“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)”
Tag Archives: RKS French Literature
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)”
RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)
“Mme Hennebeau was already growing tired of this visit, happy one minute to alleviate the tedium of her exile by playing this role of a zoo guide, then immediately repulsed by the vague odour of poverty that hung everywhere, despite the cleanliness of the carefully selected houses she dared to enter. In any case allContinue reading “RKS French Literature: Parisian Bourgeoise Shareholders Visit the Squalid French Coal Mining Town (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Charity of the Family of the Owner of the Coal Mines (Émile Zola)
“The Grégoires delegated the distribution of alms to Cécile. It was their idea of giving her a good education. One had to be charitable, they said, their house was God’s house. Moreover, they flattered themselves that they were intelligent about their charity, being forever concerned that they should not be duped and encourage evil ways.Continue reading “RKS French Literature: The Charity of the Family of the Owner of the Coal Mines (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: The Underground Hell of a French Coal Mine (Émile Zola)
“Stretched out on their sides, they were now tapping away harder than ever in their single-minded determination to fill a decent number of tubs. They became oblivious to all else as they gave themselves up to this furious pursuit of a reward so dearly won. They ceased to notice the water streaming down and causingContinue reading “RKS French Literature: The Underground Hell of a French Coal Mine (Émile Zola)”
RKS French Literature: An Abused Childhood (Émile Zola)
“For a moment he was lost in contemplation of the dark reaches of the mine; and as he sat there, deep beneath the crushing weight of the earth, his mind went back to his childhood, to his mother, when she was still pretty and game for the struggle, to how she’d been abandoned by hisContinue reading “RKS French Literature: An Abused Childhood (Émile Zola)”
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