La Goutte d’Or, literary (ban)lieu(e) de mémoire

Abstract

Paris is Paris, but the connotations and associations with this city vary according to time, district and person. In 1877, for example, two books were published depicting two diametrically opposed French capitals. The splendid, prestigious metropolis depicted in the textbook Le Tour de la France par deux enfants (1877) is a world at odds with the lesser-known Paris of the working-class suburbs depicted by Emile Zola. In L’Assommoir (1877), the author paints a moving portrait of one of these northeastern suburbs, the Goutte d’Or. This literary testimony to a pivotal period has left its mark on the memory of the French people, right up to the present day.