Germinal

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1885

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Part 3, Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary

In October, Maheu is anxious because the Company, “[p]anicked by the worsening industrial crisis” (175), has once again found an excuse to halt work. Also, a Company doctor has declared Bonnemort can’t work because of his bad legs. Bonnemort is convinced they seek to deny him his pension.

At Rasseneur’s, Étienne ponders how “there was bound to be a stand-off” (176). Souvarine believes the Company has been trying to reduce costs because of a pile up of coal and that they will try to “gradually whittle their wages down” (177). He says the Company may even orchestrate a strike that would “bring its workforce to heel” (177). It would also mean the depleting of the provident fund before it grew too large. Rasseneur, jealous of Étienne’s popularity, tries to be sensible, stating a strike is in no one’s best interest, and Mme. Rasseneur remarks that he has “no guts” (178). Étienne is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to convince any workers to join the International Workers’ Association.

Étienne and Maheu go to Montsou to collect their wages. In the cashier’s office, the miners ask Étienne to read a posted notice. The notice states that because the timbering has been so poor, the price paid per tub of coal would be reduced to offset the costs. Étienne and Maheu calculate that the Company is taking more money than necessary. When Maheu collects his team’s pay, he is stunned to find that large fines have been deducted. As he leaves, he is called into the Company Secretary’s office, where he is warned not to associate with Étienne, who has “poisoned” people’s minds (183). Outside, he tells Étienne all they can do is “[k]nuckle down and be grateful” (183).

The mood is dark among the workers, “otherwise peaceable men” (183) now feeling the “fury of hungry people” (184). Back home, Maheu, his family, and the entire village break down in tears over not having enough money to buy food. Their anguish is made greater with word that the Hennebeaus’ cook took the carriage into town to buy fish when the workers themselves are “dying of hunger” (185). The desire for revolt takes hold as “[t]he injustice of it all” (185) becomes too heavy to bear. At the Advantage that night, even Rasseneur and Souvarine support a strike.

Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary

A week later, Catherine spends the night with Chaval and is so tired the next day she can’t work; she says he is jealous of her living with Étienne and that he threatened to beat her if she left. Jeanlin skips work with Bébert and Lydie; La Maheude thrashes him as punishment. Conditions in the mine grow worse, and the miners are forced to spend more time on timbering.

One day Étienne hears a great thundering as he’s working. Maheu cries that it’s a rock-fall, and the miners scramble to escape. Jeanlin, behind his train, notices the horse Battle is tense as if frightened. As Jeanlin looks at the sagging timbering, the rock fall crushes him along with another miner, Chicot. Bébert shouts that Jeanlin is trapped, and miners desperately try to clear the pile, a swearing Maheu in front. They hear Chicot’s groaning and feel the chill of death as the groaning stops. Jeanlin and Chicot are finally uncovered. Chicot has been killed; Jeanlin is alive but unconscious, both his legs broken. The women stand by crying.

The miners remove the victims from the pit and bring them to the deputies’ room, where the doctor worries that Jeanlin’s right leg will need to be amputated. Négrel and Dansaert arrive, and Négrel expresses exasperation that “it was always the damn timbering” and that “the Company would have to pay for the damage itself” (193).

A funeral procession makes its way to the village, where the women worry over the identity of the victims. Jeanlin returns home; La Maheude is relieved that he hadn’t been killed, but she despairs over how they will manage without him working. Anguish overwhelms the miners in the village. Jeanlin avoids having his leg amputated, but he will always have a limp. When he returns to work, he will have a lower-paying surface job. The Company reluctantly pays the Maheus 50 francs.

One night, Catherine does not return from a night with Chaval. The family receives word that, as Chaval “made such awful scenes all the time,” Catherine has “decided to live with him” (196). The two have quit Le Voreux and signed on to work at Deneulin’s pit, Jean-Bart.

La Maheude is furious that Catherine has left them at this difficult time. The family contemplates the disasters they have suffered. Étienne believes “[t]he time has come” (197).

Part 3, Chapters 4-5 Analysis

The tension that had been steadily building between the miners and the Company finally reaches a breaking point as the miners’ suffering becomes intolerable. Having endured gradually decreasing wages, the miners have been able to eat just enough so they “could suffer without actually dying” (168). These chapters present two incidents that push the miners too far, leaving them with nothing to lose and ensuring a confrontation is imminent.

The Company’s halting production in the pits as a result of disruption in the seam is seen by the Maheus as the Company’s way of “using the slightest pretext to deprive its ten thousand employees of work” due to “the worsening industrial crisis” (175). The family’s decrease in pay is exacerbated by the fact that the Company doctor has declared Bonnemort unfit to work, which Bonnemort suspects is a pretext for avoiding having to pay his pension. The decrease in pay reaches a breaking point when the miners learn of the Company’s new policy of docking their pay for the price of the timbering, which, based on “a rather opaque calculation” (181), deducts more pay than necessary. When the miners return from Montsou, the sounds of wailing and screaming emanate throughout the village, “every household […] grieving over the catastrophe of their depleted pay” (184). The sight of the Hennebeaus’ cook riding in the carriage to buy fish is seen as the last straw, and “[t]he ideas that Étienne had sown were beginning to take root and grow,” with “[t]he injustice of it all […] becoming too great” (185).

Despite his misery, Maheu continues to insist “the only sensible thing” is to “[k]nuckle down and be grateful” (183). This changes in the concluding chapter of Part 3, when a rock-fall in the pit kills a miner and permanently disables Jeanlin. Zola skillfully contrasts the despair of the people with the callousness of the Company. In the midst of the groans of the dying Chicot, Maheu’s desperate swearing, and the crying of Catherine and Lydie, Négrel expresses “exasperation” over having fought with the “brutes” about the timbering, concluding with anger that “the Company would have to pay for the damage itself” (193). Dansaert’s comment that Chicot was “one of our best” (193) only adds to the sense that the miners’ lives are valuable only as far as they benefit the Company. In a final insult, the Company reluctantly “resigned itself” (195) to paying the Maheus 50 francs for Jeanlin’s injuries. The Company’s lack of sympathy and remorse reiterates the disconnect between the workers and the people they serve.

Once again, cries of anguish echo throughout the village as the funeral procession passes. This time, Maheu is not content to rest, telling La Maheude, who is anxious over how they will manage without Jeanlin’s pay, “we might not have seen the end of it yet” (197). Zola’s ending the chapter at the point of highest emotion—Étienne proclaims, “The time has come!” (197)—not only creates suspense but also leaves the reader to ponder these images of ultimate pain and despair.