Reading La Terre as a novel of parricide Physical and symbolic killings in rural France in the nineteenth century

With the publication of La Terre, Émile Zola revived the controversy associated with a form of naturalist writing that painted an unenviable picture of rural farm workers. Although the text shocked its readers, it nonetheless reveals personality traits of the writer, who was attached to his roots in the northern French region of Beauce. Above all, the work expresses a fascination for the nourishing earth, portrayed as a mythical goddess, and rejects whatever is associated with her betrayal.