User:Jahsonic/Heredity in Zola's La Bête humaine  

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The concept of heredity in Naturalist literature is exemplified by two passages about the character of Jacques Lantier in the novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola.

"Lui, à certaines heures, la sentait bien, cette fêlure héréditaire ; non pas qu’il fût d’une santé mauvaise, car l’appréhension et la honte de ses crises l’avaient seules maigri autrefois ; mais c’étaient, dans son être, de subites pertes d’équilibre, comme des cassures, des trous par lesquels son moi lui échappait, au milieu d’une sorte de grande fumée qui déformait tout. Il ne s’appartenait plus, il obéissait à ses muscles, à la bête enragée. Pourtant, il ne buvait pas, il se refusait même un petit verre d’eau-de-vie, ayant remarqué que la moindre goutte d’alcool le rendait fou. Et il en venait à penser qu’il payait pour les autres, les pères, les grands-pères, qui avaient bu, les générations d’ivrognes dont il était le sang gâté, un lent empoisonnement, une sauvagerie qui le ramenait avec les loups mangeurs de femmes, au fond des bois."[1]
"Puisqu’il ne les connaissait pas, quelle fureur pouvait-il avoir contre elles ? car, chaque fois, c’était comme une soudaine crise de rage aveugle, une soif toujours renaissante de venger des offenses très anciennes, dont il aurait perdu l’exacte mémoire. Cela venait-il donc de si loin, du mal que les femmes avaient fait à sa race, de la rancune amassée de mâle en mâle, depuis la première tromperie au fond des cavernes ? Et il sentait aussi, dans son accès, une nécessité de bataille pour conquérir la femelle et la dompter, le besoin perverti de la jeter morte sur son dos, ainsi qu’une proie qu’on arrache aux autres, à jamais. Son crâne éclatait sous l’effort, il n’arrivait pas à se répondre, trop ignorant, pensait-il, le cerveau trop sourd, dans cette angoisse d’un homme poussé à des actes où sa volonté n’était pour rien, et dont la cause en lui avait disparu."[2]

In the film adaptation by Jean Renoir, a summary of these passage appear in the scrolling text at the beginning of the film.

"A certaines heures,
"il la sentait bien cette
"fêlure héréditaire.
"Et il en venait à penser
"qu’il payait pour les autres...
"les pères, les grand-pères
"qui avaient bu... les
"générations d’ivrognes dont
"il était le sang gâté.
"Son crâne éclatait sous
"l’effort, dans cette angoisse
"d’un homme poussé à des
"actes où sa volonté
"n’était pour rien, et dont
"la cause en lui avait
" disparu."

--La Bête humaine, film adaptation by Jean Renoir

English translation

"Himself, at certain hours, felt this hereditary flaw. Not that he had bad health, for it was only the apprehension and shame of his attacks that formerly had made him thin. But he was apt to suddenly lose his equilibrium, as if there existed broken places, holes in his being, by which his own self escaped from him amidst a sort of great cloud of smoke that disfigured everything. Then, losing his self-control, he obeyed his muscles, listening to the mad animal within him. Nevertheless, he did not drink, he even deprived himself of an occasional dram of brandy, having remarked that the least drop of alcohol drove him mad. And he began to think that he must be paying for others, the fathers, the grandfathers who had drunk, the generations of drunkards, whose vitiated blood he had inherited. It seemed like slow poison, which reduced him to savagery, taking him back to the depths of the woods, among the wolves, devourers of women."[3]
"As he did not know them, why was he so furious against them ? For, on each occasion, it seemed like a sudden outburst of blind rage, an ever-recurring thirst to avenge some very ancient offences, the exact recollection of which escaped him. Did it date from so far back, from the harm women had done to his race, from the rancour laid up from male to male since the first deceptions at the bottom of the caverns ? And, in his access, he also felt the necessity to fight, in order to conquer and subjugate the female, the perverted necessity to throw her dead on his back, like a prey torn from others for ever. His head was bursting in the effort to understand. He could find no answer to his inquiry. Too ignorant, the brain too sluggish, thought he, in this anguish of a man urged to acts wherein his will stood for nothing, and the reason whereof had disappeared from his mind."[4]
"At certain times,
he felt it clearly
this hereditary flaw.
And he came to feel
he was paying for the others ...
his fathers and grandfathers
who had drunk
generations of drunkards whose
tainted blood he had become.
His skull burst under
the strain, in this anguish
of a man driven to
acts his will did not control,
acts whose causes
lay hidden deep within him."

--mixed translation by JWG based partly on Louis Colman and the English subtitles.

Louis Colman translation

He had come to think that he was paying for those others, his fathers and grandfathers who had drunk, those generations of drunkards from whom he had inherited the tainted blood, a slow poison, a savagery that linked him to the ... --translation by Louis Colman.

Dutch translation

"Op bepaalde momenten,
voelde hij heel duidelijk
zijn erfelijke belasting.
En hij begon te geloven dat
hij betaalde voor de anderen ...
de vaders, grootvaders
die gedronken hadden
generaties van dronkaards
van wie hij het bedorven bloed was.
zijn schedel barstte onder
de inspanningen, het was de angst
van een man gedreven tot
handelingen waarin zijn wil
tot niets herleid was, en waarvan de
oorzaak was verdwenen".




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