Abstract
This paper introduces and analyzes the book "Nana" by Emile Zola. Specifically, the paper discusses mid-19th century society and its values as they are depicted in the first five chapters of the book. The paper notes that "Nana" is a critique on Parisian society during the Second Empire, and it shows a society that is self-adsorbed, shallow, and devoid of just about any intellectual thought. The paper comments that it is a sad society, concerned more with how people look and who they know than anything else, and it is quite clear Zola does not approve of this decadent and disappointing society.

From the Paper
"According to Zola, the values of society during this time leave much to be desired. The theater owner puts Nana on the stage for her "other good points" rather than her talents. Zola writes, "'Must a woman know how to act and sing? Oh, my chicken, you're too stoopid. Nana has other good points, by heaven!-- something which is as good as all the other things put together. I've smelled it out; it's deuced pronounced with her, or I've got the scent of an idiot'." The audience recognizes she is terrible, but when one member shouts, "Bravo!" the entire city embraces her, even though she has no talent."

Tags:beautiful, package, mistresses, intellectual, stimulation

Abstract
This paper explains that Emile Zola, a French novelist and critic, was the founder of the Naturalist movement in the world of literature; "Nana", written in 1880, one of Emile Zola's most profound literary works, exposes the true state of prostitution and sexual exploitation in France. The author points out that Zola rightfully examines the nature of his characters by examining a sexually and politically weakened society, a society that in no way tried to help Nana change herself. The paper relates that, throughout the story, the reader becomes well aware of the circumventing characters of Zola's novel and how they exploit one another to gain what they wanted, even though it was evanescent.

From the Paper
"The book opens by introducing to the audience, Fauchery, a drama critic who is eagerly waiting for his hottest play named "The Blonde Venus" to open in Paris. The play is a conglomeration of bad music and bad actresses in which a new star named Nana is born. Nana appears on the stage in a manner that upholds her audience frenzy. She appears dressed up in diaphanous wraps and escapades the paroxysm caused by her almost nude performance. The author of the novel portrays Nana as a skillful harlot. Through her off scene performance she wins her first lover named Steiner who is a wealthy banker. From here, begins Nana's true escapade of exploiting herself through sex in order to achieve money and a high status among her fellow citizens."

Tags:exploitation, naturalist, political, circumventing, money

Abstract
This paper investigates the treatment of prostitution in nineteenth-century literature, in particular Elizabeth Gaskell's "Mary Barton", Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" and Emile Zola's "Nana". By closely examining literature from England and France, authored by male and female writers, it attempts to display how cultural differences and gender implications may have an influence on the chosen novelists' treatment of the subject. Areas of interest include: the historical context of nineteenth-century prostitution; the authors' portrayal of prostitution; the response of other characters toward the prostitute and the importance of death as the final outcome.

From the Paper
"The subject of prostitution has had a long-standing fascination for novelists, artists, and historians alike. The idea of a woman using her body as a paid profession has forever caused a great deal of controversy, especially during the nineteenth century, when women were not supposed to display or act upon their sexual desires. It has often been said that during the nineteenth century, prostitution was becoming an increasing problem, although many facts and figures differ from one another considerably, so it would be unhelpful to quote them here. It is useful enough to consider that 'Victorians in the 1840s and 1850s thought that both prostitution and venereal disease were increasing'. "

Tags:death, disease, female, sexuality, venereal

Abstract
This paper discusses how the author Emile Zola is most famous for the forceful nature of his realistic prose, found in his novels "Germinal", "La Bete Humaine" and "Therese Raquin". It examines how although Zola is noted for his work as a crusader for social justice during his lifetime, these novels are also marked by his reliance upon grotesque details, events and characterization. It looks at how a reader is invariably provoked to ask this long-deceased author why an author such as Zola, so intent upon using the artistic form for the purposes of social liberation be moved to use such tropes and narrative devices. It also evaluates why he was so committed in his narrative structure to not conform to, what on the surface might seem to be more "realistic" characters and events.

From the Paper
"Perhaps the best way to analyze the use of the macabre in Zola is to grant that the events the author describes do not customarily transpire everyday, to everyday people and readers in their lives. These subjects gain a realistic force through naturalistic prose and because of the meaning invested in them by the author's narrative structure. Zola uses the macabre not in a sensationalistic fashion, although he acknowledges that a love of sensation is a part of human, daily life. Rather the macabre takes on both a metaphorical and realistic insight to provide a window into the base desires that afflict all individuals whom are part of the social structure and populace of a macabre and fraught society themselves. Zola holds up an apparently distorting glass in which the reader is forced to see the worst, yet a true side, of him or herself."

Tags:germinal, la, bete, humaine, therese, raquin

Abstract
This paper explains that, with the character of Denise Baudau, a lowly worker, Emile Zola presents in "Ladies Paradise" a somewhat skewed vision of the struggle between the sexes with this protagonist ultimately obtaining her goal to marry the less than admirable but higher ranked Monsieur Mouret. The author points out that advertising in the days of this novel worked the same way as today: To create a need by implying that women have some defective quality and promising that their product will make them more beautiful. The paper relates that Zola observes that women come to equate the products with their sexuality with its sensual allure festering and growing until they become an addiction for the women that they must have the products at all costs.

From the Paper
"Consequently, a raging competition ensues and the ladies compete with each other for customers and the attention of Mouret. The shop girls are forced to dress in a certain way in order to be successful, which is by pleasing Mouret and garnering his attentions. If they can garner Mouret's attentions, a shop girl will have the great honor of exchanging sexual favors for the right to do as she pleases at the department store, as Clara Prunaire does. As long as the shop girl can keep Mouret pleased, she is protected from being sacked."

Tags:consumerism, addiction, shop-girl, sexual-favors, flattery

Abstract
This paper examines how the novels of Balzac and Zola portray the experience of Parisian life, by showing how the central characters' relationship to the city suggest broader social meanings.

From the Paper
"To compare the Paris portrayed in Balzac's Old Goriot with the one portrayed in Zola's L'Assommoir is to engage in a multi generational project. Zola's text appeared roughly a generation after Balzac's death and nearly two generations after the earlier..."

Tags:Paris, urbanization, L'Assommoir, Pere, Goriot

Abstract
The essential question addressed by this paper concerns the suffering, both physical and psychic, of Zola's primary characters and how they were transferred to the screen by a trio of important French directors.

From the Paper
"The translation of any work of literature into another medium, even one apparently so closely aligned with the written word as film, is always a chancy proposition. While literature and film focus themselves on the same targets within the minds of their audiences; that of completing an organic connection between the conception and the reception of an idea, the very natures of the two disciplines demand different things of the person who is reading or watching the material. As exciting and enveloping as the best film experience may be, it is still, in its essence a passive experience; every action is already determined, "painted," and set in celluloid by the filmmaker."

Tags:french, author, naturalism, defense, of, Captain, Alfred, Dreyfuss, Jean, Renoir

Abstract
An analysis of Zola's novel "Au Bonheur des Dames" by studying the characters. The backdrop of the novel is the theme of how capitalism is stronger than the bourgeois life. The characters are played out along this theme by living their simple life and we are shown how the economic forces steer them.

From the Paper
"Au Bonheur des Dames (1883), or The Ladies Paradise, is one of the later novels in Zola s Rougon-Macquart cycle. It is a satirical, cynical novel in its narrative tone, yet is also quite optimistic. Its main theme is how modern capitalism, modern forms of consumer behavior, and modern morality triumph over the old ways of bourgeois life. These historical and social struggles both provide a background for and illuminate the romantic escapades of the owner and capitalist hero of the book, Octave Mouret and the heroine, the naive Denise Baudu. Denise is a worker in his store The Ladies Paradise. Denise provides the moral force of change in the novel; Octave Mouret exemplifies the force of social change in commerce. "

Tags:The Ladies&#8217, Paradise social superior feminine temperament capitalist

Abstract
This paper reviews and critiques "Just Walk on By", an essay about black men in America, written by Brent Staples. In the essay, Staples asserts that Americans are inherently afraid of an unknown black man. The author of this paper summarizes Staples' arguments and provides several examples from the text. The author concludes that Staples is such an effective, persuasive storyteller, that the reader becomes convinced to not only stop fearing unknown black men, but to feel sympathy for them.

From the Paper
"The dark images used in the first half of the essay to explain the fear his presence instilled on society now turn against him and become methods to produce sympathy towards him. Although others fear him, Staples is the one who, in a hunted animal-like chase, must run for his life among a maze of halls that conjure up images of a rat in a trap. Instead of walking by, around, or from him, women now take on an offensive hunch posture, something akin to the arched back stance a cat takes before attacking a small animal. The world has taken action and braced itself against his timid, innocent presence. Staples has taken himself from the overwhelming predator role he assumed in the beginning of the essay to becoming a soul shut out from the freedom of taking a simple stroll, all because citizens fear the unknown black male."

Tags:african, american, black, stranger, danger, predator, racism, stereotypes