5/9/2023 0 Comments Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola![]() Every paragraph makes the same point three different ways, and every point is made in nearly every chapter. No happy ending, not even any intermittent moments of bliss, and certainly no dearth of sentences (of the wordy, not the judicial, variety). Wretched does not begin to describe the existence they have forced themselves into. They cannot reignite the raging passion that drove them to eliminate Therese's worthless husband in fact soon they can barely tolerate each other. Yet, they cannot stop fretting about every move they make in case it arouses suspicions. No one suspects them of anything, everyone around them thinks they are marvelous human beings, and eventually "the two murderers", as Zola so often refers to them, are not only free to marry each other, but actively encouraged to do so by Mother/Auntie and all their close social acquaintances (including a police inspector). Nor could anything be less surprising than that a spanner will be thrown into these works, in the person of a man who sparks Therese's banked embers into flame.adultery, murder, deception, paranoia, and all that ensue. Nothing could be more inevitable than that they should marry, and stay under Mother/Auntie's roof where she can continue to treat them as helpless children. ![]() ![]() Poor semi-orphan is left with her aunt in Paris Auntie is already raising a sickly son, and the two children grow up together, stifled but protected. ![]()
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