The Parisian artist may be a victim, but he nevertheless occupies the urban front stage and he remains omnipresent in the Zolian text. In contrast to Zola's Parisian novel "L'Oeuvre", Norris diverts the reader's attention from the artist to the businessman. In "The Pit" (1903) and "The Octopus" (1901), Norris uses the two personalities to represent two spheres in conflict. Yet for Zola there is a further development of the artist: for example, Lantier in "L'Oeuvre" (1886) and Saccard, the creative speculator in "La Curée" (1871), and also in "L'Argent" (1891), or Mouret in "Au Bonheur des Dames" (1883). In a world becoming more and more urban, how are creative energies defined, in Paris, on the one hand, and in Chicago and San Francisco, on the other?