Progressive Waters: Memory, Narrative and Localism in Émile Zola’s L’inondation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article unpacks the role of water in Émile Zola’s L’inondation by analyzing the way in which the Garonne River creates and complicates individual identity. It connects to larger narratives of localism in the face of hydrological risk by situating Zola’s flood historically and ecocritically in relation to the actual Garonne flood of 1875. It suggests that Zola’s story, despite occasionally reinforcing nineteenth-century representations of a dichotomous human-nature relationship, ultimately reveals an inseparable conception of self and environment, and expresses the emotive significance of disaster stories following natural disasters.