Ibsen and Zola firmly believed in depicting their characters and works from a realistic perspective. Zola founded the naturalist movement in fiction and shared the same general outlook on society as Ibsen, who was the first of a new generation of modern naturalist playwrights. In Thérèse Raquin and A Doll's House, the supposed centrality of Christianity in 19th-century European society is indirectly subverted by subtle suggestions of its irrelevance, or lack of importance, in the lives of the characters. Due to the already morally controversial nature of Ibsen's play and Zola's novel, through their subversion of traditional gender roles, an obvious critique of the Church or normative religious opinion of the 19th century would have placed the two writers in difficult situations. Thus, using indirect but carefully focused references, Ibsen and Zola allude to Christianity as a hollow institution, serving merely as a specious societal value, largely ignored in practice. Zola, originally from Catholic France, depicts the Church as an impersonal, mechanical tyranny that looms in the background of his characters' lives. Ibsen, originally from Protestant Norway, takes a more direct but more discreet approach, deliberately placing his play around Christmas, while ensuring that his characters only evoke the materialistic aspect of the holiday. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay As Ibsen's play opens, a quarrel breaks out between Nora, the main character, and her husband, Torvald , about the amount of money that should be spent to buy this. (Act I, page 10) While he demands thrift, she is eager to spend. Both characters view the exchange of gifts at Christmas as a family and social obligation, the basis of which is the spending of money and not the honor of a religious event. Likewise, Zola describes the Church as a place not reserved for divine worship, but rather frequented only when necessary for events such as marriage. When Thérèse and Laurent marry in church, their conduct is professional, their “quiet and modest” appearance (chapter 20, page 153) being “noted with approval” (chapter 20, page 153). The irony of this, given that their marriage was made possible by Camille's murder, is hard to ignore. Both Zola and Ibsen were self-described "naturalists" (observers of nature) and atheists who put themselves in the same category as Darwin and other eminent scientists. However, living in 19th-century Europe, both authors had to diplomatically convey their renegade beliefs. The idea of ​​Christianity as an obsolete establishment is reinforced by the representation of religious and moral sentiments as something mechanical and impersonal. Neither Thérèse nor Laurent feel any real guilt or remorse for the cardinal "sins" they have committed, which include breaking the commandments regarding lusting for one's neighbor's wife and committing adultery, not to mention murder. Zola tries to make it clear that all they care about is not being discovered. As for Nora, she feels like a defiled, sinful woman, unfit to be a mother. Yet the “crime” she committed was a selfless and ostensibly “Christian” act, borrowing money illegally and thereby risking her own safety to save her husband’s life. Is Torvald ready to show “Christian” forgiveness when he discovers this? Not at all, he judges and condemns his wifefor his self-sacrifice. At the end of A Doll's House, when Nora makes it clear that she intends to leave her home due to her complete lack of gratitude or sympathy for her sacrifice for him, Torvald sourly asks if she has "no religion, no ethics, no sense of duty.” » (Act III, page 77). He connects religion to societal obligations, calling it a duty rather than an act of faith or love. Religion, for him, is just a set of social rules that he never thought to question, alongside his own moral and religious hypocrisy. Nora later comments (almost sarcastically) "miracles don't happen every day, God knows" (Act 3, page 84), in reference to her diminished hope or Helmer's support for his sacrifice on her behalf. When she just stated that she doesn't understand religion, it gives the comment an almost mocking tone. Zola reflects this type of irony in his description of Madame Raquin's situation after her paralysis. The use of opposites insinuates the unbalanced and contradictory nature of divine worship; Madame Raquin's face is represented with "detached and grimacing flesh" (chapter 26, page 204), but in the midst of this ugliness, her eyes are of a "celestial beauty" (chapter 26, page 204). Additionally, the lower part of his face is described as "dark and colorless" (Chapter 26, page 204), while the upper part is filled with a "divine radiance" (Chapter 26, page 204). Zola associates pious spiritual beauty with physical grotesqueness, as if the two went hand in hand. Expanding on this, Zola attacks the most obvious religion, where even the purest and most pious character becomes bitter and suspicious, thinking that if he could, he would have "cursed God." It becomes increasingly bitter over his "deception" and culminates in a simple but revolutionary statement: "God was evil" (Chapter 26, page 206). Thus, when Madame Raquin opens herself to reality, she sees through the facade the true emptiness of the Church. Ibsen's attack on the emptiness of religious values ​​is reinforced when Nora rightly responds to Helmer's accusations of impiety and sin: “I don't know. what (religion) is” (Act 3, page 83), specifying that she only knows what the ecclesiastics have said about it. She says, “he told us that religion was this, and that, and the other” (Act 3, page 83), her very diction indicating the dominating and mechanical nature of the Church. Helmer responds that this divergence from conventional gender roles, as stipulated by religious authority, occurs because she "does not understand the society in which she lives" (Act 3, page 84). This implies that the Norwegian Protestant Church, like the Catholic Church in Zola's France, is a statutory institution, a dominating power that commands rather than guides and is largely ignored or misunderstood. This is the complete opposite of what Christian spirituality was originally intended to be: a faith seen as a matter of personal conscience rather than as a machine designed to enforce social conformity. Ibsen illustrates his troubled protagonist as a truly honest character who neither understands nor approves of religion as he was taught, but has simply pretended all his life. Zola, on the other hand, subverts religion in a different, more sporadic way. Somehow, the constant use of God's name in vain continually reinforces the main characters' disregard for religious morality. Every time Camille's murder is directly mentioned, Thérèse exclaims: “Oh my God! Oh my God ! (Chapter 28/29, pages 218/229) as a sort of empty reflex. This notion is amplified in the rest of the novel since neither Thérèse nor Laurent.