L'Assommoir

Main Ideas

• An exploration of the influence of environment and heredity on human destiny.
• A critique of the social conditions and poverty of the nineteenth-century French working class.
• A depiction of personal degradation under the influence of alcoholism and destitution.
• A portrayal of the lives of Paris’s underclass and their struggle for survival.
• The theme of fatalism and the inevitability of downfall in an adverse social environment.
• A realistic depiction of the daily life and morals of the working class.
• A psychological study of the characters and their inner conflicts.