Balzac's La Peau de chagrin and Zola's Germinal: Points of Contact

La Peau de chagrin depicts an infernal contract and the complexities of life as competitive labor no less than Germinal portrays the socio-economic problems of labor versus capital. Geological parallels are attributable to each author's expressed interest in geology as a foundation for understanding man, art, and history. The strength of the economic and geological affinities in works so central to an understanding of the novelists' æsthetics and thought emphasizes the value of re-examining the conceptual and artistic relationship between the authors' various novels in the light of these social and physical sciences. (LK)