Laurent’s habit of visiting the morgue comes to represent the ways in which murdering Camille causes him to lead a depressing, grotesque life. In the weeks after killing his friend, he goes to the morgue every morning to look for Camille’s body. The task involves walking through rows and rows of dead bodies and examining all of the drowning victims at great length—a gruesome endeavor that gives Laurent terrible nightmares. At the same time, though, Laurent also seems to get a perverse thrill out of looking at some of the corpses, taking special note of the nude female bodies, which fill him with a strange feeling of “fearful lust.” His trips to the morgue thus take on an even more disturbing quality, suggesting that Laurent has conflated death and violence with sexual arousal. More broadly, though, the fact that he goes to the morgue so much is symbolic of the unsettling trajectory his life has taken in the aftermath of the murder, as he finds himself surrounded by death and unable to stop obsessively thinking about it at all times.
The Morgue Quotes in Thérèse Raquin
His visits to the Morgue gave him nightmares and fits of shuddering which left him panting for breath. He shook off his fears and told himself not to act like a child; he wanted to be strong, but, despite himself, his body refused, and his whole being was overcome by revulsion and horror as soon as he found himself in the damp, sickly-smelling atmosphere of the mortuary.
The Morgue Symbol Timeline in Thérèse Raquin
