Resumo de Germinal - Emile Zola

In ?Germinal,? the fourteenth novel in the series ?Les Rougon-Macquart?, Emile Zola describes the struggles of nineteenth century coalminers in northern France. The novel contains extensive details on the life of the miners, allowing a complete picture of the conditions then prevailing to be built up, but the central presence of the Maheu family adds a human element to the story. ?Germinal? begins with the arrival of the protagonist, Étienne Lantier, in the small mining village where the Maheus try to live. He manages to get a job pushing coal carts down in the mine on Maheu?s team, and due to his capabilities soon rises to become a proper miner, earning the respect of the other miners. Shocked at the poor conditions the miners are subjected to Étienne stirs up the miners to go on strike. The strike goes on and on all through the winter, until the general starvation and anger amongst the miners eventually leads them on a massive charge to all the neighbouring mines where they destroy as much as possible. Though the strike is the central theme of the novel, Zola addresses several other elements of the miners life, particularly accidents and starvation. The Maheu family are the unfortunate demonstrees of all the possible bad things that could happen to a mining family, with one son being crippled in the mine, the death by starvation of the youngest children, the starvation of the daughter and Étienne?s love trapped in a flooded mine, and the death of the oldest son in a explosion as he carelessly digs to save her. And not least, the shooting by soldiers of the father as he protests at a strike rally. Zola also looks at the lives of the mine owners, who don?t live easy lives either. In fact the general message is that the mine, often described as a beast in the novel, and representing all modern industry, has a negative effect on the lives of all involved, except perhaps the distant directors in Paris. Zola only spent a couple of days touring mines in the north, but his description is so real that the world of the miners comes vividly to life as a background for the human tragedy that is the ultimate destination of the novel. However, the final message of the novel, closing in the spring one year after it begun, echoes the title of the work; there is hope for a new germination of protest, just as Étienne?s arrival brought life to the latent seed of the miners discontent a year earlier.

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