Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Since high school, Madame Bovary has been a continued source of admiration; not for the story itself─a sordid story of adultery in stagnant French provincial life─but for the author’s technical effort. Flaubert was a daring experimenter. Being a perfectionist in his use of language, Flaubert wasn’t happy until he presented us with a panoply of literary techniques. Similes, Zeugmas, quoted monologues, interior monologues, indirect free speech, and so forth. But what is most fascinating to me is his invention of the literary collage. The scene of the agricultural show broke new ground and became the pattern for other novelists to pick up and perfect. Herman Broch, Virgnia Woolf, and Vargas Llosa, come to mind. In this famous scene the reader is treated to a narration--a quartet of harmonic oscillation and titillation--in four voices─violin, viola, cello, and base: Rodolphe and Emma; the councilor; Homais; and the hum of the multitude. Enchanted by the technique, I would pay less attention to the plot and the characters. But the creative genius he was, Flaubert prods the readers to immerse themselves in the characters and “to see” them and listen to them. In the end, we come away with a clear picture of Charles and Emma, Homais, Leon, Rodolphe, Justin, and others. Who can forget such a languid and charistmatic adulterer? “She (Emma) corrupted him (Charles Bovary) beyond the grave." The writing techniques I employ in this article are all explained in Mary Duffy's writing manual: www.writerivetingprose.com Augustine, City of God Austen J, Pride and Prejudice Austen J, "Marriage Proposals and Me" Austen J, Emma Borges, The Aleph C. Bronte, Jane Eyre Burroughs E,Tarzan Cervantes, Don Quijote Chaucer, Wife of Bath Coelho P,The Alchemist Coyle H, They Are Soldiers Dante, New Life Dickens C, David Copperfield Dostoevsky, Crime&Punishment ConanDoyle,Hound of Baskervilles Dubner S, Superfreakonomics DuMaurier D, Rebecca Ellis B. E. American Psycho Fitzgerald S, Great Gatsby Flaubert G, Madame Bovary Fleming I,Doctor No Freud S, Leonardo Da Vinci Friedan B, Feminine Mystique GarciaMarquez, Of Love & OtherDemons GarciaMarquez,OneHundredYrs Guerrero M,ThePoison Pill Grass G, The Tin Drum Harris T, Hannibal Rising Heidegger M,House of Being Ishiguro K, Remains of The Day Johnson S,Rasselas Kafka,Metamorphosis Kosinski J, The Painted Bird Lee H,To Kill a Mockingbird McBain Ed,Gutter and Grave Murakami H,Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Nabokov V, Lolita Meyer, S, Twilight Ortega,Dehumanization of Art Poe E A, Gordon Pym Prose F, Reading Like a Writer Rushdie S,Midnight Children Sabatini R, Scaramouche Spark M, Prime of Miss Brodie Stendhal, Red and Black Sterne L,Tristram Shandy Stevenson R, Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde Stoker B, Dracula Thackeray W,History of Pendennis Tolstoy L, Anna Karenina Trollope A, Autobiography Unamuno M, Tragic Sense of Life Voltaire, Candide Webb J, Fields of Fire Wharton E, The House of Mirth Woolf V, To The Lighhouse The secrets of 'no-doze' prose: Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers Image via Wikipedia Lindsey Vonn Back to main page

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