L'Assommoir by Émile Zola (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

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Unlock the more straightforward side of L’Assommoir with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of L’Assommoir by Émile Zola, which brutally depicts the destructive effects of poverty and alcoholism in 19th-century Paris. The novel’s main character, Gervaise Macquart, is determined to build a happy life for herself and her family in spite of her humble origins, but as the story progresses she is led astray and follows in her husband’s footsteps to become an alcoholic. The novel initially shocked readers because of its focus on the working classes and unflinching portrayal of violence and alcohol abuse, but now it is one of Zola’s most widely read books. It forms part of Les Rougon-Macquart, an ambitious cycle of 20 novels which tells the story of one extended family under the Second French Empire. Émile Zola was the leading figure of the literary school of naturalism, as well as an influential social thinker, and is now regarded as one of France’s greatest novelists.

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• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
• Release date: May 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9782806295859

Book preview

French writer and journalist

Born in Paris in 1840.

Died in Paris in 1902.

Notable works:

Nana (1880), novel

The Ladies’ Paradise (1883), novel

Germinal (1885), novel

Émile Zola was born in 1840 and died in 1902. He is considered to be one of the greatest French novelists of the 19th century. He was also the leading figure of naturalism, a movement which sought to apply the experimental scientific methods of the time to literature: after observing reality, Zola would put forward a hypothesis and test it through experimentation in his books. This aesthetic can be seen in particular in Les Rougon-Macquart, a cycle of 20 novels which constitutes his most important work and met with major success, in spite of many criticisms.

Zola was also famous for his social and political stances, which often gave rise to condemnation. The best-known of these concerns the Dreyfus affair; his pamphlet J’accuse (I accuse) had a major influence on the pardoning of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935).

An uncompromising depiction of the world of the working classes

Genre: realist novel

Reference edtion: Zola, É. (2009) L’Assommoir. Trans. Mauldon, M. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

1st edition: 1877

Themes: alcoholism, poverty, degradation, fatality, determinism

L’Assommoir, which was first published in 1877, is the seventh book in Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart cycle. In it, the author brutally depicts the overcrowding and poverty of working-class society, an environment that he was a part of as a young man. He was one of the first writers to portray this section