Nana

Author: émile Zola
Publisher:
Publication Date: 1995-01-01
Features: Nana is a significant work in the twenty-volume world-renowned novel series Les Rougon-Macquart by the famous 19th-century French writer émile Zola, created between 1871 and 1893. The protagonist of this book, Nana, is an abandoned illegitimate daughter who once roamed the streets, became a prostitute, and later was after starring in The Golden-haired Venus, becoming a plaything pursued by the nobility of Parisian high society. She lives life recklessly, sells her body, and manipulates her pursuers, exhausting their wealth in revenge for social injustice, finally still unable to escape her tragic fate. The female protagonist, Nana, is the daughter of the young zinc worker Coupeau and the laundress Virginie in L'Assommoir, named Anne Coupeau, nicknamed Nana, born in 1852. At the age of fifteen, she wandered the streets and became a low-class prostitute. At eighteen, she was spotted by the owner of a low-end theater, the Théatre des Variétés, Bourget, who pushed her onto the stage to star in the vulgar opera The Golden-haired Venus. However, she had no artistic talent, her voice was like a broken bell, and she didn’t even know how to move her hands and feet on stage. Thus, Bourget made her perform naked to attract the perverted and lustful members of high society. His motives can be seen in his response to the writer Floch: "Do women have to be able to act and sing? Ah! My dear fellow, you’re too naive. Nana has other strengths, that’s true! This strength is worth any other strength. Wait and see—once she appears on stage, the entire audience will be drooling with desire." Nana’s naked performance indeed captivated the audience, causing an uproar across Paris. The next day, the perverted nobles flocked to her. While she mingled with these gentlemen, she continued to sell her body, and the old woman Tertre often came to pimp for her. She began an affair with Dagonet, a spendthrift who had spent 300,000 francs on women, who went bankrupt in stock market speculation and couldn’t even afford flowers for Nana. Soon after, she turned her attention to the banker Steiner, who supported her and lived in the suburban villa "Chateau de la Chatte" that he bought for her. There, she entertained both the aristocratic young Georges d’Hubert and the Count de Maquart, the royal aide. After Steiner went bankrupt, she turned to Count de Maquart, while at the same time falling in love with the clown Fontrain. Soon after, she married Fontrain and led a normal family life, but kicked Count de Maquart out. However, the idyllic life didn’t last long. Fontrain was a figure like Abagon, spending nothing in life and even reclaiming the 7,000 francs they had saved together, often abusing and beating Nana. Soon, Fontrain took up with an actress from the Italian opera and became her lover, leaving Nana homeless. She had to revert to being a prostitute again. Later, through the arrangement of others, Nana reconciled with Count de Maquart, who funded all her expenses, making her life as luxurious as that of a queen. However, she only entertained Count de Maquart within a set time frame, enjoying complete freedom, and the perverted nobles once again flocked to her door. She spent money recklessly, and once the men she entertained exhausted her wealth, she would shut them out. One day, Nana disappeared suddenly, having had a quarrel with the theater manager, Bourget. Some said she went to Cairo. A few months later, others claimed she had fallen for the local governor and was living in the palace; some said she was sleeping with a black man and had squandered all her money; still others said she had gone to Russia and become the lover of a prince. One day, she suddenly returned from abroad and, after getting off the train, went directly to her aunt’s house to visit her son, where she caught smallpox from him and died shortly after in a hotel.
Nana is one of the five most influential long novels in Zola’s naturalist family saga Les Rougon-Macquart. From the perspective of creative method and literary theory, it is a typical experimental novel. Naturalism evolved from realism and retains the realistic characteristics of realism, yet it goes further than realism in realism. In terms of realism, it is more objective, specific, and delicate in its depiction of the environment, scenery, and psychological activities of characters than realism. As Zola replied to some of his critics: "I describe what I have seen, and I record it. That is all. My work is not a partisan or propagandistic one; it is a work that presents the truth." Recording the real in an objective manner is the greatest feature of naturalism, and this is evident throughout Nana. For example, the depiction of the theater stage, the actress’s dressing room, the Count de Maquart’s residence, and Nana’s late-night dinners—all are realistic reproductions, with no trace of artistic embellishment.