Germinal

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1885

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Part 6, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 6, Chapter 1 Summary

By February, more troops occupy Montsou. A sentry posts outside Le Voreux. The strike spreads to other pits, and work ceases. The people behave with the “deceptive docility” of “wild animals in a cage” (377).

The strike has been “ruinous” for the Company (377), which wants to hire Belgian workers but “did not dare do so” (378). The Company also keeps quiet about the damage and has fired Many miners, including Maheu. Chaval denounces Étienne, who no one has seen since the protests. The bourgeois live in terror of another attack.

Étienne is living in Jeanlin’s lair. Jeanlin, who enjoys “outsmarting the police” (380), provides supplies. As candles are scarce, Étienne often lies in the dark, remorseful for having gotten drunk and threatening Chaval; he is afraid of the “uncharted region of terror within himself, his hereditary disease, the long lineage of drunkenness” (380). He also feels “a sense of superiority” to the people and is horrified by “the base nature of people’s desires” (381). He is appalled by the living conditions of the village and frustrated that he can’t talk politics with any of them. In becoming increasingly like the “bourgeois he so despised” (381), he wishes he could focus on politics “in a nice clean room somewhere” (382), like Pluchart.

Hearing that he is believed to be in Belgium, Étienne leaves Réquillart to visit the pits. He worries that they cannot win and that he will bear the responsibility of the people’s demise. It would also signify “the collapse of his ambitions” (382). He contemplates the chain reaction that has led to the collapse of so many factories in sugar, flour, and glass companies. He is delighted by the devastation in the pits, as lack of maintenance leads to collapsing roads and flooding. The Company will have to spend huge sums on repairs.

Deneulin, facing ruin, asks the Grégoires for a loan but is denied. He refuses to sell to Montsou, which “wait[s] patiently for him to give up the ghost” (386). Étienne is disgusted by “the invincible power wielded by the sheer weight of capital” (386), which thrives on the defeat of others.

One night he wonders if he could get the gendarmes on their side and approaches the sentry outside Le Voreux. The young soldier, Jules, will not talk about politics, saying it’s “all the same to him” (388) and that he just does what he is told. He also tears up looking at the horizon toward his home. Feeling defeated, Étienne returns to Réquillart.

Part 6 Chapter 2 Summary

Village Two Hundred and Forty “seemed to have disappeared” (389) in the snow, for there are no fires in the fireplaces and no smoke coming from the chimneys. Alzire Maheu is dying; La Maheude is waiting for Dr. Vanderhaghen, the Company doctor. Lénore and Henri are sent out to beg.

Starvation has led to arguments and fist fights. The Levaques accuse La Maheude of saying their lodger pays to sleep with La Levaque. After arguing over gossip spread by La Pierronne, the group rushes to Pierron’s house, where Lydie is standing outside because Dansaert, who had arrived with news that the Company was bringing in Belgians, is in bed with her mother. The four of them take turns watching, and the food on the table incenses them. La Pierronne opens the door and, bolstered by her confidence in her beauty and wealth, informs them that Pierron knows why Dansaert is there. Pierron returns and defends his wife before everyone goes home.

The Maheus are in their “final hour” (394); they have sold all their belongings, down to the stuffing in their mattresses. The new priest, Father Ranvier, attempts to convince them to go to church. La Maheude says God doesn’t care about them. Father Ranvier tells them that the Church sides with the poor and that God will punish the rich. Maheu tells the priest he would “have done better to start by bringing us a loaf of bread” (397).

Étienne arrives, now a “figure of legend” (397). At first people waited for him “religiously” (397); now they doubt that he will be able to help them. Étienne is devastated by the sight of Alzire dying. When he suggests they compromise with the Company, La Maheude surprises him with her talk of blood and violence, saying if they compromise, all their suffering will be for nothing and that they need to bring back the guillotine “to rid the world of the thieving rich” (400).

Lénore and Henri return with no money; they’d received some coins but lost them in the snow. La Maheude reprimands them and then pulls them close, crying on the floor.

Finally, the doctor enters and scolds them for not having a candle lit. La Maheude cries that it is unfair that her helpful, sweet child is dying. The doctor announces that Alzire is dead and that “[m]eat’s what you all need” (402), then leaves to continue his work. La Maheude, sobbing, asks God to take them all.

Part 6, Chapter 3 Summary

Souvarine, Rasseneur, and Mme. Rasseneur are at the Advantage when Étienne signals to Souvarine from outside. Rasseneur sees and tells him to come in, adding that he knows where he’s been hiding and that if he were a traitor, as people say he is, he would have turned him in. Étienne tells him that just because they disagree doesn’t mean they can’t respect each other.

Étienne tells them that Négrel has brought some workers from Belgium who are going to start at Le Voreux the next day. Rasseneur says they need to back down and that he’s seen Pluchart, who believes the strike has failed. The International is “consumed by internal rivalries born of vanity and ambition,” and the anarchists are “forcing out the gradualists who had founded it in the first place” (403). Infighting has all but destroyed the organization.

Étienne is hesitant to reveal to Rasseneur how dejected he feels and tries to justify their lack of success. However, their “starved corpses,” he says, “will do more for the people’s cause” than Rasseneur’s “sensible approach” (404). He tears up as he says he wishes a soldier would shoot him.

Souvarine says the International is full of cowards and that they should call in the one man who could turn “their organization into a truly fearsome instrument of destruction” (405)—referring to Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist. He is distraught by news from Russia that their own revolution is failing. He then complains about workers in Marseilles who won the lottery and intend to live off their winnings instead of giving it to the poor.

Chaval bursts in, pushing Catherine, and orders beers to celebrate “the return to work” (408). He has quit Vandame and is going back to work at Le Voreux, where he will lead a group of Belgians. He brags about his money and insults those who are striking. Étienne is finally annoyed out of his silence and challenges him to a fight.

The two fail to injure each other for a time, though Étienne is outraged when Chaval breaks the rules by kicking him. When Étienne manages to hit his nose, Chaval falls to the floor, then reaches for a knife. Catherine warns Étienne, who is able to take it from Chaval. Although a “crazed desire to kill” (412) possesses him, he tells Chaval to get up and leave. Catherine tries to follow him, but Chaval tells her never to go to his house again.

Part 6, Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The devastating effects of the strike come to the fore in these chapters as the Maheus have “reached their final hour” (394). All belongings are sold, and without food, candles, or coal, they “waited to die” (395). In addition, the strike has prevented other factories from receiving the coal necessary for production, setting off a “chain reaction” in which “industries knocked each other over as they fell” (383). The Company is faced with monumental damage to its pits due to lack of maintenance: They face “[h]uge repair bills” (384) that cut into shareholders’ stock value, and accidents involving rock-falls have led to the destruction of private property.

That the people have reached new levels of suffering is best exemplified by the change in La Maheude who, in contrast with her earlier “good sense,” now calls for the blood of the wealthy, telling Étienne that she’d “skin them alive with my own bare hands” (400). At his suggestion that they compromise with the Company, La Maheude is furious, crying that they have “spent the last two month dying of starvation” and that the thought that it would be “for no purpose” (399) makes her “blood boil” (399).

La Maheude’s “big regret,” that she stopped Bonnemort from “chok[ing] the life” (400) out of Cécile Grégoire, reflects her devastation that her own daughter Alzire lays dying as she speaks. Alzire, “the only one who helped her round the house, who was so intelligent and so sweet-natured” (402), again contrasts with Cécile, whose comfort is bought on Alzire’s back. La Maheude, facing her daughter’s death, loses her sympathy for the likes of Cécile, who are “happy enough to choke the life out of my kids” (400). Her falling to the floor in despair, begging God to take them, is the culmination of transformation for La Maheude, whose persistence and resourcefulness have kept the Maheus alive.

Whereas La Maheude grows more drastic and vicious, willing to fight to the very death, Étienne begins to lean toward moderation. Étienne chastises himself for getting drunk, for he is fearful of “the uncharted region of terror within himself” (380). He is so “disturbed” by the sight of the dying Alzire that he suggests to La Maheude that they “give in” (399). This contrast between Étienne and La Maheude is partly the result of the fact that Étienne’s wariness connects to his personal ambition. His fear that they cannot win against the Company is the result not only of the fact that he will bear responsibility “for people’s suffering” but also because failure would mean “a return to his brutish existence in the mine” (382). While the desire to feed her starving family motivates La Maheude, Étienne’s draw toward luxury and comfort motivates him. He feels “repugnance” for “the crudeness” of the people, with whom he cannot “talk […] seriously about politics” (381). He desires to “be like Pluchart, to stop work and devote himself entirely to politics, but alone, in a nice clean room somewhere” (382). Despite his proclamations that he seeks to destroy it, part of Étienne is attracted to the bourgeois’ “life of comfort and good manners” (381).

The fight is beginning to look unwinnable, both because the Company is too strong and because human nature gets in the way of progress. Hearing of Deneulin’s ruin and of how the Company is “taking advantage of his difficulties” by strong-arming him into selling Vandame, Étienne is disgusted by “the invincible power wielded by the sheer weight of capital,” which “grew fat on the defeat of others” (386). Meanwhile, “internal rivalries” (403) divide the International, to the point where the “original goal” is “lost sight of” (404). Souvarine’s belief that the International is failing because they are “cowards” who refuse to turn “their organization into a truly fearsome instrument of destruction” (405) demonstrates the irony of the strike: Leaders are too intellectually focused, but as evident in the rest of the text, when the true power of the people is unleashed, the violence is aimless and futile.

Chaval’s quick shift in allegiance—he had gone to Jean-Bart, and now is back at Le Voreux to work with the Belgians—contrasts with Étienne, who is loyal and idealistic, perhaps to a fault. Étienne’s feeling “outraged” when Chaval pulls out a knife during their fight, a clear “infringement of the rules of fair combat” (410), is consistent with his inability to predict the people’s violence. His underestimation of people’s savagery has already resulted in disaster, and it will do so again before the novel’s end.