ABUNDANCE AND MISERY IN THE CITY MARKETS: LE VENTRE DE PARIS (1873), BY ÉMILE ZOLA

Abstract

This study analyzes Le Ventre de Paris (1873), by Émile Zola, through the theoretical lens of Antoine Compagnon, focusing on the tension between abundance and misery in the city’s markets. The novel, the third volume of the Les Rougon-Macquart series, is set primarily in Les Halles, the great central market of Paris, which Zola transforms into a metaphor for the city’s “belly” — a living organism that simultaneously nourishes and devours. The narrative follows Florent, a character marked by exile and hunger, whose gaze upon the market serves as a narrative device for Zola’s social critique. The study highlights how Zola, within the naturalist project, constructs a narrative that combines documentary precision with aesthetic intensity. The extensive descriptions of food — their colors, textures, and smells — create a sensory atmosphere that mirrors the excesses of capitalist modernity, while also underscoring the exclusion of those left on the margins of consumption. The opposition between the “fat” and the “thin” — symbols of power and deprivation — structures the narrative and reinforces the unequal social order represented in the novel. Drawing on Compagnon’s theory, the analysis argues that Zola’s work is not a mere reflection of reality but a critical interpretation that turns the market into an allegory of the social body and the city’s insatiable appetite. The study also emphasizes the political dimension of the novel, which exposes social control and state repression, culminating in Florent’s tragic fate. The paper concludes that Le Ventre de Paris remains strikingly relevant in its problematization of the tensions between abundance and misery, progress and exclusion. Zola’s work reveals the contradictions of modernity, offering readers not only a powerful narrative but also a profound reflection on the mechanisms of power and the social inequalities produced by urban capitalism.