Zola's Germinal & Matthew Arnold's Culture & Anarchy

Overthrowing Hierarchy upon Principle

The famed twentieth century French writer, AndrT Gide, ranks +mile Zola's Germinal (1895) as one of the ten best novels ever written in the French language (Gide as quoted in Zola, 1954, p. 5). In tandem, Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy (1869), existing as one of Britain's most often challenged documents which intermingles politics and culture stands uncontested as "the most frequently cited non-fiction prose work in the English language" (Collini as cited in Arnold, 1993, p. ix). Germinal and Culture and Anarchy, juxtaposed as master nineteenth century revolutionary texts, explore the need to reassess the standards by which a civilization judges itself, artfully suggesting that sometimes the existing hierarchy needs to be overthrown allowing for the principle of revolt to supercede established order. Zola and Arnold can be viewed as if jointly conspiring to examine why freedom is continually at odds with modern industrial society, attempting to grapple with the elusive nature of liberty, and meditating upon how often its unrestricted expression is penuriously blocked.

These writings by Zola and Arnold led their respective societies to question their own civil management of freedom, forcing them to consider the legitimacy of liberty operating as an opportunity unequally available to its citizens. Together Zola and Arnold's oeuvres ask that societies name and d

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rive to achieve profit. Zola's portrays freedom in a more existentialist context than that of the cultural historian, Matthew Arnold. In Germinal Zola yields freedom to his central characters at an often exorbitant cost. Lantier's revolt will lead to the deaths of many of his associates, including his ill-fated love, Catherine. The death of Catherine near the novel's end epitomizes Zola's craftsmanship and his sly undercutting of the foibles of human aspiration and desire. Throughout the novel, Lantier has been estranged from Catherine due to her involvement with Chaval, another miner. Now as the novel draws to a close, Chaval lies dead, and Catherine realizes that she actually loves Lantier. Yet Lantier has staged a revolt against the mine owners by a massive and spiteful flooding of the mine itself. This deluge will halt, not only the profit and intransigency of the mine operators, but the lives of many of the mine workers themselves. Chancing upon the nearly drowned Catherine, Lantier stays with her in the dampening swells of the deluged mine. Struggling to stay alive, they find nourishment by eating worm-eaten wood. Soon they are unable to eat either this wood or the clothes which still pitifully drape their exhaust
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2525
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)