Character guide

Étienne Lantier

major

Also known as Étienne, Catherine, III Étienne, So Catherine, Étienne of Catherine, III

Étienne arrives at the Voreux pit with nothing but a bundle and a trade, and is taken in by the Maheu family as a lodger. He reads, he argues, he dreams of the International — and the miners, starved and humiliated, begin to listen. His bond with Catherine Maheu complicates everything, especially once Chaval's jealousy sharpens into menace. He is the spark the settlement has been waiting for, and the story's engine of hope and catastrophe.

Toussaint Maheu

major

Also known as Maheu, Chaval, V Maheu, big Chaval, lanky Chaval, Lanky Chaval, Maheu of Chaval

Maheu has spent his life at the coal face and knows the mine's moods better than any engineer. He is a father first — Catherine, Zacharie, Jeanlin, the little ones — and a miner second, which is why the timbering notice hits him like a personal betrayal. Caught between Étienne's fire and the Company's cold arithmetic, he becomes the strike's reluctant backbone. His dignity under pressure makes the coming hunger and violence feel unbearable.

Maheude

major

Maheude wakes before dawn to stretch nothing into soup for ten mouths, nursing Estelle, scolding Jeanlin, and bargaining with Maigrat's credit. She is not sentimental about the Company — she has buried children to it — but she is practical, and hunger is a slow teacher. As the strike drags on, her good sense curdles into rage, and she becomes one of the novel's most devastating witnesses to what poverty does to a mother. Her fury in the later chapters is earned, not theatrical.

Souvarine

supporting

Also known as Only Rasseneur, Rasseneur of Souvarine, Rasseneur, Already Rasseneur

Souvarine watches the rivalry between Étienne and Rasseneur with a cold, almost girlish smile, unmoved by their talk of the International and the coming meeting. He has given his life to destruction in obscurity, and he finds the miners' hopes sentimental. His presence in the background of the strike is a quiet warning: there are men who want the world to burn, not to be rebuilt. What he does with that conviction shapes the novel's darkest turn.

Jeanlin

supporting

Also known as VI, little Jeanlin, VI Jeanlin, And Jeanlin, Only Jeanlin, that brigand Jeanlin

Jeanlin is maybe eleven, works underground, and has already learned that the world rewards whoever grabs first. He takes Lydie and Bébert's dandelion money, keeps nine sous for himself, and rolls Lydie in the pit-bank with the casual cruelty of a boy imitating what he's seen behind doors. His parents can't watch him, and the settlement's misery is his playground. He is the novel's clearest sign that the mine's corruption starts young.

M. Hennebeau

supporting

Also known as Hennebeau, Suddenly M. Hennebeau, V M. Hennebeau, So M. Hennebeau

M. Hennebeau runs the Voreux for the Company, caught between Paris shareholders and the four thousand francs he sends down the shaft each fortnight. His wife, a woman of fashion who buried a great passion in Paris, despises Montsou and despises him for keeping her there. He loves her with a late, humiliating desire she never returns, and his private misery curdles into a coldness the miners read as contempt. He is the human face of the system they are striking against — and he is not happy either.

The Young Man

minor

Also known as the young man

A generic young male character, often a focal point in crowd scenes.

Monsieur Deneulin

supporting

Also known as Deneulin, M. Deneulin

Deneulin belongs to the class of modest proprietors caught between the great Company and the workers it grinds down, and he watches the Montsou directors swallow his neighbors' pits with a mixture of envy and dread. His struggle to hold Vandame against the Company's offers gives the strike a second front, showing that even owners can be crushed by the machine of concentrated capital. His fate sharpens the novel's portrait of a system that devours the small as readily as the poor.

Mouquette

supporting

Also known as big Mouquette, With Mouquette

Mouquette hauls trams at the Voreux and lives with a cheerful shamelessness that scandalizes the settlement, dropping her breeches to dry her chemise before the laughing lads and shrugging off every insult. Her kindness to Étienne during the strike's hungriest days reveals a warmth the respectable Maheus cannot afford, and her brother Mouquet's easy cynicism throws her generosity into relief. She matters because she embodies the miners' raw, unashamed vitality, the life the Company treats as mere fuel.

Zacharie

supporting

Also known as Zacharie three

Zacharie wakes in the crowded Maheu house, teases his sister Catherine, and trudges down the Voreux with the same dull acceptance that has bent his father's back. He has made Philomène Levaque his mistress and given her two children without marrying her, and his placid indifference to the Company's abuses marks him as the next generation of the same exhausted breed. He matters because his casual drift toward the same fate shows how the pit reproduces its own, generation after generation, without a crack of revolt.

The Old Man

minor

Also known as the old man

An elderly miner, often representing the older generation's perspective.

Levaque

supporting

Also known as Philoméne, Philoméne Levaque, Neither Levaque, the Levaque, The Levaque

Levaque works the same cutting as Maheu and Chaval, grumbling about the Company's greed and the loose earth that threatens to bury them, though he lowers his voice the moment he fears a spy. His household is a running joke in the settlement: his wife lodges Bouteloup, a lodger who takes his place in her bed by day while Levaque sleeps off the night shift. He matters because his noisy grievances and his domestic muddle capture the settlement's mix of solidarity and squalor in the strike's early days.

Paul Négrel

supporting

Also known as Paul, Négrel, that madcap Paul, little Négrel, Monsieur Négrel

Paul Négrel descends the Voreux with Dansaert to inspect the cuttings, dressed like the men and smeared with coal, showing a daredevil courage that earns him a grudging respect even as his pointed nose and sparkling eyes betray a mocking intelligence. He is Hennebeau's nephew, which places him inside the Company's ruling family, yet his scepticism keeps him from sharing their pieties about the workers' contentment. He matters because he is the face of management underground, the young engineer whose authority the miners must measure themselves against.

Pluchart

minor

A socialist organizer who comes to Montsou to rally the miners.

Pierron

supporting

Also known as The astonished Pierron

Pierron sits through the delegation's confrontation with Hennebeau and shrinks into silence whenever the argument turns hot, stammering when the manager appeals to him directly. His wife Pierronne is kept by Dansaert, the head captain, a joke the pit never tires of, and his refusal to commit to the strike marks him as the settlement's cautious trimmer. He matters because his evasions expose the fault lines of fear and favoritism that run through the miners' ranks even as they try to stand together.

Maigrat

supporting

Also known as Monsieur Maigrat

Once an overseer at the Voreux, Maigrat now runs the warehouse near the manager's house where the settlement buys on credit, his business fattened by Company protection. He prides himself on never changing his mind, and his small pale eyes undress the women who come begging for bread. When Maheude pleads for two loaves against a two-year-old debt, his refusal exposes the whole machinery of hunger that will drive the strike.

Madame Hennebeau

supporting

She brought her own fortune and a scandalous Parisian affair into a marriage of forty thousand francs and endless flat plains, and she has never let her husband forget it. Bored past endurance, she drifts toward their nephew Paul Négrel while Hennebeau, silently tormented by a desire she refuses him, hides his anguish behind the stiffness of a business man. Her restless contempt for the mining country makes the manager's household a second front in the novel's war of class and appetite.

Alzire

supporting

Also known as Little Alzire

In the crowded room at Deux-Cent-Quarante she is the one who soothes baby Estelle, separates Lénore and Henri, and remembers the time when no one else does. Her crooked little body and grown-up tenderness carry the family's daily survival, and her mother's later tears at the mere sound of her name mark how much the settlement's smallest shoulders bear. She is the quiet measure of what the strike will cost.

The Young Girl

minor

Also known as the young girl

A generic young female character in crowd or background scenes.

Cécile

minor

The Grégoires' spoiled daughter, a symbol of bourgeois innocence.

Bonnemort

supporting

Also known as old Bonnemort, Father Bonnemort, Father, Old Bonnemort

He sits on benches at the pit-mouth and in the settlement, a silent earthy figure whose body is a catalogue of the mine's slow injuries. When the women hurl stones at the Grégoires' villa, he watches the boys with their slings and says nothing, his old Flemish blood heavy and patient like the crowd's. His ruined lungs and unreadable face give the novel its deepest memory of what the colliers have already paid.

Lydie

minor

Also known as little Lydie, lean Lydie, gadabout Lydie

A young girl who works in the mine and is friends with Jeanlin.

Pierronne

supporting

In the delegation scenes her husband Pierron hides himself and stammers, while the settlement knows exactly why his household eats better than its neighbors. Her position as the captain's mistress makes her family a target of the women's resentment and a quiet emblem of the compromises survival demands. She matters as the living proof that the Company's favors are bought, not given.

His Mother

minor

Also known as his mother

A generic mother figure, often referring to a character's mother.

Mother Brulé

minor

Also known as Brulé, Mother Brulé, old Brulé

An elderly woman, mother of Philomène, living in the mining community.

M. Grégoire

minor

A wealthy bourgeois shareholder in the mining company.

Rasseneur

supporting

Also known as Madame Rasseneur, Citizen Rasseneur

Dismissed from the Voreux for his politics, he now pours drinks and holds forth to a room of colliers who trust him, and it is at his tables that Étienne first meets Souvarine and learns to argue. His cautious, comfortable radicalism will collide with Étienne's fiercer demands as the strike hardens, splitting the movement from within. He is the voice of the miners' ordinary grievances before hunger turns them into something else.

Bébert

minor

A young miner, friend of Jeanlin and Lydie.

The Grégoires

minor

Also known as the Grégoires, The Grégoires

The wealthy bourgeois family who own shares in the mine.

Négrel / M. Hennebeau

minor

Also known as Négrel . M. Hennebeau, Négrel, M. Hennebeau

A merged cluster for the engineer and manager, often discussed together.

Lénore

minor

Also known as Dress Lénore

The Maheus' young daughter, one of the children.

Madame Grégoire

minor

M. Grégoire's wife, a bourgeois lady.

Abbé Ranvier

minor

Also known as the Abbé Ranvier

A priest who ministers to the mining community.

Unknown

minor

An unnamed character or placeholder in the narrative.

Bataille

minor

Also known as the snorting Bataille

An old horse that works in the mine, a beloved animal character.

Mouque

minor

Also known as Father Mouque, old Mouque

An old miner who works with the horses in the mine.

Estelle

minor

The Maheus' baby daughter, a symbol of the family's poverty.

The Captain

minor

Also known as the captain

A mine captain overseeing work in the tunnels.

Dansaert

minor

Also known as Monsieur Dansaert

A mine captain who has an affair with Pierronne.

Jeanne Bart

minor

Also known as Jeanne, Bart, Jean - Bart

A minor character, possibly a historical or local figure mentioned.

The Maheus

minor

Also known as Maheus, the Maheus, The Maheus

The Maheu family as a collective unit in the narrative.

Mouquet

minor

A minor miner character, son of Mouque.

Zola

minor

The author Émile Zola, occasionally referenced in the narrative.

Montsou / Lille

minor

Also known as Montsou, Lille, the Lille mechanician, the Montsou brigands, The Montsou bourgeois

Place names and collective references to the mining region.

Henri

minor

A minor named character, possibly a worker or bourgeois.

Bouteloup

minor

A miner who boards with the Levaque family.

Trompette

minor

A horse in the mine, companion to Bataille.

Widow Désir

minor

Also known as Madame Désir

A widow who runs a tavern in the mining community.

Captain Richomme

minor

Also known as Richomme, Father Richomme

A mine captain known for his fairness toward the miners.

The Head Captain

minor

Also known as the head captain

The senior mine captain overseeing operations.

The Masters

minor

Also known as the masters

Collective term for the mine owners and management.

Lucie

minor

A minor female character, possibly a servant or worker.

The Doctor

minor

Also known as the doctor

A physician who treats the miners and their families.

Hippolyte

minor

A servant in the Hennebeau household.

The Captains

minor

Also known as the captains

Collective term for the mine captains.

Honorine

minor

A servant or minor female character in the story.

The Levaques

minor

Also known as the Levaques, The Levaques

The Levaque family as a collective unit.

Réquillart

minor

An abandoned mine pit, used as a meeting place.

The Servant

minor

Also known as the servant

A generic servant character in various households.

Chicot

minor

A minor character, possibly a worker or local.

Annutchka

minor

A minor female character, possibly a foreign worker.

Poland

minor

A place name referenced in the narrative.

A Captain

minor

Also known as a captain

An unspecified mine captain in a scene.

The Montsou Priest

minor

Also known as the Montsou priest

The local priest of the Montsou parish.

Vandame

minor

A minor character, possibly a mine official.

Mademoiselle

minor

Also known as mademoiselle

A generic young lady or governess figure.

Rose

minor

A minor female character, possibly a servant.

Borains

minor

Also known as the Borains

Belgian miners brought in as strikebreakers.

Mélanie

minor

A servant in the Hennebeau household.

The Hennebeaus

minor

Also known as the Hennebeaus, The Hennebeaus

The Hennebeau couple as a collective unit.

Voreux

minor

Also known as the Voreux, The Voreux

The main mine pit where most of the action takes place.

Mirou

minor

A minor character, possibly a miner or local.

Crévecœur

minor

A minor character or place name in the narrative.

Germinal

minor

The title of the book, symbolizing rebirth and spring.

Piolaine

minor

The Grégoires' country estate.

Dr. Vanderhaghen

minor

A doctor who treats the miners, possibly a specialist.

Father Quandieu

minor

A priest or religious figure in the community.

Madeleine

minor

A minor female character, possibly a worker.

Baron Desrumaux

minor

Also known as Desrumaux

A nobleman and shareholder in the mining company.

Léon Grégoire

minor

Also known as Léon

A member of the Grégoire family.

Gaston

minor

Also known as Gaston - Marie

A minor character, possibly a child or servant.

Little Achille

minor

Also known as Achille

A minor child character in the story.