The gap between the rich and the poor is the driving force in Germinal. Zola paints a vivid picture of the lives of the poor from the first chapter, when the miners wake early and struggle to find food before trudging off to work in the utter darkness of the pit. The work itself is physically excruciating: Miners must tolerate extremes in temperature, dampness, and tight roadways as they dig or push tubs of coal. Zola represents the lives of the poor in the Maheus, who live in one of many numbered homes provided by the Company, in a village known as Two Hundred and Forty. The namelessness of this suggests the Company dehumanizes the poor workers and views them as faceless masses whose sole purpose is to work. The poor scrape by until payday, rationing their bread and begging shopkeepers for credit.

Poor children grow up quickly, for not only do they work in the mines with their parents, but they are also sexually aware at young ages. Living close together in flimsily made houses, children hear the sexual activity of their parents and even of their neighbors. Living so closely together also means they have ample opportunity to engage in sexual activity themselves.