Nana

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1880

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-11

Chapters 12-13

Chapter 14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Fly

In Chapter 7, Fauchery writes an opinion piece for the Figaro that condemns Nana in the harshest possible terms, not as an actress but as a person who is infecting Parisian society with her loose morals. The article is titled “La Mouche d’Or,” meaning The Golden Fly. Like a fly, Fauchery writes, Nana enjoys wallowing in filth and then spreading it around to anyone with whom she comes in contact, infecting the upper classes without a second thought.

The fly is an apt symbol for Nana in the sense that insects do not spread disease out of malice; they simply follow their instincts, unconscious of their actions’ effects. Similarly, Zola’s naturalist ideology leads him to portray Nana as a woman merely following the instincts she has collected through heredity and environment. Yes, she sometimes develops and acts on personal resentments; at times she even justifies her ruination of men as a form of revenge for her lower-class background and previous ill treatment. However, she wreaks much of her ruin without premeditation. Steiner, for instance, is a lover she mostly considers a boring annoyance. She has no simmering resentment against him. She makes demands for money, and he obliges until he has nothing left. Readers may or may not agree with Fauchery’s overall assessment of Nana, but the comparison to a fly is accurate in the sense that Nana often follows her instincts without having a larger malevolent plan.

The Bloodstain

In Chapter 13, Georges stabs himself with a pair of scissors attempt after Nana refuses to marry him. Though he does not die, the wound leaves a large bloodstain on Nana’s bedroom floor, positioned right in the entryway. Try as she might, Nana’s maid Zoe cannot get the bloodstain out. For the rest of the novel, none of Nana’s lovers can enter her bedroom without crossing this symbolic threshold. To be Nana’s partner, the stain suggests, requires a toll of blood.

Not all of Nana’s lovers pay with literal blood, but they all pay in some way. Vandeuvres, like Georges, kills himself, though less out of desperate love for Nana than from the financial ruin he inflicted on himself by giving in to her endless demands for money. Steiner, Fauchery, and La Faloise all similarly lose their fortunes to Nana. Only Muffat, who for a while loses his very soul, his moral clarity, and his religious devotion, steps back from the brink. Significantly, when he finds Nana in bed with his father-in-law, he does not cross the bloody threshold, instead turning away and falling to his knees in prayer, allowing for his redemption and return to his family.

Irma d’Anglars/Queen Pomare

Irma d’Anglars and Queen Pomare symbolize opposing visions for Nana’s future. Irma d’Anglars is the elderly proprietress of the Abbaye de Charmont. While on a day trip in the countryside, Nana comes upon her leaving a church service and has a deeply emotional experience. She sees that Irma d’Anglars is exactly what Nana has always aspired to be: respected. Her fellow parishioners treat her like royalty, bowing to her and kissing her.

Queen Pomare’s title, on the other hand, is a mocking nickname: She is a poverty-stricken former courtesan who wanders the streets in an alcoholic stupor. She used to be popular and able to get any man she wanted, but as her looks faded so did her popularity. The income she garnered from her liaisons with wealthy men disappeared with her beauty.

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Nana fears the possibility of ending up like Queen Pomare and longs to end up like Irma d’Anglars, but she has no idea how to actualize her goal. No one has ever believed in or cultivated her ability to be anything other than a sex object. Ultimately, however, readers never see which version of the future Nana would grow into, as she dies while still young—though Zola’s naturalist outlook makes it clear that becoming like Irma d’Anglars is an unrealizable fantasy for Nana.

Performance

Parisian society becomes acquainted with Nana through her performance as Venus at the Théâtre des Variétés in Chapter 1, and performance remains a central motif throughout the novel. Nana embodies a “fake it until you make it” mentality, believing that if she mimics high-society ladies—their mannerisms, their clothes, their home décor—she will eventually be considered one of them. She tries this tactic quite literally for her second stage performance when she attempts to play a duchess. Both performances, in the play and in real life, are failures. Nana can become envied, trendsetting, and popular through performance, but she cannot become respectable. Her lower-class upbringing and her background in sex work will always block her entry into the upper echelon of society.

However, the novel makes it clear that almost every other character also performs constantly. The men who enjoy liaisons with sex workers pretend to have a lack of interest about them in front of Madame Hugon. Muffat affects ignorance of Nana’s affairs to avoid her rage or dismissal. Sabine feigns fidelity while engaging in more and more affairs behind Muffat’s back. Nana’s fellow sex workers join her in aping high-class mannerisms despite their exclusion from the real seats of social influence. In a society obsessed with consumerism, decadence, and status and fueled by a constant churn of gossip, public persona is everything—even when it is completely fraudulent.