Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Thérèse Raquin, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passion and Pleasure
Consequences and Delusion
Dependency and Resentment
Money, Greed, and Class
Summary
Analysis
Madame Raquin has some sort of medical event—an “attack”—that paralyzes her. She can’t even speak, let alone move. Thérèse and Laurent are beside themselves, worrying that now they have nobody to protect them from their own relationship. Still, though, they keep her in their presence at all times when they’re at home, placing her in strategic locations so they feel like they aren’t alone with each other. They even shine the lamplight directly in her face as she sits with them at night—an image that would disturb anyone but Thérèse and Laurent, who depend on Madame Raquin’s presence to maintain their sanity.
The sight of Madame Raquin staring helplessly at Thérèse and Laurent with a light shining on her face is very garish and creepy. In fact, it’s rather cruel of Thérèse and Laurent to place her in the bright light, but they don’t actually care whether or not she’s comfortable—all they care about is that her presence makes them feel less alone. Because they resent each other for existing as constant reminders of murdering Camille, then, they turn to Madame Raquin, selfishly depending on her to make them feel more at ease.
Themes
Despite her horrible circumstances, Madame Raquin is happy. She can’t express it, but she’s touched that she has devoted caretakers like Thérèse and Laurent, who go out of their way to spend time with her. She accepts the current arrangement and is, on the whole, grateful—until, that is, Thérèse and Laurent forget she’s there one night and have an argument in which they speak openly about having murdered Camille. Madame Raquin’s face twitches with the news, and though she’s paralyzed, the murderers worry she’s about to jump out of her chair. But she doesn’t move. Instead, she’s forced to suffer quietly, realizing right near the end of her life that she has been dreadfully betrayed.
Madame Raquin’s circumstances are nothing short of torturous. She loved Camille more than anything in her life, and now she’s forced to sit idly by as his murderers move around her house and take care of her. Indeed, she even has to depend on them to keep her alive. But Laurent and Thérèse don’t seem to care about how she feels on an emotional level—the only thing they care about is whether or not she’ll be able to regain control of her body, since this would mean she might be able to tell other people what she has learned. They are, in other words, only interested in themselves.
Themes
