Thérèse Raquin Timeline and Summary

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• Thérèse grows up with and eventually marries her sickly cousin Camille, who is spoiled by the attentions of his doting mother, Mme Raquin. Thérèse feels suffocated by the oppressive environment of her daily life at the shop. 
• One day, Thérèse meets Camille's handsome friend, Laurent. She is immediately attracted to him, and the two embark on a torrid love affair. Yep. 
• Circumstances prevent Thérèse and Laurent from meeting, so they plot to kill Camille. 
• After helping to murder Camille, Thérèse becomes increasingly nervous. She avoids direct interactions with Laurent, who she once wanted to have sex with all day, every day. 
• Thérèse and Laurent get married, but they are no longer attracted to one another. In fact, they have hallucinations that Camille's ghost haunts their bedroom every night. The two bicker with each other all of the time. 
• When Mme Raquin suffers a stroke, Thérèse devotes all her time to looking after the old woman. During one of their arguments, Thérèse and Laurent accidently reveal their crime to Mme Raquin. Thérèse deludes herself into thinking that Mme Raquin has forgiven her. 
• Thérèse suspects that she has become pregnant, and provokes Laurent into an argument. He hits her in the stomach, and she has a miscarriage. Someone call the National Domestic Violence Hotline. 
• Thérèse finds her marriage with Laurent to be so miserable that she decides to kill him. She sharpens a kitchen knife.  
• After dinner the next day, she reaches for the kitchen knife, but turns around at the last minute. 
• She sees Laurent with some poison, and realizes he's about to try to kill her, too.  
• Horrified, she collapses to the floor. 
• Then she shares a last embrace with Laurent, and commits suicide with him by drinking the poison.  
• At least in death, she won't have to argue with Laurent anymore. (Hopefully.)