Other branch
born Louis Fouan
Père Fouan
Peasant farmer
The Lear-figure of La Terre — an old peasant of the Beauce who, too old to work his land, divides it among his three children: Buteau, Fanny, and Hyacinthe (Jésus-Christ). He does not understand, as Lear did not understand, that the land was the only basis of his authority, and that giving it away is giving away himself. From the moment the deeds are signed, his children begin to reduce his pension, challenge his rights to lodging, and treat him with the contempt that the old receive when they have nothing left to withhold. He is passed from child to child, each finding him burdensome. Towards the novel's end, he witnesses Buteau and Lise's murder of Françoise — an act he cannot un-know. Buteau and Lise smother him in his sleep to prevent him speaking. His death is the novel's moral nadir: the man who gave everything, murdered by those he gave it to. The parallel with Lear is explicit in Zola's notes, and the novel's title — La Terre — is also Fouan's entire world.
Figure de Lear dans La Terre. Vieux paysan beauceron qui divise sa terre entre ses trois enfants — Buteau, Fanny, Jésus-Christ — sans comprendre qu'il signe sa propre réduction à néant. Dès la cession faite, ses enfants rogent sa pension, contestent son logement, le traitent avec le mépris dû à ceux qui n'ont plus rien à retenir. Temoin du meurtre de Françoise par Buteau et Lise, il est étouffé dans son sommeil pour le réduire au silence.
Gnarled, stooped, with hands like roots from decades of working the soil — a man whose body has become an extension of the land he has tilled, and whose eyes, in old age, retain the obstinate brightness of someone who has never expected mercy.
Gnarled, stooped, with hands like roots from decades of working the soil — a man whose body has become an extension of the land he has tilled, and whose eyes, in old age, retain the obstinate brightness of someone who has never expected mercy.