Thinking Madame Raquin: Consciousness and Cognition in Emile Zola's Therese Raquin (1867)

An immersive reading of the elderly matriarch figure in & Eacute;mile Zola's Therese Raquin (1867) demonstrates how representations of old age in nineteenthcentury French fiction can benefit from cognitive literary-critical approaches. Putting to work key concepts from this fast-developing field (affordances, propinquity, cognitive adaptability, and embedded thinking) allows us to reveal the complex trajectory of consciousness and the inverse correlation of Madame Raquin's physical incapacity and her mental and imaginative adaptation. Literary cognitive approaches can thus enable a fuller problematization of Naturalism, while Zola's fiction offers a situational understanding of consciousness in old age that challenges cliches of cognitive rigidity and depreciation.