representation narrative des classes subalternes chez Zola et Dickens

Although both Zola and Dickens represent the precarious situation of the lower classes of society (workers, miners, and peasants), and that representation is similarly constructed at the level of both characters and narrative, Zola's characters engage in an active endeavor to change their social conditions while those of Dickens are more resigned to their circumstances, and are rather oriented toward individual moral accomplishment. The tones of the discourse of the characters, closely reflects the implicit political posture of the narrators, in Zola's Germinal and La Terre, and in Dickens's Hard Times and Our Mutual Friend . Both writers oppose social injustice, while leaving the reader toward differential solutions, politico-economic in Zola and socio-moralistic in Dickens.