The beast in man

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Please add background, form and origin.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Advertising poster

The Beast in Man or The Beast in Man (French La Bête Humaine ) is a novel by Émile Zola . It forms the seventeenth part of the Rougon-Macquart cycle . Most of the action takes place on the railway line between Paris and Le Havre and in the station area. Zola completed the novel in the spring of 1890 , inspired by the trains he could observe from his home in Médan .

At the center of the plot are Roubaud, the station master of Le Havre, his wife Séverine and the railroad worker Jacques Lantier. Jacques is the son of Gervaise, known from the novel The Blackjack, and the brother of Ètienne Lantier from Germinal and Claude Lantier, who appears for the first time in The Belly of Paris and is at the center of the plot in The Work . He is also the half-brother of Nana from the novel of the same name.

action

The train driver Jacques Lantier feels the need to kill a woman with a knife. He is afraid of temptation and leads an isolated life. He has a deep affection for his La Lison locomotive .

At the beginning of the novel, the station master Roubaud discovers that his wife Séverine had an affair with Grandmorin, the president of the railway company, when she was a child. As a result, he and his wife are patronized by society. On a train ride from Paris to Le Havre, Roubaud and Séverine kill Grandmorin and throw him off the moving train. Then they climb into another compartment while the train is at full speed.

Meanwhile, Jacques visits his cousin Flore, who lives as the daughter of a switchman on the route. He feels the need to kill her, but he resists the temptation and runs away. He happens to witness the murder of Grandmorin. Shortly afterwards he finds his body on the rails. The suspicion arises that it is a robbery murder. Roubaud and Séverine are questioned by the police but are not seriously suspected as they have no obvious motives. Jacques recognizes Roubaud as a murderer, but remains silent. The coroner suspects that the murder was committed by the solitary Cabuche who lives along the route. The crime remains unsolved.

Roubaud and Séverine's relationship is crumbling. She hid the money and Grandmorin's watch in the wall behind her wardrobe. Roubaud begins to drink. Séverine and Jacques begin a love affair. At first they fear being caught by Roubaud, but he shows no jealousy. Séverine admits to Jacques that her husband forced her to participate in the murder. Jacques feels the desire to kill a woman. He leaves his home looking for a victim. But he doesn't kill. He later realizes that there is no longer any desire to kill. He believes that love for Séverine healed him.

The partnership between Séverine and Roubaud finally breaks up when she discovers that, contrary to the agreement, he has used up the stolen money alone and in full. Jacques gets the opportunity to invest money in a friend's business. Séverine suggests that he invest the money she inherited from Grandmorin. Roubaud is the only obstacle on their way to happiness. Séverine persuades Jacques to kill him. He lies in wait for the station master, but at the last moment he loses his nerve and escapes.

His cousin Flore, who is in love with him, realizes that Jacques and Séverine are having a relationship and, out of jealousy, decides to kill them both. She puts a carriage across the rails at a level crossing, causing an accident in which numerous passengers are killed and seriously injured. Then Flore throws himself in a tunnel in front of a train. Jacques, who was injured in the accident, is cared for by Séverine.

Séverine makes an appointment with Roubaud, but this appointment is a trap. Jacques is supposed to kill her husband. But this is overwhelmed by his genetic predisposition to kill a woman. He stabs Séverine and escapes, appalled by his own deed. The body of Séverines is found by Cabuche. In their investigations, the police come to the conclusion that Cabuche committed the murder on behalf of Roubaud. Both are convicted.

Jacques resumes his duties. He's now driving a different locomotive. He starts an affair with his stoker's girlfriend. The novel ends with Jacques driving a train full of soldiers to the front, into the Franco-Prussian War . There is a physical argument with the jealous stoker, in the course of which they both fall from the locomotive. The train full of patriotically enthusiastic soldiers who are sure of victory races through the night without a leader.

Film adaptations

literature

  • Émile Zola: The beast in man . Tredition Classics, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8424-2071-7 (French: La Bête Humaine . Translated by Alfred Ruhemann).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Benno Diederich: Emile Zola . 1898, p. 58 .