The novel Nana profoundly reflects the social reality in the period of the Second Reich of France, especially around a high-class prostitute Nana, vividly shows the parasitic life of high society, and subtly and profoundly reveals the inevitable trend of its crumbling rule from all aspects of life. Especially at the end of the novel, the author directly predicted the coming of the revolutionary storm. All these make the whole work magnificent and inspiring. However, the true side of human physiology shown in the novel is of pioneering significance in the history of literature. Even if people's physiological instinct is often so unsightly, after all, we can't deny that there are more or less areas in ourselves that are difficult for reason to set foot in. Facing it is undoubtedly more realistic than turning a blind eye. Especially with the continuous progress of science and technology and the continuous development of material civilization, people are gradually alienated under the oppression of external environment, and human physiological instinct has its rich and complex embodiment, which is the focus of postmodern literature. In literature, the theme of prostitutes enables writers to describe all human sufferings, which are physical, mental and social, such as family disharmony, extremely bad living and working conditions and alcoholism. Zola does not want to beautify the image of prostitutes, nor is she keen on depicting obscene scenes, but wants to show the real situation. He not only wrote about the life of prostitutes, but also created a symbolic figure: "I tried to describe a complete scene to summarize a type and an era."
From the novel Nana, the heroine Nana is a descendant of the Lugong-Markard family, born in a humble family, and her parents are increasingly poor and degenerate because of hereditary alcoholism and environmental influence. In this novel, Zola still insists on depicting characters from the perspective of heredity and instinct, which is vividly shown in Nana. The most prominent point of her distorted human nature from her family is the extravagance of sexual life. Nana appeared as the heroine of the play Goldilocks, but people "have never heard a song so out of tune and so inappropriate". What's more, just after singing two lyrics, she could no longer make a sound, so she had to wriggle around on the stage at a loss. However, Nana "won the victory with her marble-like white skin and her strong sexiness, which was enough to destroy the whole incarnation without any damage". Under the control of excessive lust, Nana tried her best to have fun with others, or was desperate. "No matter where she is, whether she is wearing pajamas or a dress, she will have a good time whenever she meets a man." So, from aristocrats to inferior people, as close as father and son, without enemies, they all became guests in Nana's bedroom. In addition, Nana is crazy about homosexuality and has narcissism. Nana has insatiable lust, being heterosexual, homosexual and narcissistic. In addition to unreasonable exuberance, Nana's abnormal characteristics with genetic factors are also manifested in extravagance. "Every night, men don't leave their bodies, so rich that even the drawers of dressing tables are filled with money and mixed with combs and brushes." Similar to her lust, Nana's profligacy borders on ignorance. Her idea is very simple, that is, spend money, the more you spend, the happier you will be, no matter how the money comes or how you get there. Therefore, this strange phenomenon is not uncommon: "In this river with gold flowing, her limbs are submerged by its waves, and she often feels hard up." In her short life, Nana seems to be completely spontaneous, vaguely aware of her indulgence and extravagance.
Based on human physiological instinct, Zola created a dissolute, luxurious, bright, kind and frank Nana with animal characteristics, and even directly turned Nana's image into an animal more than once, saying that she was a "golden retriever", "hairy all over", "full of sensuality" and "her hips and thighs were like thoroughbred horses". Zola also borrowed characters' pens from books and described Nana as a fly. "A golden fly that flew out of the garbage, a fly that stung the body that was thrown on the side of the road, buzzed and danced, shining like a gem. It flies into the palace through the window and can poison a person as long as it falls on him. " To this end, some commentators pointed out: "What distinguishes naturalism from realism is to describe people mechanically as animals in the environment. In naturalism, it seems that people and animals are essentially the same. "
Zola extended his brush strokes to the vast society and vividly described various social conditions. Because of the particularity of Nana's identity-a low-level actress and a high-level prostitute, although she later lived a luxurious life, she was also inextricably linked with the lower class-the novel touched every corner of social life. From the upper class, their status, status and dignity are so easily tempted by Nana's lewdness. For example, Count Mifa, an attendant of the noble court, was fascinated by Nana's beauty. "Although he knew Nana was a stupid, lewd and lying woman, he still wanted to possess her, even though she was covered in toxins." In order to please Nana, he was even willing to dress up as a dog, trample on his official clothes and medals, and make many gaffes, and finally ended up in ruin. Similarly, under the power of Nana's carnal desire, Vendeuvre's great wealth was finally squandered, and he himself set himself on fire and died; Philip was jailed for embezzlement; Xiao Qiao committed suicide because of the failure of love; Fukamon went into exile; Steiner went bankrupt; Even the countess, who has always been a supporter, was unwilling to be lonely, committed adultery and finally eloped with the counter manager of a fashion shop. The dying old marquis, regardless of his old age and infirmity, has a good time with his son-in-law's mistress ... As for the life of the lower class, although it is not the focus of the novel, Zola still writes about its poverty, degeneration and numbness in some ways. Nana is undoubtedly the most successful one written by Zola in this novel. First of all, it must be pointed out that Zola made Nana a symbolic figure. Nana, like the Second Reich, was born in 185 1. Nana became famous at the World Expo 1867, and the economy of the Second Reich developed rapidly. Nana died in 1870. In July, she declared war on Prussia, and the Second Empire collapsed after the defeat.
Nana is attractive to men only because she is a woman. She can control men because she despises them. She abused her lover, just like destroying anything, and even trampled on the clothes of Queen Mifa's attendants. She won a complete victory, because this society has no honor, and its superficial luxury can only cover up the spiritual emptiness and moral corruption.
As a naturalist writer, Zola borrowed from science not only a purpose-to study reality and nature in detail as much as possible-and a method-based on rich and in-depth information, but also a certain style, that is, to be as objective as possible without personal subjectivity. The story of the novel is told by the author, but the author should appear in it as little as possible.
Novelists can't make any clear criticism at first if they want to remain neutral in narrative. Zola often lets his characters do it, such as journalist Fauchery. However, the novelist deliberately confused the clues, which made his spokesman have a negative side: Fauchery became the lover of Countess Mifa, which accelerated the disintegration of this noble family. This is also the case with Theophil Weino. The reason is that Nana is not a wake-up novel, but an ethical novel. In Zola's view, ethics is an objective description of facts, not a clumsy criticism.
The other spokespersons of the author are prostitutes. First of all, Nana expressed her indignation in many places in the book. Followed by Saturn, she was "surprised to see the prince and several gentlemen wearing dresses, but to please a half-naked woman", and clarice, who was disgusted with men. The criticism of corrupt elements is even more shocking!
Another way for the author to remain neutral is to let the facts speak for themselves. For example, the old goat Marquis Shuar had a tryst with his mistress Baroness Decair and said that he was studying a draft law. He failed in his pursuit of Nana, so he spent 30,000 francs on Lily, the daughter of Jia Jia, a social butterfly. After the relationship between his son-in-law Count Mifa and Nana became public, he "broke off relations with Mifa and said that he would never set foot in the gate of this mansion again". But not long after, when Mifa came back from selling his last property in Normandy, he found Marquis Shuar lying in Nana's arms, on the new bed made of gold and silver. At this point, this seemingly honest man, in fact, the image of corruption is clearly displayed in front of readers.
Description is a major feature of naturalistic novels, because every naturalistic novel is a warehouse for storing information and needs to introduce some knowledge about the world. Description connects the work with the world and plays a coordinating role in the work. However, the author can't interrupt the narrative to insert the description, so he gives the task to his characters. For example, in the sixth chapter, the description of Jiaowa House is that Nana runs from one room to another. In the tenth chapter, Vandewell showed Nana the weighing place of the racecourse and the round pavilion where the bookkeeper was located, thus describing the two places. The fifth chapter describes Nana's makeup by observing other characters. In this way, description and narration are integrated.