Where It All Goes Down
19th Century Paris
Thérèse Raquin takes place in the grimy backstreets of Paris, not the touristy city-center that we all know and love (from the movies, at least, if not from real life). And since this is a realist novel, it tends to focus on the harsher, grittier aspects of everyday life.
For example, the first chapter describes the Passage du Pont Neuf: a passageway in Paris where the Raquin shop is located (and where most of the story's action takes place). And Zola isn't lying; this alleyway actually exists.
Where were we? Oh yeah. The opening description of the Passage du Pont Neuf is a pretty famous example of how literature can focus on the harsher side of reality—as opposed to the brighter side.
Take a look at all the details in this passage:
At the end of the rue Guénégaud, if you follow it away from the river, you find the Passage du Pont-Neuf, a sort of dark narrow corridor linking the Rue Mazarine to the Rue de Seine. This passageway is, at most, thirty paces long and two wide, paved with yellowish worn stones which have come loose and constantly give off an acrid dampness. The glass roof, sloping at a right angle, is black with grime.
On fair summer days when the sun burns down heavily on the streets, a whitish light penetrates the dirty panes of glass and lurks miserably about the arcade. On foul winter days, on a foggy morning, the glass roof casts only shadows over the slimy paving: mean, soiled shadows. (1.1)
Wow, that was kind of exhausting, huh? Now we know exactly where the passage is located in Paris. We even have the exact dimensions of the passage: thirty yards long, and two yards wide. The narrator then tells us what is on either side of the passageway, and what it looks like during the different seasons of the year.
Check this, though: while the description is both systematic and detailed—it can be kind of a yawnfest, actually—the narrator isn't always an impartial observer. The neutral tone that opens the first sentence soon turns very foreboding.
Notice how there's a strong contrast between light and dark, with the typical moral association of light as good and darkness as bad. The gloom isn't just "dirty," it's also "slimy" and "mean," which suggests that there's something bad or corrupt taking place here.
So even though Zola wants to avoid moral bias in Thérèse Raquin, this down-low section of Paris sounds pretty sketchy to us. Maybe it's super nice these days, but you probably wouldn't have wanted to visit it back in the day.