How does Emile Zola use colour in the novel Therese Ranquin as a descriptive device?

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How does Emile Zola use colour in the novel “Therese Ranquin” as a descriptive device? Colour is a complex and powerful device that can have profound effects on human beings .Throughout the novel, colour is used a great deal by Zola, to create the ominous and often austere environments in which the book is set. Through the medium of colour, rich and vivid scenes of the Seine, for example, are presented in stark contrast with the gloomy realism of 19th Century Paris. One of the first examples of this in the novel is the description of the “Passage du Pont-Neuf”, a dour passageway in which the majority of the novel takes place. The description of the flagstones as “yellowish” creates the setting perfectly as connotations of illness and discolouration surround the colour “yellow”. Camille is described in parts of the book as having “yellowish” skin, and this of course conjures up the image of his ailing disposition in the readers mind. In the initial description of the “Passage-PontNeuf” the roof is described as being “black with grime” and even when the “sun beats down oppressively” onto the glass roof of the passage, the light only “ligers miserably in the passage”. The use of “black” in conjunction with the word “grime” emphasizes the coagulated nature of the dirt which collects on the roof and the reader is immediately familiar with the morose scene. The “grey dust laden displays” of the shops in the alley are described perfectly, as the word “grey” in itself can be used as an adjective to express dismal and dank settings or objects. Colour is often used to intensify the attributes of certain characters throughout the novel, just as it is used link personalities or "temperaments" to the body types of the characters. The colour “white” is often used to augment the pragmatic nature of Therese Raquin herself. Her persona, when around Madame Raquin, Camille
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