Therese Raquin

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Therese Raquin

The central protagonist in the 19th century realist novel, Therese

Raquin enters into two different relationships with Camille and

Laurent respectively. Camille is being formally acknowledged as her

husband while she is in an adulterous relationship with Laurent. The

nature of these two relationship is contradictory, with the former one

being passionateless and the latter one being opportunistic. The

motivations behind these two relationships are also worth

investigating. Unfortunately, both relationship turns out to be a

"tragedy" and causes severe impact on her.

Camille and Therese are paired up mostly due to the arrangement of

Madame Raquin. As her son's growth has been retarded, the more

desperate she is to find a "guardian angel" for him in case of

unexpected death. To her, Therese is a logical choice to "make a

watchful nurse for Camille." As for Therese, she feels obliged to

marry Camille due to Madame Raquin's generous hospitality for the past

years and dare not reject her offer. Therese has always "shown passive

obedience" and does what they command, "without a word of complaint or

reproach". The marriage is arranged without Therese being consulted.

On the other hand, Therese regards Camille to be pitiable to some

extend as he faces succession of terrible illness and have to swallow

medicines frequently. Therefore, she does not object to the marriage

because of her sympathy towards him. The union formed is inherently

unnaturally and equality among individuals does not exist, which

foreshadows the tragic and inevitable outcome of their marriage.

In direct contrast, Laurent and Therese's formation of an a...

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...cribed as

apathetic. Camille seldom shows up in the shop and prefers to wander

about all day with dragging steps. He enjoys his long day in his grand

department so much that "he will go to bed early and leave at eight in

the morning". Whenever he is done with his meal and reading, he will

drop off to sleep immediately. Days follow days, they remain pensive

throughout a whole evening with not much communication and definitely

no physical contact between the both of them.

All in all, Camille and Therese have no passion to each other. They

are just being bind together unnaturally by external force which

unavoidably leads to the destruction of their marriage. As for Therese

and Laurent, they possess some degree of reciprocal passion towards

each other and to a small extend there's a degree of equality in their

union.

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