The Debacle –
Emile Zola
During the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, two soldiers
befriend each other. Jean Macquart is the personification of rural values such
as frugality, caution, and cool-headedness. Maurice Levasseur is an intellectual
who has been educated enough to be anxious about a coming revolution that will
sweep away a corrupt world. The reader follows them through
the boredom and horrors of war until the Paris Commune incident affects their
friendship that has been forged during their shared ordeal of battle.
But Zola’s intention, I think, was to write an epic about
ordinary people and show us an entire nation – its people, their fields and works,
the ecology – murdered by idiotic leaders. He juxtaposes scenes of military and
civilian life, showing unedited all the sufferings of the human body and nature.
He narrates the painful chronicle which will lead to the humiliation of the Battle of Sedan. Our
protagonists run for their lives through a wood of despair and death being
shelled:
A venerable oak, directly in
Maurice's path, had its trunk shattered by a shell, and sank, with the stately
grace of a mailed paladin, carrying down all before it, and even as the young
man was leaping back the top of a gigantic ash on his left, struck by another
shell, came crashing to the ground like some tall cathedral spire. Where could
they fly? whither bend their steps? Everywhere the branches were falling; it
was as one who should endeavor to fly from some vast edifice menaced with
destruction, only to find himself in each room he enters in succession
confronted with crumbling walls and ceilings. And when, in order to escape
being crushed by the big trees, they took refuge in a thicket of bushes, Jean
came near being killed by a projectile, only it fortunately failed to explode.
They could no longer make any progress now on account of the dense growth of
the shrubbery; the supple branches caught them around the shoulders, the rank,
tough grass held them by the ankles, impenetrable walls of brambles rose before
them and blocked their way, while all the time the foliage was fluttering down
about them, clipped by the gigantic scythe that was mowing down the wood.
In this 1892 story to rank with the greatest war novels, Zola’s
stance is that all war, whatever the lofty justifications from canting leaders,
will result in the slaughter of the innocent and the destruction of their prosperity.
Killing is not only acceptable but admired and required if dehumanized enemies are killed
in war. As Seneca said of war, “Deeds that would be punished by loss of life when
committed in secret, are praised by us because uniformed generals have carried
them out.”
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