Therese Raquin

Main Ideas

• The destructive power of passions and emotions, leading to moral degradation and physical decline
• A portrait of late 19th-century bourgeois society, its moral values, and social contradictions
• The conflict between personal desires and social expectations
• An exploration of the psychology of crime and its impact on human destiny
• The tragedy of love, ruined by circumstances and overwhelming passions
• The principle of heredity and social environment as determinants of human behavior
• Critique of the bourgeois lifestyle and its impact on the moral state of individuals