the Earth is a Romance of Emile Zola published in 1887, the fifteenth volume of the series Rougon-Macquart , undoubtedly one of the more violent ones. Zola indeed draws up there a wild portrait of the country of the end of the 19th century, rough world with the profit, devoured of a passion for the ground which can go until the crime. All the work east impresses of a bestiality suitable to shock the readers of the time, the couplings of animals alternating with those of human, themselves marked by a great precocity and a brutality frequently going until the rape. As of its publication the Earth raised violent controversies, illustrated in particular by the Manifeste of the five , article published in the Barber by five young novelists who advised in Zola to consult Charcot to look after his morbid obsessions. The action is at Rognes (Romilly-on-Sourness), small village of the Beauce. The hero of the novel is Jean Macquart, wire of Antoine Macquart and Joséphine Gévaudan, one of the rare members of Macquart the unscathed branch of any tare. He already appears in the Fortune of Rougon, where he learns the trade from carpenter. After having left Plassans, its birthplace, it is drawn with the fate in 1852 and takes part in the military campaigns of the Second Empire. Wounded in Italy, it takes again its trade of carpenter then is engaged as farm laborer with Rognes, where it remains during ten years. Jean Macquart will be then the hero of the Rout, one still finds it in the last novel of the cycle, Doctor Pascal.

The history, particularly atrocious, proceeds within the Fouan family. The old man Louis Fouan, known as the father Fouan , decides at the 76 years age to divide his goods between his children, with load for those to lodge it, to nourish it and to give him two hundred francs of revenue each one. They discharge their task very badly, in particular Buteau, which dispossesses it little by little of its thin fortune. Buteau has two cousins, the Mouche sisters. It made a child with the first, Lise, that it married three years later when it became wealthy heiress. As for the second, Francoise, it continues it her advances with as well insistence as she approaches Jean Macquart and ends up marrying it. This marriage worries much Buteau and Lise, which fear to see part of the family heritage passing in other hands. When they learn that Francoise is pregnant, they decide to make it fall through: Buteau rapes Francoise with the assistance of Dye stick, then this one pushes his/her sister on a scythe. Seriously wounded, Francoise dies. The Fouan father, who attended the scene, is then burned by the two murderers. As for Jean Macquart, become again as poor as on its arrival at the village, it leaves Rognes and engages again in the army.

Critical arts person

• the Earth , article of Anatole France appeared in Time

Films

the Earth is a French film directed by the Réalisateur André Antoine, adapted Romance of Emile Zola and left on the Parisian screens in 1921.