With the novel, Zola wanted to depict the decline of society through the promiscuous hustle and bustle of noble society, which is not limited to its own circles, but also includes prostitutes from the street, whose behavior differs in no way from that of married women. Zola showed not only the depravity and decadence of his protagonist, but also that of the upper class of society. The former street whore gains social prestige - talentless, but has a flawless body - by posing naked on stage in the role of "blond Venus". Zola describes the audience as a mixture of literary Paris, the financial world, journalists and writers, stock market people who were accompanied by women from the demimonde rather than decent women. The men come to the theater because they wanted to see the cocotte Nana on stage - after all, almost everyone present already knows her in his / her way. Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (1840-1902) was a French writer and journalist. Zola is considered one of the great French novelists of the 19th century and a leading figure and founder of the pan-European literary movement of naWturalism. At the same time he was a very active journalist who took part in political life in a moderately left-wing position