Reading as the Path to Revolt?

Emile Zola's Germinal

Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau
UNC-Charlotte

. . . et de cette lecture il [Etiennel se faisait une idee revolutionnaire du combat

pour l'existence.
Emile Zola, Germinal (1885)

Germinafs hero Etienne Lantier, known to the readers of Zola's Rougon-

Macquart series as Gervaise Macquart's son, is a protagonist whose reading
leads to revolution as was feared by many of the author's contemporaries
(Lejeune 150).1As a machinist, Etienne is a member of "la classe ouvriere,"
but he is not as low as his origins in the "rue de la goutte d'or" in Paris where
his mother was a washer woman.2 Upon losing his job as a machinist, Etienne
finds a job as a common miner in the mine Ie Voreux. He stays for thirteen
months in the mining community and becomes an exemplary worker, but he
incites the workers to strike when labor conditions deteriorate. After the failure
of the strike, he leaves the mining community for Paris in order to do bigger
and better things.
What, then, makes Etienne Lantier, a miner among the other workers, who
does not even work as a machinist in the mine although educated to do so, the
hero or the leader of the mass of workers? How does his reading incite revolu-
tion? In what way is he different from the other workers?
The main difference between Etienne and the mineworkers is his literacy.
While Etienne can read and write, most miners of his generation cannot do so:
"les grands--peres n'auraient pu signer leur nom, les peres Ie signaient deja, et
quant aux fils, illisaient et ecrivaient comme des professeurs" (162). However,
the instruction of the sons and daughters cannot be of great value, since even
eleven--year-old Jeanlin Maheu has to descend into the mine to work, and nine-
year-old Alzire Maheu (who would also work if she were not hunchbacked)
only goes to school when her mother does not need her for household tasks.
Her mother answers "L'ecole, eh bien, ce sera pour un autre jour. . . J'ai besoin
de toi" (86). Among the older miners, very few can read, and they have trouble
spelling out company announcements (174).
Deneulin, an overseer, calls the miners "Des brutes sans doute, mais des
brutes qui ne savaient pas lire et qui crevaient de faim" (313). A lack ofIiteracy
is linked to bestiality.The miners know that it is their inability to read and write
that distinguishes them from the director, M. Hennebeau, when they come to
him to plead their cause during the strike (Mossmann 39). While Etienne's lit-
eracy makes him different from the other workers, he is too much like them as
a mineworker to be identified as a bourgeois. Maheu admires Etienne for his
education and acknowledges his superiority. Despite Maheu's admiration,
Etienne is neither intellectually very mature (Beck 45), nor has he lost his "vir-
ginite politique" despite ten years in the work force (Lejeune 153). Instead, in
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 the beginning, Etienne displays the same kind of resignation in the face of mis-
ery as the other workers; repeating "Encore si l'on avait du pain!" (11) many
times, he only hopes to be able to feed himself.
It is in the mining community that Etienne undergoes an education beyond
his literacy and instruction. Indeed, his development as leader of the strike can
be traced by examining his reading and by asking how the reading affects his
consciousness. In keeping with our inquiry, it is also necessary to ask whether
and how his reading allows him to challenge power structures, that is, whether
reading is a destabilizing force dangerous to those in power.
Etienne's reading changes his consciousness. He starts reading due to out-
side influences. The first outside influence is one of Etienne's acquaintances,
Pluchart, an ex-worker turned bourgeois who is a functionary of the
International in Lille. In his letters to Etienne, Pluchart "maintenant l'endoctri-
nait, frappe de la propagande qu'il pouvait faire au milieu des mineurs" (138).
Etienne writes and receives letters frequently, and Pluchart awakens in him the
desire to know more about the possibilities of ameliorating the workers' lot.
The second outsider who influences Etienne in his wish for and choice of read-
ing is his neighbor Souvarine, a Russian ex-nobleman and a machinist in the
mine. Souvarine, an anarchist, discusses his political ideas with Etienne. These
discussions have a strong influence on Etienne and lead him to wish for more
knowledge.
Etienne develops ideas that seem to gain force through his reading. These
ideas are not very clear, and he needs outside help to organize them a little bit.
Both the letters from Pluchart and the reading material provided by Souvarine
encourage Etienne to pursue his thoughts further. Etienne's reading leads him
to ask questions of a challenging nature: "pourquoi la misere des uns? pourquoi
la richesse des autres? pourquoi ceux-ci sous Ie talon de ceux--hi, sans l'espoir
de jamais prendre leur place?" (159). When asking these questions, the first
step in Etienne's development consists of the acknowledgment of his ignorance:
"Et sa premiere etape fut de comprendre son ignorance" (159). But his motiva-
tion for reading does not come from an honest need for knowledge in order to
free himself. Rather, Etienne is ashamed of his ignorance. He wants to be able
to hold his own in discussions with Souvarine and Pluchart: "Dne honte
secrete, un chagrin cache Ie rongerent . . . il ne savait rien, il n'osait causer de
ces choses qui Ie passionnaient" (159).
Etienne's ignorance and his shame about not being equal to Souvarine and
Pluchart lead him to ever more fervent endeavors to further his education.
However,his reading has no direction, and the unorganized manner in which he
reads even that which he does not understand does not allow his auto-didactic
efforts to be successful.
Even though Etienne does not digest his reading very well, in fact, does not
even understand much of it, his reading and supposed knowledge exalt him,
and he keeps his knowledge as a kind of weapon for the next possible conversa-
tion. Slowly Etienne feels that he can hold his own: "L'honte de son ignorance
s'en allait, illui venait un orgueil, depuis qu'il se sentait penser" (160). In good
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Cartesian manner, Etienne finally perceives himself as a man because he is
thinking-that is, reading.
Despite his ambition to shine in the eyes of Pluchart and Souvarine, Etienne
does have honest feelings for the plight of the miners "Ie coeur debordant
d'indignations genereuses contre les oppresseurs" (160). He sincerely hopes for
and believes in the "prochain triomphe des opprimes" (160).
While Etienne soon reaches a new awareness through the synthesis of
Souvarine's anarchist, Pluchart's Marxist and the innkeeper Rasseneur's moder-
ate ideas that join the notions gained from his reading (Beck 48), one can hard-
ly call the jumble of Etienne's ideas a new consciousness. Etienne comes to all
these political ideas with a very strong predisposition to rebel: "Etienne s'en-
flammait. Toute une predisposition de revolte Iejetait a la lutte du travail contre
Ie capital" (138). The only change in consciousness comes through Etienne's
false perception that he has learned so much, and that he no longer needs to be
ashamed of his ignorance. His new confidence leads him to become very influ-
ential among the miners who are already in awe at his ability to read and write,
let alone his rhetorical ability to propound politically inflammatory ideas.
Etienne's rising influence first becomes apparent among the Maheu family.
Every evening they listen to Etienne's political ideas: "9a ne pouvait durer au-
dela de quelques mois, affirmait-il carrement" (165). Etienne becomes a
prophet for a better world in which he believes as a result of his reading. And
the mining family believes in their new messiah with a quasi-religious fervor
expecting "la venue d'une societe parfaite, sur Ie fumier du monde antique"
(165). Each member of the family starts to dream because Etienne has awak-
ened their imagination. This speaks for Etienne's rhetorical competence but not
for his organized political thought. He does not induce the miners to think criti-
cally and to consider possible ways of action; instead, he invites them to dream
of a new society as he does himself.
Although Etienne's speeches become increasingly unrealistic, even the most
doubtful start to believe in him. Even Maheu's wife, the skeptical Maheude,
succumbs to the seductive pull of Etienne's dreams: "II etait si doux d'oublier
pendant une heure la realite triste! . . . Et ce qui la passionnait, ce qui la mettait
d'accord avec Iejeune homme, c'etait l'idee de la justice" (164). While Etienne
dangles before the eyes of the miners ideas of a new world in which justice
reigns, he does not know and cannot explain how to achieve such a blessed new
state of being. Etienne possesses a certain kind of power with his words, and
he rises in the estimation of the miners because he can express his ideas.
Nevertheless, he is only a "semi-savant" stuffed with jumbled ideas from his
reading, his correspondence and his discussions with Souvarine. According to
the latter, Etienne's ideas will never lead to any meaningful change (Mossmann
35-39).
Souvarine is alone in his doubts of Etienne. Most miners are seduced by
Etienne's thoughts, and his status rises in the mining community. He even con-
vinces them to institute a"caisse de prevoyance," that is, to give up some of
their meager earnings to prepare for a strike. This effort constitutes Etienne's
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 first attempt at planning something. However,the small fund cannot be of
much help and besides the negative attention he receives from the directors, the
only thing Etienne achieves is the admiration of his fellow miners. "L'influence
d'Etienne s'elargissait, il revolutionnait peu a peu Ie coron" (166).
With his success Etienne changes and becomes ever more content with his
lot: "etre it la tete des autres, commander, lui si jeune et qui la veille encore
etait un manoeuvre, l'emplissait d'orgueil, agrandissait son reve d'une revolu-
tion prochaine, ou il jouerait un role" (167). Etienne's reading and the dissemi-
na-tion of his ideas erase the earlier feelings of inferiority brought on by his
ignorance and lead to pride in his position as an informed leader. His ideas
however,do not seem to become clearer and he still does not have any plan of
action. The only positive action he has undertaken is setting up the "caisse."
Nevertheless, despite his unclear elaboration of how to get to the state of per-
fect happiness, the masses are fascinated with his speeches and his education
(Morel 189).
Etienne's reading and oratory lead him to take pride in himself, so much so
that his consciousness of his own status changes dramatically. Whereas he had
seen himself as a miner, in the same boat as the others, he now acknowledges
his superiority over these uneducated people, and he does not find it necessary
to provide them with concrete answers about how to achieve a new order. "Sur
les moyens d'execution, il se montrait plus vague, melant ses lectures, ne craig-
nant pas, devant des ignorants, de se lancer dans des explications ou il se per-
dait lui-meme" (165) (my emphasis). His audience's reaction facilitates
Etienne's perception of his presumed knowledge, and he begins to use his
knowledge as a means of domination (Lejeune 159).
The destabilizing effect of reading manifests itself in the miners' strike, an
event that coincides with the apex and decline of Etienne's power. Etienne's
reading has made him a seductive orator, and it has induced the miners to listen
to him. When the mining company lowers wages by raising fines for mistakes
at work, the discontent of the miners coupled with Etienne's earlier agitation
make a strike inevitable. Etienne emerges as the miners' educator: transferring
what he learns from his reading onto them (Butler 72). He knows that educa-
tion is powerful, and he admits this fact when he tells the miners that "tout
peterait un jour, grace a l'instruction" (162). Etienne becomes the undisputed
leader of the miners (218), and when a mass of miners meets in the woods in
the night on the eve of the strike, it is his oratory that enflames the miners to
revolt. They cheer and "Etienne gouta l'ivresse de sa popularite. C'etait son
pouvoir qu'il tenait" (275).
Intoxicated on the power he feels over the miners, Etienne manages to incite
them to further action. The miners decide to reinforce their strike by forcing
other miners in the area to join the strike. During the next day, however,
Etienne loses control of the angry mob in the furor of the moment. They
destroy what they can, hurt their fellow miners who had not participated in the
strike, and all Etienne can do is to limit the damage. During the course of the
day, Etienne becomes drunk, and, following his heredity, he becomes violent
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himself. He has lost his position of leader for the moment. The enraged mass,
which castrates the avaricious merchant Maigrat and destroys several mines,
does not need a leader.
Although some critics posit that Etienne's reading and rhetoric lead the min-
ers to gain a new political consciousness which in turn leads them to strike and
to violence (Dezalay 441), it is much more plausible to link their behavior to
hunger. It is hunger that makes them violent, and even in calm moments as
when they join the International upon Pluchart's appearance, they do so
because they are hungry and hope for financial assistance rather than out of
political conviction (Richards 51).
The power of his education and oratory has slowly but surely corrupted
Etienne. What started as pride in being able to hold his own in discussions with
Souvarine changes into a feeling of superiority over the other miners and ulti-
mately leads Etienne to wish for middle-class status. Rising aspirations accom-
pany his rising power: at the outset, Etienne is interested only in himself when
he is looking for food and work. With the beginning of his reading, he starts to
be interested in the masses and the well-being of the miners (Goldberg 504).
But the longer he has power over the miners, the more his position as leader
becomes a selfish pleasure.
More important than pride and vanity, Etienne "entrait dans cette bour-
geoisie execree, avec des satisfactions d'intelligence et de bien-etre" (218). His
accession to virtual middle-class status manifests itself after the outburst of
violence. He feels superior to his comrades: "Quelle nausee, ces miserables en
tas, vivant au banquet commun!" (359). He despises his fellow miners now,
because he considers them too stupid for political discussions (359).
"Lentement, sa vanite d'etre leur chef, sa preoccupation constante de penser a
leur place, Ie degageaient, lui soufflaient l'ame d'un de ces bourgeois qu'il
execrait" (359). His slow ascent toward middle-class status manifests itself in
his exterior as well as his interior: Etienne buys new clothes and a good pair of
boots to further distinguish himself from the other miners.
Despite Etienne's powerful position the strike is doomed to fail. In the end,
hunger conquers the miners, and they give in to the company's original orders.
After hunger and violence has claimed many lives, everything comes back full
circle to the status quo before the strike. Only Etienne has really changed. His
failure as leader of the workers does not make him think about his mistakes.
Instead, he dreams more overtly about becoming a member of the middle class,
a goal that would allow him to be different from the workers he now despises.
Like any other bourgeois, he is now scared of his fellow workers: "il avait peur
d'eux, de cette masse enorme, aveugle et irresistible du peuple Dne repugnance
l'en avait detache peu a peu, Ie malaise de ses gouts affines, la montee lente de
tout son etre vers une classe superieure" (427). Etienne defines himself within
a bourgeois capitalist structure, and his dreams of domestic bliss with Catherine
Maheu further reveal his middle-class ideology (Richards, 46; Cirillo, 250).
Slowly but surely,then, reading has turned out to be a restabilizing factor in
Etienne's life. The man who posed a potential danger to the directors of the
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 company turns out to be not very dangerous. True, he does set the strike in
motion, and he makes the workers dream of a better existence. Nevertheless,
Etienne does not control them, and at the height of the strike the violence of
the masses follows its own rhythm.
Fittingly, in the end, it is Souvarine, and not Etienne, who puts an end to the
strike and proves harmful for the dominant powers. In accordance with his
anarchist ideas, Souvarine sabotages the mine and destroys the whole structure.
Even this nihilistic act, however, does not prevent the workers from going to
work under the same bad conditions in another mine. Trapped in the destroyed
mine and saved by the same workers who have blamed him for their misery,
Etienne leaves with white hair after the disaster. Nevertheless, Etienne has not
learned from his failure, but looks optimistically into the future: "Son educa-
tion etait finie, il s'en allait arme, en soldat raisonneur de la revolution, ayant
declare la guerre a la societe, telle qu'illa voyait et telle qu'illa condarnnait"
(499).
This quote notwithstanding, Etienne does not feel much contempt for mid-
dle-class society. He dreams of a bourgeois non-worker life in the style of
Pluchart: "La joie de rejoindre Pluchart, d'etre comme Pluchart un chef ecoute,
lui souffiait des discours, dont il arrangeait les phrases. . . l'affinement bour-
geois qui l'avait hausse au-dessus de sa classe Iejetait a une haine plus grande
de la bourgeoisie" (499). His own accession to middle-class status makes him
ostentatiously hate the bourgeoisie even more, and he decides to glorify the
workers for whom he really has a strong disgust after his experiences.
Etienne's education and his reading prove to be both destabilizing and resta-
bilizing. His reading allows him to challenge dominant power structures.
Although Etienne is only the initial influence on the miners, the result of his
reading is dangerous for the dominant powers. At the same time, reading resta-
bilizes Etienne and prevents him from becoming a true revolutionary.He
achieves bourgeois status in part because of his reading. In another Zola novel,
Le Debacle, we learn that Etienne was part of the "revolutionary" Commune
but was then sentenced to death, released, and sent to an island where he mar-
ried and fathered a daughter. The last we hear of Etienne, the supposed revolu-
tionary hero, is his domestic life on an island.
On the one hand, Germinal is revolutionary, because Zola shows genuine
sympathy for the plight of the miners. Their own interpretation of the novel
speaks for the revolutionary content of Germinaf.3When Zola died, a delega-
tion of miners accompanied his cask chanting "Germinal, Germinal" (Becker
5). The novel shows the potentially destabilizing force of the masses. Despite
the failed strike and the return to the status quo, Zola ends the novel with an
optimistic message which promises the rise out of the earth of the lower classes
and their victory: "Des hommes poussaient, une armee noire, vengeresse, qui
germait lentement dans les sillons, grandissant pour les recoltes du siecle futur,
et dont la germination allait faire bientot eclater la terre" (503). While Zola
thus puts off the projected social uprising until the coming century, he attrib-
utes the necessary power to move the earth to the workers. In this sense, then,
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Germinal is a revolutionary novel, and the reading of Etienne which makes
much of the revolt possible is destabilizing and dangerous to the classes in
power.
On the other hand, Zola deserves criticism for his depiction of the workers.
He shows their brutal nature, their ignorance, meanness and violence. In addi-
tion, he gives them an egotistical leader with misguided notions about revolt
and a mixture of Marxist and Darwinist ideas, who turns into a bourgeois him-
self and therefore betrays his original cause. In his work, Zola seems to
express his own fear of the masses. According to Germinal, a demagogue can
easily lead the masses into violence and loss of control (Mitterand 139). Since
this fear of the masses forms part of the bourgeois conception of the world,
scholars have accused Zola of bringing his own bourgeois views of the lower
classes to his writing. He sees them as unable to organize and incapable of
self-determination, and he views the workers as easily manipulated in their
intellectual and political ignorance (Lejeune 153). By emphasizing Etienne's
education-flawed as it is-Zola denies less literate workers any political
agency and access to knowledge (Lejeune 157).
Therefore, Germinal is both a revolutionary and a bourgeois novel. Zola's
ambivalence speaks out of the contradictory pieces of information. In the end,
according to Zola himself, Germinal is an educational novel. In his own words,
Zola claims to want to enlighten the middle class on the condition, plight and
potential danger of the lower classes: "Germinal est une oeuvre de pitie, et non
une oeuvre de revolution. Ce que j'ai voulu, c'est crier aux heureux de ce
monde, a ceux qui sont les maItres: Prenez garde, regardez sous terre, voyez
ces miserables qui travaillent et qui souffrent. II est peut-etre temps encore
d'eviter les catastrophes finales" (Becker 119).This purpose to educate
emerges from Zola's pages. One can see the work as revolutionary because it
points to the potential of revolution, but it also speaks to the middle class as
both warning and affirmation that it is not yet too late for social changes that
could placate the working class.
In Germinal, reading is a destabilizing force in that it gives Etienne the
power to influence the masses. At the same time it restabilizes Etienne and
turns him into a would-be bourgeois. At least Etienne reads and dreams.
Souvarine can only speak of anarchism and destroy, and Rasseneur has been
among the miners for years, without ever attempting to do anything for them.
Etienne gives the miners hope that things can change, just as Zola simultane-
ously gives the working class hope for change and the middle-class a warning
of that possible change: "En ouvrant aux mineurs les portes de la cite ideale de
Justice et de Fraternite, Etienne leur ouvre l'avenir; il brise les murs qui les
enferment, illeur fait croire que '9a peut changer', illes fait entrer dans Ie
monde merveilleux de l'espoir" (Becker 127).And although it seems at the end
of the novel that there is no hope when La Maheude has to descend into the
mine again to earn the family's living after the death of her husband and three
of her children, La Maheude's last handshake with Etienne tells him that she
still waits for the big change: "Et, dans cette poignee de main derniere, il
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retrouvait encore celle de ses camarades, une etreinte longue, muette, qui lui
donnait rendez-vous pour Iejour OUl'on recommencerait. Il comprit parfaite-
ment, elle avait au fond des yeux sa croyance tranquille. A bient6t, et cette fois,
ce serait Ie grand coup" (498).
La Maheude stands for all the other miners: she believes that change will
come and that the germ of revolution has been sown. Thus, Germinal emerges
as a revolutionary work after all, in which reading is a destabilizing force.
Notes
'Lejeune points out that the beating of the boss is not politically motivated,
but rather stems from the influence of alcohol.
2ForGervaise's story, see Emile Zola, L'Assommoir (1877; Paris:
Flammarion, 1969).
3Justas Etienne cannot control the strike, Zola cannot control his work: the
miners interpret it as they wish.

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