Passion and Pleasure
Émile Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin examines the misery that befalls two lovers who prioritize passion and pleasure above all else—including morality. The novel spotlights the fact that Thérèse and Laurent allow their desires to guide them through life. Laurent, for instance, is described as someone who has “full-blooded appetites and a pronounced desire for easy and long-lasting pleasures.” Thérèse, on the other hand, is desperate for pleasure because she’s led an unsatisfying life alongside her…
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Consequences and Delusion
Thérèse Raquin is a novel about what it’s like to commit a terrible act of violence and then live with the consequences. But what makes the story unique is that there aren’t any consequences, or at least not the kind that usually come along with cold-blooded murder. Laurent and Thérèse aren’t arrested for killing Camille, nor does anyone suspect them of foul play. In fact, for an entire year after Camille’s death, not much…
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Dependency and Resentment
Thérèse Raquin explores the things that—for better or worse—bind people together. In Thérèse and Laurent’s case, an intense physical intimacy draws them together, as they each depend on the other to give them something they need. For Thérèse, Laurent helps her feel free from the oppressive, depressing life she has been forced to live with Camille. Laurent, on the other hand, looks to Thérèse as someone who can satisfy his sexual desires. As…
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Money, Greed, and Class
The characters in Thérèse Raquin are very focused on money and social class. Camille, for example, goes “pink with pleasure” at the mere idea of himself sitting at a desk with “shiny artificial cuffs” and a fancy pen behind his ear. Of course, he doesn’t seem to care what, exactly, he does for work, as long as he can sit in a “huge office” and feel like a respectable employee. The novel subtly…
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