Capitalism In Germinal

In Emile Zola’s Germinal, Zola tells the tale of impoverish miners in a French town called Montsou, the novel begins with Etienne a broken man without a job stumbling through the cold night. The novel ends with similar destitute misery. Throughout Germinal, Zola describes the lives of the miners of Le Voreux and touches upon a few main themes. The characters of Germinal face issues of socialism, human nature and social justice. Throughout the book the miners’ ideals and values develop and progress. Industrialization had many social costs especially the effect it had on the lives of the working class. Many people suffered, many people had to do the “dirty” work. With fate and genetics being the main factor in determining who works the mines and who collects the revenue, Zola shows the reader the struggle between capital and labor, this is seen as the coal miners deal with oppression, starvation and darkness. In the beginning of the novel, Etienne is only a wandering mechanic, looking for work and when he meets Catherine and Chaval (among others) at Le

The socialist ideals, that man should bear the fruit of his labor and that man is equal to man, are common and incredibly unifying goals. Etienne fights for this righteous goal along with his fellow common man, and even though the strike and the novel end on a fairly pessimistic note, the last passage inspires: “In the fiery rays of the sun on this youthful morning the country seemed full of that sound. Men were springing forth, a black avenging army, germinating slowly in the furrows, growing towards the harvests of the next century, and their germination would soon overturn the earth.” (p. 343) One day man in the near future man will be able to determine his own outcome. It will not be predetermined by genetics and familial status. The oppression the miners faced was not in