La Terre (1887)

La Terre (lit. 'The Earth') is a novel by Émile Zola, published in 1887. It is the fifteenth novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. The action takes place in a rural community in the Beauce, an area in central France south of Paris. The novel is connected to others in the series by the protagonist, Jean Macquart, whose childhood in the south of France was recounted in La Fortune des Rougon, and who goes on to feature prominently in the later novel La Débâcle.

Plot introduction

La Terre describes the steady disintegration of a family of agricultural workers in Second Empire France, in the years immediately before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It offers a vivid description of the hardships and brutality of rural life in the late nineteenth century.

Plot summary

The novel takes place in the final years of the Second Empire. Jean Macquart, an itinerant farm worker, has come to Rognes, a small village in La Beauce, where he works as a day labourer. He had been a corporal in the French Army, a veteran of the Battle of Solferino. He begins to court a local girl, Françoise Mouche, who lives in the village with her sister Lise. Lise is married to Buteau, a young man from the village, who is attracted to both sisters.

Buteau's father, the elderly farmer Fouan, has decided to sign a contract known as a donation entre vifs (literally: "gift between living people"), whereby his three children, Fanny Delhomme (married to a hard-working and respected farmer), Hyacinthe (aka "Jesus Christ", a poacher and layabout), and Buteau will inherit their father's estate early; they agree to pay their parents a pension in return. The property is painstakingly measured and divided up between the three children, as the Civil Code of 1804 dictated. As stated by the French Civil Code of 1804 under the section "Donations and Testaments," any one may donate their land to persons older than the age of sixteen, especially between family members, without penalty. Almost as soon as the contract is signed, Buteau begins to resent the pension, and refuses to pay it. In the house Lise shares with her sister (the property having been shared between them on the death of their late father), Buteau begins a campaign of sexual advances towards his sister-in-law, which she attempts to repel.

Midway through the novel, Fouan's wife dies and, since it seems wasteful for Fouan to retain their marital home, the property is sold, and Fouan goes to live with Fanny and her husband. While Fanny is scrupulously respectful of the conditions of the donation, she nevertheless makes him unwelcome. Fouan eventually moves to live with his son "Jesus Christ" who shares a shack with his daughter "La Trouille", a put-upon dogsbody. Under "Jesus Christ's" influence, Fouan's self-respect dwindles: while previously law-abiding, he now joins his son on poaching expeditions and takes part in Hyacinthe's favourite evening activity, farting contests. Eventually, however, Hyacinthe's abusive drunkenness is directed against Fouan, who leaves to take up residence with Buteau and Lise.

Living with her sister and Buteau, Françoise is the victim of Buteau's sexual overtures. Lise, jealous of Françoise, insists that her sister is behaving in a deliberately provocative way. When Françoise turns 21 years old, she becomes entitled to her inheritance and she decides to leave the family home, demanding that Buteau and Lise buy out her share of the house, which the couple cannot afford to do. Françoise marries Jean and inherits her share of the family lands and home, infuriating her sister and Buteau.

Françoise is now pregnant with Jean's child, and in a shocking scene, Buteau and Lise set upon Françoise when she is alone in the fields at harvest time. Lise restrains her sister while she is raped by Buteau, then pushes her onto a sickle, wounding her in the belly and killing her unborn child. The two flee the scene. While Françoise is still conscious when she is found, her family pride leads her to refuse to name Lise and Buteau; she claims instead that her injury was the result of an accident, and dies shortly after.

Back in the Buteau home, the greedy couple turn their attention to Fouan, whose obstinacy in remaining alive has become a serious financial drain. One night while Fouan is asleep, they steal into his bedroom and smother him; finding he is still alive, they set fire to him, while arranging the scene to look like an accident (their story is accepted by the local community).

The Buteaus refuse to pay Jean the money for Françoise's share of the family home, which is now rightfully his as her next-of-kin. Horrified by his suspicions regarding both his wife's and Fouan's deaths, and by the heartlessness of those around him, Jean returns to his wandering, and leaves the region for good. As he leaves, he passes the freshly dug burial mounds of Françoise and Fouan, and the ripe corn in the harvest fields.

Characters

The novels contains about 100 characters. Many have multiple names and extended family connections. The novel centers on the Fouans, a 300-year-old peasant farming family "dynasty", and an itinerant carpenter, Jean Macquart, who also appears in two other Zola novels.

Major characters:

Badeuil, Charles - married Laure Fouan, and went to live at Chartres. He tried commerce without much success, and, haunted by a desire for rapid fortune, acquired a house of prostitution which had fallen into bad repute through mismanagement.

Badeuil, Madame Laure - wife of Charles, was the youngest daughter of Joseph Casimir Fouan. She was the sister of La Grande, of Padre Fouan, and of Michel Fouan, known as Mouche. When her father's estate was divided, she got no land, but received an indemnity in money instead. After she and her husband acquired the prostitute establishment in Chartres, she assisted ably in its management.