triumph by calling down theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Father Ranvier the Catholic Priest Exploits the Misery of the Striking Coal Miners (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Army From the People Now Armed Against the People (Émile Zola)
“As he walked along, he thought of these soldiers, of these men of the people who had been armed against the people. How easy the revolution would have triumphed had the army suddenly came over to their side! All it needed was for the working man or the peasant in his barracks to remember hisContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Army From the People Now Armed Against the People (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Workers’ Consciousness Germinating Like a Seed in Soil (Émile Zola)
“A worker shouldn’t think for himself? Ah, but that’s precisely why things were soon going to change, because now the worker had started thinking! In the old man’s day the miner lived down the pit like an animal, like a machine for extracting coal, always underground, his eyes and ears closed to what was goingContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Workers’ Consciousness Germinating Like a Seed in Soil (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: French Coal Miner Life: No Bed of Roses (Émile Zola)
“This started everyone off, and each member of the family said their piece, as the fumes from the paraffin lamp mingled with the reek of fried onion and turned the air fouler still. No, certainly, life was hardly a bed of roses. You worked like an animal doing what used to be done by convictsContinue reading “RKS French Literature: French Coal Miner Life: No Bed of Roses (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Will Elected Officials Be the Answer for Improving the Lot of the French Coal Miners? (Émile Zola)
“But you didn’t get bread on the table by voting for splendid fellows who then promptly went off and led the life of Riley and spared no more of a thought for the poor than they did for an old pair of boots. No, one way or another it was time to put a stopContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Will Elected Officials Be the Answer for Improving the Lot of the French Coal Miners? (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: A Long Tale of Woe for the French Working Class After the 1789 French Revolution (Émile Zola)
“This time the three men were in agreement. One after the other they spoke in despairing tones, and theirs was a long tale of woe. The working man wouldn’t be able to survive; the Revolution had only made things worse for him; the bourgeoisie had been living off the fat of the land since 1789,Continue reading “RKS French Literature: A Long Tale of Woe for the French Working Class After the 1789 French Revolution (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“They grew up quickly, these mining girls; and he remembered the ones back in Lille and how he used to wait for them behind the factories, whole gangs of them, already corrupted at the age of fourteen by living in the kind of destitution that makes people simply let themselves go. From the age ofContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Sexual Promiscuity of Children in A French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Foul Odour of Miner’s Pauper Cuisine (Émile Zola)
“A salad would go so well with the vegetable stew she had simmering on the stove, a mixture of potatoes, leeks and sorrel chopped up and then cooked with fried onion! The whole house reeked of this fried onion, which is a pleasant smell at first but soon turns rancid. Its foul odour penetrates theContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Foul Odour of Miner’s Pauper Cuisine (Émile Zola)”
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