Nana

Female sexuality is not the only catalyst Zola blames for the downfall of Second Empire society, but it is a subject about which he demonstrates extreme concern in Nana. Contemporary readers may not find this issue particularly salient, but the subject was prevalent in Zola’s lifetime: Sex work was popular in Paris, particularly for young unmarried women whose salaries for other types of work were low. (For more on the historical reality of sex work during this era, see the “Further Reading” section.) This phenomenon made people fear the unchecked spread of venereal diseases, leading French authorities to mandate sex workers to formally register with the state and then undergo mandatory health screenings when, like Satin in Chapter 8, they were rounded up by police.

In Nana, it is not just the possibility of disease that makes female sexuality frightening. Rather, female sexuality threatens to expose how thin the veneer of civilization that represses bestial and destructive desire really is. Indeed, throughout the novel, Zola portrays men and women as incapable of resisting Nana’s alluring body; the narrative shows that a strong enough sexual temptation effectively removes the free will and agency of even a devout man like Comte Muffat. Nana’s sexuality affects even people who are not her lovers. When Muffat finally ends things with Nana in Chapter 13 and resumes his family life, he forgives Sabine for her affairs on the grounds that she was only acting under Nana’s influence. Apparently, Nana’s impact has so thoroughly permeated the society around her that it alters the moral compass of a withdrawn, submissive wife like Sabine, despite the fact that Sabine never interacts with Nana personally and only sees her lifestyle from a distance.

The narrative excuses men’s behavior while demonizing that of women. The men with whom Nana associates constantly flit from one sexual partner to the next, but they are not tarred as the ruination of society in the same way that Nana is. Zola truthfully communicates that sex work endangers those who practice it—on more than one occasion, Nana and her fellow sex workers experience male violence, which the novel deplores but portrays as par for the course. However, the most prominent message the novel communicates is that unchecked female sexuality, and female sex workers in particular, are dangerous because they erode social values and moral judgment.