Many of Zola’s personal experiences seem to blend with his beliefs and theories of naturalism, as well as with his writings. Émile Zola spent most of his life with little to no money because of the sudden and early death of his father. This may have influenced his naturalist theory that larger forces control humanity and thus, humans have no say in what their life ends up like (determinism). In his works, he focuses on characters, often people in the working class, who experience true hardship as a result of external forces, probably because he relates to them the most.

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            He also focuses on characters who undergo traumatic events in order to experiment with how they naturally react to the unfortunate hardships in their lives. Here, it is easy to see the influence of science and experimentation in his works (Rogers 36). In school, Zola focused on the study of natural sciences so he was well educated on the subject. He took his learnings in school and applied them to his true passion, writing, and it successfully influenced his work. Zola plays with the idea of “scientific determinism” to view how people’s psyches naturally react to dramatic situations. An example of this would be in his play Thérèse Raquin where Zola’s main character is a married woman who falls in love with another man. The two end up killing her husband to be with each other, but their wrongdoings haunt them, and they go insane (Zola). In this play, it is apparent that Zola is fascinated by psychology and the concept of guilt (Rogers 36) as he slowly makes Thérèse descend into madness so eventually, she kills herself.