Lust, Hunger, and Class in Émile Zola’s The Belly of Paris
Session Title
Literature
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
World Languages & Cultures
Faculty Mentor
Anna Igou, Ph.D.
Abstract
Emile Zola’s nineteenth-century novel The Belly of Paris gives a rich commentary on the relationships between people, using food as a medium to illustrate socioeconomic values and gender dynamics. In this paper, I will closely examine how Zola breaks his characters into two groups, les maigres (the Thins) and les gras (the Fats), whose socioeconomic differences and political views are also reflected in the foods with which the author associates them. This also plays into how Les Halles, the marketplace which is also the eponymous setting of the novel, is illustrated as a belly in which the characters may be consumed in order to uphold the status quo or be expelled as revolutionaries.
Course Assignment
FREN 360 — Igou
Start Date
24-4-2020 12:00 AM
Lust, Hunger, and Class in Émile Zola’s The Belly of Paris
Emile Zola’s nineteenth-century novel The Belly of Paris gives a rich commentary on the relationships between people, using food as a medium to illustrate socioeconomic values and gender dynamics. In this paper, I will closely examine how Zola breaks his characters into two groups, les maigres (the Thins) and les gras (the Fats), whose socioeconomic differences and political views are also reflected in the foods with which the author associates them. This also plays into how Les Halles, the marketplace which is also the eponymous setting of the novel, is illustrated as a belly in which the characters may be consumed in order to uphold the status quo or be expelled as revolutionaries.
