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 decides to take her own life by refusing to eat. Distressed, Thérèse tries to force-feed her, but Laurent tells her to stop, saying that it doesn’t matter—perhaps they’ll even be better off when she’s gone. Madame Raquin hears him say this and changes her mind, not wanting to die until she’s completely sure they’ll never be happy again. What’s more, she can tell something drastic will surely happen soon—Thérèse and Laurent are constantly warring with each other. They’ve each thought about going their separate ways, but the idea of suffering on their own, without having each other to berate, is unthinkable.
Thérèse and Laurent are inextricably linked to each other. They depend on each other in a sick and twisted way, needing somebody to fight with in order to keep them from thinking too much about their own misery. They’re therefore just as close as they were when they were enamored with each other—the difference, however, is that they’re now bound by hatred and resentment, not desire and love.
Themes
Thérèse stops paying so much attention to her aunt. She also asks Suzanne if she wants to keep her company in the shop, which has lost most of its customers because Thérèse doesn’t bother to treat anyone with the charm and kindness that Madame Raquin used to exhibit. With Suzanne sitting in the store, Thérèse starts leaving for hours at a time, but nobody knows where she goes. Around this time, she fears she has gotten pregnant. Afraid she’ll give birth to a “drowned baby,” she provokes Laurent and then, when he goes to kick her, positions herself so that his foot collides with her stomach. She has a miscarriage the following day.
Although they’re tightly connected to each other, Thérèse can’t imagine giving birth to Laurent’s child. After all, she and Laurent hate each other and lead a miserable life, so she obviously wouldn’t want to bring a baby into their home. Plus, she’s (irrationally) afraid that the baby would come out looking like Camille’s drowned corpse, indicating that she’s completely unable to think about anything without fearing the ways in which the memory of Camille’s death will hang over her.
Themes
Laurent is surprised to discover that he hates leading an “idle” life, since it only makes his agony about Camille feel even more pronounced. His only relief in life is coming home and beating Thérèse. But taking his anger out on her doesn’t spare him from the most unbearable aspects of his existence—like, for instance, the daily reminder of Camille that he notices whenever he tries to shave, his razor hesitating over the bitemark scar. Another thing that bothers him is François, the cat whom he thinks knows all about what he and Thérèse have done. One night, the cat stares at Laurent so intensely that Laurent opens the window, grabs the cat, and hurls him at the wall across the alley. The animal breaks its back and spends the whole night screeching in pain outside.
From the very beginning of the novel, Laurent has dreamed of living a life in which he doesn’t have to work and can pass the time however he wants. But killing Camille has made it impossible for him to enjoy such a lifestyle, since idleness gives him so much time to think about his friend’s drowned corpse—a thought that constantly haunts him. Because he has nothing else to distract himself, he beats Thérèse, hoping to do anything to rid himself of the memory of murdering Camille. To that end, he throws François out the window because the cat is a living, breathing reminder that Camille used to live in the very apartment that Laurent now lives in. Simply put, Laurent is desperate to outrun his thoughts about Camille, but he’s unable to do so because there are reminders of the incident everywhere he looks.
Themes
