Germinal Lesson Plan

How does Zola characterize the bourgeoisie, whom we meet for the first time in today's reading?

Zola shifts to a description of how the other half—the bourgeois owners, investors, and managers of the mines—lives. An important element of bourgeois behavior is the marked acceptance and tolerance of the inhumane conditions in which the workers live. The Gregoires think that the workers are a lucky lot who should appreciate the opportunity to work and not complain about the hardships they experience (or that the things miners complain of count as hardships at all). The oblivious mannerisms and mentality of the Gregoires speak to two things: the indifference that bourgeois...