Germinal: personer, tidslinje og steder

Étienne reaches the Voreux seeking work and hears Bonnemort describe hunger and hardship throughout the district.

Fleurance’s death creates an opening on Maheu’s team, and Étienne makes his first frightening descent underground.

Catherine teaches Étienne to haul coal and shares breakfast with him, while Chaval interrupts their growing closeness.

Négrel fines Maheu’s team for unsafe timbering and threatens changes to their payment system.

Maheude obtains provisions and a loan from Maigrat but understands that he wants access to Catherine.

Étienne unknowingly witnesses Chaval forcing Catherine into a sexual encounter and recognizes them afterward.

Étienne becomes a skilled miner and explores workers’ organization through Pluchart’s letters and discussions with Rasseneur and Souvarine.

Étienne moves into the Maheus’ home, develops his political ideas, and establishes a Provident Fund.

Reduced pay and changes to timbering payments unite the miners in deciding to strike.

A collapse kills Chicot and breaks Jeanlin’s legs, while Catherine leaves home to live and work with Chaval.

Maheu presents the miners’ demands to M. Hennebeau, but the meeting ends without agreement.

The forest gathering supports continuing the strike, rejects Rasseneur’s compromise, and agrees to assemble at Jean-Bart.

Strikers force their way into Jean-Bart, damage its machinery, and compel the working miners to leave.

Étienne diverts the crowd toward Maigrat’s shop, where Maigrat dies trying to protect his property.

Étienne urges surrender, Maheude refuses, and the doctor identifies starvation as Alzire’s cause of death.

Jeanlin murders a sentry, and Étienne helps hide the body in Réquillart.

Soldiers fire on the crowd at the Voreux, killing Maheu and others.

The Company announces concessions, but grieving miners blame Étienne and drive him to shelter with Rasseneur.

Souvarine secretly weakens the Voreux’s shaft lining before Étienne and Catherine return underground.

Broken shaft lining unleashes flooding, traps miners underground, and causes the Voreux to collapse into a water-filled crater.

Rescue efforts suffer an explosion that kills Zacharie, while Bonnemort strangles Cécile during the Grégoires’ charitable visit.

Trapped underground, Étienne kills Chaval; Catherine dies after becoming Étienne’s lover, and rescuers bring him out alive.

Étienne prepares to leave for Paris, receives Maheude’s forgiveness, and renews his hopes for organized collective action.