![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Maheu and two of their children die along the way. The failure of the cold, prolonged, and bloody strike leaves the settlement in a state of despair. He develops a passionate but awkward attraction to the Maheus’ eldest daughter Catherine. He becomes close to and eventually stays with the Maheus, a family consisting of Maheu (the father), Maheude (the mother), Bonnemort (the grandfather), and seven children living in the pit settlement. His genetic tendency to engage in drunken rage and heightened egoism as he becomes the head of the resistance leads to his eventual downfall. ![]() Zola’s naturalism follows Etienne, a young migrant worker who arrives at Montsou and the Voreux Pit to eventually lead the miners to strike against the pit owners and management. Although the mine fails, and the workers are worse off after it than before, the increased sense of awareness they acquire about their work inculcates an ethos of politics and politicization. As translator Dominique Jullien notes, Germinal attempts to rise above the miserable, immediate conditions of the workers’ lives, and offer them an opportunity to take on social and political roles – to offer a better vision of the future. ![]()
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