Prompted by his theories of heredity and environment, Zola set out to show Nana, "the golden fly, " rising out of the underworld to feed on society-a predetermined product of her origins. Nana's latent destructiveness is mirrored in the Empire's, and they reflect each others' disintegration and final collapse in 1890.Built around the book's scientific skeleton is a powerful, sensual atmosphere, and a rich use of words which elevate the novel beyond the realistic platform into a "poem of male desires.