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Discuss the treatment of the theme of the family in Phédre and Jacques Damour Emile Zola and Jean Racine both came from troubled families; Racine’s 17th Century Bourgeoise existence was as an orphan from the age of four, and Zola’s father died when he was seven in the latter part of the 1800s. Consequently both Phédre and Jacques Damour, although from different eras, can be used as profound examinations of their views and reactions to the familial structure: As one commentator, Christopher Wagner, observes: “French families seem to have been very close knit units. This was especially true of the Zola family.”(1) They were men that had grown up without the traditional family unit, and as such had the ability to lend objective social comment to what they themselves had subjectively experienced. Thus the theme of family in these two texts can be regarded firstly as an insight into the minds of the authors but also as a reflection of society in general, insofar as the drama, however extreme is a representation of the pressures experienced by families throughout the ages. Claude Abraham, a professor of French, explains that: “…these suffering humans play out one of the bloody acts of a long family drama.”(2) It is cl