In his novel La Bête Humaine, Émile Zola presents a vibrant literary work, in which profound psychoanalysis is combined with a complex picture of French society during the Second Empire. The novel, which is part of his famous "Rogun Makar" series, explores the depths of the human soul with all its contradictions, and draws the features of hidden worlds governed by inherited instincts and torments.
The novel takes place in the world of railways, where the train transcends its traditional role as a means of transportation to become a complex symbol that reflects the contradictions of modernity: it embodies movement and progress on the one hand, and reveals chaos and crimes on the other. The train embodies the acceleration of modern industrial life, but at the same time it reveals the dark side of this progress, becoming a scene of crimes and human entanglements that further complicate the plot.
The central character, Jack Lantier, is a railway engineer with an inherited tendency toward violence, especially against women, which puts him in constant conflict with his inner monster. Through the character of Jack, Zola reveals the influence of heredity and upbringing on human behavior, and makes the reader witness this individual struggle within a social fabric full of betrayal and corruption.