ABSTRACT
During the nineteenth century, deterministic theories were developing and gaining
prominence. Scholars believed in the possibility of isolating hereditary and
environmental factors that would explain human behavior. Not only did these theories
dominate the sciences, but they also had a profound effect on nineteenth-century literary production, and particularly on the development of French realist and naturalist novels.
The nineteenth century proclaimed the value of the individual and the possibility of personal transcendence. For writers of this period—Maupassant, the Goncourt brothers, and Flaubert in particular—the pursuit of individuality translated into a commitment to originality and artistic literary production. However, these same writers felt threatened by the new pressures of capitalism and struggled against the temptation to write for the
consumer rather than purely for the sake of art. This tension between the desire for
individuality and the obstacles to its actualization manifested itself in several ways in the lives and works of these novelists. In the character construction of protagonists, the
novels of this period expose the illusion of individuality as their narratives unfold. There is evidence of the characters being significantly shaped by the society in which they live, while at the same time, they are shown to be oblivious to this influence. In the narrative
structure, it is possible to detect hybrid or deviant forms of traditional genres within these
novels as evidence of the ways in which the authors were shaped by the past and present from which they emerged. These reappropriated genres function as aesthetic resolutions ii of the social contradiction being worked through in the narrative, namely the valorization
of individuality in a society that impeded its actualization. In Maupassant’s Une Vie and
Bel-Ami, there is an appearance of epic within the novelistic form; in the Goncourt’s
Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais, transformed versions of melodrama and tragedy function as counter-structures in each novel; and in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
and L’Éducation sentimentale, aspects of tragic and comic narrative are identifiable. The epic, melodramatic, and tragic heroes have all been dispossessed of the meaning that society had formerly assigned to its members and have evolved into the problematic protagonists of the nineteenth-century novel, whose pursuit of meaning has become the quest that defines them.
iii
Dedicated to my mother and father
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank my adviser, Eugene Holland, for his invaluable insight and
direction. The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without his
untiring support and encouragement. I also appreciate his commitment to a standard of
excellence that helped to increase the quality of this work. For all of his thoughtful
comments, helpful suggestions, and patient corrections, I am deeply grateful.
I am also grateful to Mihaela Marin for her helpful guidance particularly in the
initial stages of this dissertation. Her encouragement and support are very appreciated.
I thank Jean-François Fourny who provided additional guidance and Dennis
Minahen who graciously agreed to participate in the final stages of the dissertation due to
Professor Fourny’s absence.
I owe many thanks to the entire faculty and staff of the Department of French and
Italian at the Ohio State University for their wonderful assistance. The French
Department provided all of the necessary financial and moral support to help me see this project to completion. I am especially grateful for the two Bulatkin Summer Fellowships that enabled me to make the progress I needed.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family, friends, and the Lord Jesus Christ for sustaining me through this long, but rewarding process. It would not have been possible
without them.
v
VITA
December 15, 1972 ………………... Born – Maryland, United States
1994 ……………………………….. B.A. French, B.S. French Education Miami University
1998 ……………………………….. M.A. French, Bowling Green State University
1998 – present ……………………... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: French
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii
Dedication ……...………………………………………………………………………...iv
Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………………………...v
Vita ……………………………………………………………………………………….vi
Introduction…… ………………………………………………………………………….1
Chapters:
1. Maupassant and the Capitalist Epic….………………………………………19
Une Vie: From Self-Possession to Dispossession………………….24 Bel-Ami: The “Act” of Transcendence……………………………..37 The Functioning of Epic in Une Vie and Bel-Ami…………………..61
2. The Goncourt Brothers and the Literary Melodrama………………………..75
Melodrama and Tragedy Redefined in Charles Demailly…………..82 Melodrama and Tragedy Redefined in Madame Gervaisais………..92 Fatality, Determinism, or Free Will?………………………………105 The Practice of Spectatorship and the Rhetoric of Martyrdom……135
3. Flaubert and the Modern Tragedy…….……………………………………150
The Illusion of Individuality….……………………………………156 The Inaccuracy of Perceptions….………………………………….175 Tragedy, Comedy, or Humor?……………………………………..185
Conclusion …...………………………………………………………………………...217
Bibliography…... ………………………………………………………………………232
vii
INTRODUCTION
The nineteenth century saw the advent of the detective novel, the naturalist novel,
and psychoanalysis. What do these three narrative practices have in common? They all
seem to be symptomatic of a desire to explain social deviance, a belief in the possibility
of isolating primary causes of dysfunctional behavior through step-by-step reconstruction
of events. What was it about this period that inspired this multiplication of narrative
forms?1 Peter Brooks sees the proliferation of narrative in the nineteenth century as the
manifestation of a feeling of anxiety caused by the loss of religious belief. He explains,
The enormous narrative production of the nineteenth century may suggest an anxiety at the loss of providential plots: the plotting of the individual or social or institutional life story takes on new urgency when one no longer can look to a sacred masterplot that orga- nizes and explains the world. The emergence of narrative plot as a dominant mode of ordering and explanation may belong to the large process of secularization, dating from the Renaissance and gathering force during the Enlightenment, which marks a falling-away from those revealed plots—the Chosen People, Redemption, the Second Coming—that appeared to subsume transitory human time to the timeless (6).
Society gradually exchanged metaphysical explanations for rationalist ones. In the
nineteenth century, the reign of human reason resulted in, among other things, theories of
positivism and empiricism, the proliferation of scientific thought, technological advances,
and novelistic production, and more specifically, realist and naturalist novels. Rather
than serving the purpose of inculcating a collective religious vision, literature became a
1 For a more detailed description of the connections between these three narrative practices, see Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984) 268-270.
1 vehicle through which authors and readers attempted to demonstrate their ability to understand an individual’s place in the world apart from religious dogma.
Later in his book, Reading for the Plot, Brooks considers the shift in focus from the group to the individual personality that occurs in novels to be a direct consequence of this loss of faith in a “sacred masterplot” and evidence of a desire to recover personal meaning:
From sometime in the eighteenth century onward, the interpretation of human plots took on new urgency in response to a new centering of perspectives on the individual personality and a search for patterns in the individual existence and understanding of self that might recover some of the explanatory force lost with the decline of the collective myth (268).
Although Brooks does not go this far, we can see that the dawn of capitalism with its emphasis on competition and personal success was at least partly responsible for bringing about this shift in focus from the group to the individual. The decline of “the collective myth” gave new importance to individualized narrative. The exemplary hero of traditional narrative who formerly embodied the ideal values of the sacred plot and lived out the collective worldview evolved into the problematic protagonist of nineteenth- century narrative.2
Georg Lukàcs describes the problematic protagonist as the novelistic character whose search for individuality and personal meaning becomes the defining quest of the novelistic form. In his book La Théorie du roman, Lukàcs distinguishes the problematic character of the novel from the non-problematic hero of the ancient epic whose goals are clearly defined for him by society and are quite attainable:
Monde contingent et individu problématique sont des réalités qui se conditionnent l’une l’autre. Lorsque l’individu n’est pas problématique, ses fins lui sont données
2 Brooks, Reading for the Plot 138-39; Lucien Goldmann, Pour une sociologie du roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) 39.
2 dans une évidence immédiate et le monde dont ces mêmes fins ont bâti l’édifice peut lui opposer des difficultés et des obstacles sur la voie de leur réalisation, mais sans jamais le menacer d’un sérieux danger intérieur. (…) Dès lors que les idées sont posées comme inaccessibles et deviennent, empiriquement parlant, irréelles, dès lors qu’elles sont changées en idéaux, l’individualité perd le caractère immédiatement organique qui faisait d’elle une réalité non problématique. Elle est devenue elle-même sa propre fin, car ce qui lui est essentiel et fait de sa vie une vie véritable, elle le découvre désormais en elle, non à titre de possession ni comme fondement de son existence, mais comme objet de quête.3
Given the unclear and unrealizable nature of cultural ideals in “post-sacred”4 society due to the loss of “providential plots”, individuality becomes the primary goal of the problematic protagonist. Given the loss of collective vision, the search for individual meaning becomes the essential novelistic pursuit.
Not only is the desire for personal significance apparent in the novel, but it also manifests itself in the approach of novelists to the literary endeavor. Novelists of the nineteenth century were committed to pursuing originality in their literary production.
For example, Pierre Bourdieu explains that Flaubert attempted to function in a realm
above the debates regarding genres in an effort to avoid the generic labels of his time
period:
Il a tenté toute sa vie de se maintenir dans cette position indéterminée, ce lieu neutre d’où l’on peut survoler les groupes et leurs conflits, les luttes qui opposent entre eux les différentes d’espèces d’intellectuels et d’artistes et celles qui les affrontent globale- ment aux différentes variétés de “propriétaires”.5
In this way, Flaubert tried to define his literary style apart from categories that would detract from his unique contribution to literature. It is true that Flaubert popularized
3 Georg Lukàcs, La Théorie du roman, trans. Jean Clairvoye (1920; Berlin: Gonthier, 1963) 73.
4 Peter Brooks uses this term to refer to the period subsequent to the French Revolution, which, in his view, is “the moment that symbolically, and really, marks the final liquidation of the traditional Sacred and its representative institutions (Church and Monarch), the shattering of the myth of Christendom, the dissolution of an organic and hierarchically cohesive society…” (Melodramatic Imagination (New York: Columbia UP, 1985) 14-5).
5 Pierre Bourdieu, Les Règles de l’art (Paris: Seuil, 1992) 52.
3 several innovative writing strategies during the nineteenth century, such as free indirect discourse and a constantly changing narrative perspective. While these distinguished him from his predecessors and contemporaries, thus allowing him to evade classification to a certain extent, Flaubert’s use of scientific precision in his descriptions reveals that he was no less a product of the period of realism than Émile Zola and the Goncourt brothers
(Bourdieu 146-47).
While the desire to transcend culturally-fabricated categories and laws is especially evident in Flaubert’s novels and other writings, the culte de l’artiste influences many of the novelists of the second half of the nineteenth century. In Maupassant’s treatise on the novel, he expresses his belief in the artistic ideal of originality and declares that, to be original, an artist must strive to see and describe things in a way that has never been done before: “Il s’agit de regarder tout ce qu’on veut exprimer assez longtemps et avec assez d’attention pour en découvrir un aspect qui n’ait été vu et dit par personne.”6
In another passage, Maupassant claims that originality is the main prerequisite for true
talent: “Le talent provient de l’originalité, lui est une manière spéciale de penser, de voir,
de comprendre et de juger” (xxxv). Although, in his essay, Maupassant says that he does
not consider himself to be a literary genius who carries within himself “une force
créatrice irrésistible”, he nonetheless emphasizes the possibility and value of originality
as opposed to “moyens déjà connus” adopted by novelists “dans la candeur de [la]
médiocrité” whose works are “destinées à la foule ignorante et désoeuvrée” (xliv).
Similarly, in the case of the Goncourt brothers, numerous journal entries attest to their belief in the artist’s special capacity for original thought:
6 Maupassant, “Le Roman”, preface, Pierre et Jean (1887; Paris: Gallimard, 1982) xlvi.
4 Taine soutient que tous les hommes de talent sont des produits de leur milieu. Gautier et nous, soutenons le contraire, qu’ils sont des exceptions….7
Dans ce peu de chose qu’il est, il a comme la conscience d’une divinité créatrice. Dieu créé des existences; l’homme d’imagination crée des vies fictives….8
These statements made in the Goncourt’s literary Journal reveal their conviction
regarding the exceptional quality of a man of talent and the unique experience of divine
transcendence possible through literary production. These passages expose their belief in their unique capacity as men of letters to escape determinism and to resist the influential
force of their environment through their creative activity. In this next excerpt from
another journal entry, the Goncourt brothers claim that their physical problems and
nervous disorders are the key to their originality as men of letters:
Nous trouvons les livres que nous lisons écrits avec la plume, le cerveau, l’imagination, de la pensée d’auteurs. Nos livres à nous nous semblent bien écrits avec cela, mais encore avec ceci, et c’est leur originalité: nos nerfs et nos souf- frances—en sorte que chez nous, chaque volume a été une déperdition nerveuse, une dépense de sensibilité et de pensée.9
While other writers are limited to using their pen, brain, and imagination to create, the
Goncourt brothers declare to have a special advantage in producing original work through the inspiration they draw from their suffering. Here again, the brothers esteem originality to be the highest aim of a writer, so much that they are willing to suffer to attain it.
While the pursuit of individuality dominated the content of the novel and the
approach to novelistic production in nineteenth-century society, there were many
obstacles that stood in the way of its realization. First, the new pressures of the capitalist
economy privileged quantity over quality and mass literary production over “art for art’s
7 Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire, 15 January 1866, ed. Robert Ricatte, préface Robert Kopp, vol. 2 (1956; Paris: Laffont, 1989) 3.
8 Goncourt, Journal, 8 February 1868, vol. 2, 132.
9 Goncourt, Journal, 5 May 1869, vol. 2, 222. 5 sake”. In her study of Maupassant, Antonia Fonyi describes the homogenizing effect of
accumulating wealth that impedes individuality:
Sous le Nouveau Régime, le piège est l’apparence d’ouverture, la mobilité sociale conduisant à s’embourgeoisement de tout un chacun, à l’emprisonnement de toute l’humanité dans une clôture unique et définitive. L’argent est piège aussi. S’il est invitation à la liberté, si, sous d’innombrables masques sociaux, artistiques, érotiques, il s’offre comme moyen de satisfaire le désir violent qui fonde l’individualité, c’est pour mieux écraser celle-ci par la reconversion de toute chose en même chose qui est sa fonction essentielle.10
Although money seemed to allow for social mobility, this new freedom came at the cost
of sacrificing personal values. To a writer in the nineteenth century, the pursuit of wealth
meant compromising literary ideals and abandoning originality.
A second factor that challenged the pursuit of individuality during the nineteenth
century was the theory of environmental determinism. According to Maurice Larkin’s
description of nineteenth-century determinism,
No phenomenon, be it a person, a thought or an event, could have an autonomous existence that owed nothing to its antecedents and surroundings. Everything was the outcome of the interaction of pre-existing factors, which were themselves the product of earlier factors: each object or occurrence was a link in a mesh of causal chains, stretching back to ‘the beginning of things’ (…).11
Since this belief in determinism so dominated the ideological outlook of the period,
novelists were keenly aware of the factors that shaped personal identity and demonstrated
this theory within their novels through character construction.
A tension exists, then, between the desire for individual originality and obstacles to its actualization during the nineteenth century, and we will see this conflict manifest itself in several ways in the lives and works of novelists during this period. In The
10 Antonia Fonyi, Maupassant 1993 (Paris: Kimé, 1993) 77.
11 Maurice Larkin, Man and Society in Nineteenth-Century Realism. Determinism and Literature (Totowa: Rowman, 1977) 175.
6 Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson claims that unresolved social contradictions such
as this one—a situation in which society simultaneously promotes the value of individuality and yet impedes its attainment—are present in literary texts, where they in
effect fuel the drive for narrative closure or aesthetic resolution. In other words, the literary text offers an imaginary resolution of the social incongruity in its formal construction.12 One tool that Jameson suggests for isolating these aesthetic solutions in a
literary text is generic analysis, since he argues that genres are inherently bearers of
ideological messages:
…in its emergent, strong form a genre is essentially a socio-symbolic message, or in other terms, that form is immanently and intrinsically an ideology in its own right. When such forms are reappropriated and refashioned in quite different social and cultural contexts, this message persists and must be functionally reckoned into the new form. (…) The ideology of the form itself, thus sedimented, persists into the later more complex structure as a generic message which coexists—either as a con- tradiction or, on the other hand, as a mediatory or harmonizing mechanism—with elements from later stages. (141)
What Jameson suggests is that genres that were developed and popularized in the past
will often reappear in an embedded form in newer literary genres. Even though these
older genres are appropriated within a different ideological framework, they will continue
to carry their former ideological message and will affect the overall message expressed
by the narrative.
Despite the desire for complete originality, novelists cannot avoid writing in or at
least in significant relation to pre-existing genres, even though the result may range from
an attempt at a counter-genre to a hybrid or deviant version of the original genre.
Examining the various literary styles and ideologies that coexist within a single work is
consistent with Jameson’s description of text. He claims a literary text to be a
12 Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981) 77-9.
7 “synchronic unity of structurally contradictory or heterogeneous elements, generic
patterns and discourses” (141). Thus, generic analysis is especially useful when it
exposes the multifaceted character of a literary work, thus revealing the way its unique historical situation partially rejects and modifies, but always incorporates past literary modes. Jameson further describes this type of analysis:
…the ‘novel’ as an apparently unified form is subjected to a kind of X-ray technique designed to reveal the layered or marbled structure of text according to what we call generic discontinuities. The novel is then not so much an organic unity as a symbolic act that must reunite or harmonize heterogeneous narrative paradigms which have their own specific and contradictory ideological meaning (144).
In her work on American naturalism, June Howard provides a helpful model of
application for such an analysis of naturalist texts. She explains that despite naturalism’s
attempt to portray “une tranche de vie”, it is still constrained by the requirements of plot and theme, which lead to the incorporation of different generic forms.13 She considers generic analysis insightful when it “is used to locate not the category to which a putatively unified work belongs in a relationship of simple identity but the crucial
differences between works and the ways in which different generic strands coexist within
a text” (10). Later, she adds that, “genre inevitably enters into every work but no work is
contained by genre” (182).
The first main goal of this study will be to conduct a generic analysis in view of
further investigating the quest for individuality in nineteenth-century society and the
manner in which this pursuit finds expression in the form of aesthetic solutions in the
literary text. What I am proposing here is to isolate which genres have been consciously
or unconsciously appropriated into the novelistic form, how these genres have been
13 June Howard, Form and History in American Literary Naturalism (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1985) 145-46.
8 limited or transformed by the dominant ideological structure of the works, as well as to
consider how the specific generic combinations function as aesthetic solutions to the
problematic pursuit of individuality. This type of generic analysis of nineteenth-century texts will offer further insight into this pursuit of individuality and the anxiety experienced by those confronting the obstacles to its attainment, for the anxiety produced
in the authors by their desire for originality and the hindrances to achieving it is being
worked through in the formal aspects of the literary texts. Therefore, we will examine
the way vestiges of traditional genres incorporated into nineteenth-century novels
underline the false sense of identity assumed by the protagonists. For example,
conventional genres such as epic and tragedy traditionally feature exemplary and non-
problematic heroes who are portrayed as having purposeful lives and well-established
identities. When elements of these older genres are integrated into narratives that feature
problematic protagonists, a dissonance occurs in the text. The incorporation of epic and
tragic aspects in nineteenth-century novels occurs particularly at moments when the
protagonists falsely believe themselves to have found the meaning around which they are
intended to structure their lives, while the breakdown of these genres in these same
novels reveals that the characters possess a false sense of purpose and are in reality lost in
a world devoid of meaning.
One can not only study the pursuit of individuality from a generic point of view
but one can also examine this phenomenon directly through an analysis of character
construction. We will find that most of the protagonists we study are firmly convinced of
their individuality, while the narratives reveal the extent to which they are mere products
of their background, environment, and circumstances. Studying the way this problematic
9 pursuit of individuality unfolds in the novels under consideration will be the second goal
of the project at hand. In the character construction of nineteenth-century protagonists, we will examine how the narratives expose the illusion of individuality and provide evidence for the characters being significantly shaped by the environment in which they live, while at the same time remaining oblivious to this influence.
René Girard’s theory helps to provide insight into the illusion of individuality that characterizes the nineteenth-century protagonist. He explains in his classic critical work,
Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque, that, in modern society, the pursuit of God
had been abandoned in favor of personal transcendence: “Derrière toutes les doctrines
occidentales qui se succèdent depuis deux ou trois siècles il y a toujours le même
principe: Dieu est mort, c’est à l’homme de prendre sa place”.14 Later, he adds, “La
négation de Dieu ne supprime pas la transcendance mais elle fait dévier celle-ci de l’au-
delà vers l’en deçà” (65). Therefore, the loss of faith in the supernatural evolved into a
belief in the eminence of the individual. Rather than looking to supernatural
empowerment, people looked within themselves to surpass limitations and to overcome
the negative and restrictive aspects of the human condition.
When an individual confronts his/her human weakness, he/she feels compelled to
look to other, more successful models of human transcendence and then imitates these
models through the pursuit of the same objects and qualities they possess (Girard 14, 64-
5, 69-70). A classic literary example is Emma Bovary who seeks to accumulate
possessions in conformity to those depicted in magazines as characteristic of Parisian
high society. Thus, Girard explains, desire is “mediated” or determined by society rather
14 René Girard, Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque (Paris: Grasset, 1961) 62.
10 than originating in the person who is desiring.15 At the same time however, bourgeois
society declares itself to be the culture of the individual who copies no one and whose
desires are “l’émanation d’une subjectivité sereine, la création ex nihilo d’un Moi quasi- divin” (Girard 24). As a result, this tendency to imitate is consciously rejected while inevitably resurfacing unconsciously in the form of “imitations négatives” (105). Girard suggests that the romantic writers and heroes who claimed originality were those who imitated the most:
Cette nature [imitative], de nos jours, est difficile à percevoir car l’imitation la plus fervente est la plus vigoureusement niée. (…) Le vaniteux romantique ne se veut plus le disciple de personne. Il se persuade qu’il est infiniment original. Partout, au XIXe siècle, la spontanéité se fait dogme, détrônant l’imitation. Ne nous laissons pas duper, répète partout Stendhal, les individualismes bruyamment professés cachent une forme nouvelle de copie (23).
Girard’s analysis makes a distinction between novels that promote the romantic illusion and those that expose and problematize this illusion through romantic characters, such as
Stendhal’s Julien Sorel and Flaubert’s Emma Bovary. While Flaubert reveals Emma’s desires as being purely mediated and unoriginal, portraying romantic characters does not completely exempt Flaubert and other avant-garde novelists from retaining their own
illusions.16
The two main questions I will address are as follows: First, how do the novels
expose the illusion of individuality through narration and character construction? And
related to this first question, how is the identity of the characters shown to be formed and influenced by their environment even without their awareness? And secondly, which
15 For more on this, see Jacques Dubois, Les Romanciers du réel (Paris: Seuil, 2000) 55.
16 In Goldmann’s analysis of Girard’s theory, he agrees with Lukàcs that the novelists are as incapable as the characters of overcoming the pressures of society and of having purely authentic desires. He believes that the depiction of “la dégradation du monde romanesque” merely indicates an awareness of their position rather than proving their ability to exist beyond it. For more on this, see Goldmann 33.
11 traditional genres manifest themselves in the novels under consideration and what generic
messages do these genres carry as they are reappropriated into the nineteenth-century
text? And finally, what insight do their deviant or hybrid forms contribute to our
understanding of the problematic pursuit of individuality? To explore these questions, I
will examine selected works of four authors of the second half of the nineteenth century:
Gustave Flaubert, the Goncourt brothers, and Guy de Maupassant. I chose these four because of their common effort to distinguish their work from others and to resist literary
categories. All four writers remained bachelors throughout their lives and were
financially independent of the proceeds from their writing at least in the beginning stages
of their careers, which means that they were relatively free to create their own life and
literary styles, apart from commercial pressures and bourgeois cultural norms.17 In
addition, despite their attempt to refuse classification, all four novelists include aspects of
naturalism in their texts. Although Émile Zola is considered to be the father of literary
naturalism and therefore a logical choice for this study on determinism in naturalist novels, I feel that his approach to the novel and his financial dependence on writing places him in a slightly different category than his contemporaries.18 When he describes
his view of the purpose of the naturalist novel, Zola reveals his confidence in its potential to generate knowledge of the world:
En somme, toute l’opération consiste à prendre les faits dans la nature, puis à étudier le mécanisme des faits, en agissant sur eux par les modifications des circonstances et des
17 Henri Troyat, Maupassant (Paris: Flammarion, 1989) 40-45, Marie-Claire Bancquart, “Maupassant journaliste,” Flaubert et Maupassant. Écrivains normands, ed. Barbara T. Cooper and Mary Donaldson- Evans (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997) 155, Michel Caffier Les Frères Goncourt “un déshabillé de l’âme” (Nancy: PU de Nancy, 1994) 32-51.
18 Henri Troyat, Zola (Paris: Flammarion, 1992) 45-87.
12 milieux, sans jamais s’écarter des lois de la nature. Au bout, il y a la connaissance de l’homme, la connaissance scientifique, dans son action individuelle et sociale.19
In comparison to Zola, I would argue that the first four authors view the world, and specifically the literary venture, with more irony and detachment.20 Zola’s unabashed efforts to found and propagate the movement of literary naturalism as a new scientific approach to novelistic creation contrasts greatly with the resistance to labels and categories that was characteristic of Flaubert, Maupassant, and the Goncourt brothers.21
Furthermore, the scope of the Les Rougon-Macquart seems to betray a belief in the possibility of mastering meaning and knowledge of human behavior that closely resembles Balzac’s project in La Comédie Humaine, whereas the former authors often bring into question the ability of the novelistic form, and language in particular, to convey truth. Emphasizing the close parallel between these two monumental works,
Jacques Noiray distinguishes them from the literature produced by novelists like the
Goncourt:
L’entreprise totalisatrice de La Comédie Humaine, fondamentalement optimiste, reposant sur la certitude que le romancier, sinon son héros, peut maîtriser le monde et le mettre en ordre, a cédé la place à une conception plus dubitative de l’œuvre littéraire. La fêlure introduite dans le monde par le regard ironique entraîne un émiettement de la matière romanesque en notations juxtaposées, une fragmentation qui disperse les éléments du réel et multiplie les niveaux d’écriture et de lecture.22
One might argue that Zola’s fiction is far from optimistic, but I would contend that, although the characters are often hopelessly constrained by a deterministic universe, the
19 Émile Zola, Le Roman Expérimental. Oeuvres Complètes (Tome X), ed. Henri Mittérand (1880; Paris: Fasquelle, 1968) 1179.
20 For an explanation of the irony characteristic of many novelists of Flaubert’s generation, see Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot 203, 213.
21 Jacques Dubois, Les Romanciers du réel (Paris: Seuil, 2000) 230-31.
22 Jacques Noiray, “La Subversion du modèle balzacien dans Charles Demailly,” Les Frères Goncourt: art et écriture, ed. Jean-Louis Cabanès (Bordeaux: PU de Bordeaux, 1997) 179-80.
13 author is claiming to be capable of explaining the way this universe functions, thus implicitly offering the hope that solutions for societal ills exist. In Le Roman
expérimental, Zola confirms this to be his express goal : “…quand on possédera les lois,
il n’y aura plus qu’à agir sur les individus et sur les milieux, si l’on veut arriver au
meilleur état social” (1188).
*****
As I approach the novels, I will analyze them from primarily two perspectives.
First, I will explore them from a generic point of view to determine to what degree
conventional genres appear in the realist texts. In particular, I will base my analyses on a
combination of various definitions of epic, melodrama, and tragedy, and I will look not
only for the traces of these traditional genres in the novels, but for the “generic
discontinuities”, or moments at which a breakdown of these genres occurs. I will then
suggest ways these generic transformations and limitations shed light on the issue of
individuality. Secondly, I will focus on character portrayal as it relates to the question of
individuality and ask several questions like the following: Upon what criteria do characters base their identities and what factors cause the destabilization and disintegration of identity in the novels? What evidence do the narratives include to indicate that the characters believe in their own personal transcendence? To what degree are characters self-aware and capable of self-analysis? Are characters shown to be morally responsible for their decisions or are they portrayed as victims? Do the characters exhibit personal agency or are they shown to be mere products of their
14 environment? What kinds of illusions inform characters’ perceptions of themselves and
others? And finally, do characters constantly imitate exterior models in their choices and
lifestyle or do they make decisions independently? Throughout each chapter, I will use
my discoveries related to genre and the quest for individuality to make connections between the novels, the authors’ lives, and society, with the goal of determining how anxiety is manifested and worked through in these texts in response to the threat to
individuality in nineteenth-century society.
Since the novelists in question have produced more novels than can be adequately
studied in a single project, I have selected novels that provide special insight into the
issues being raised. Each novelist produced at least one work whose main protagonist is
a journalist or writer. It is these texts that will shed light on the most obvious pressures
and issues experienced by the novelists. Meanwhile, due to the common nineteenth-
century association of women with imitation and consumerism, female protagonists
might very well embody the struggles on the part of the novelists against the temptation to produce literature for consumer culture and to imitate previous models.23 Jeanne
Delamare and Georges Duroy of Maupassant’s novels will be important objects of study, since Jeanne, who is closer in social class to Maupassant than her male counterpart, descends from a point of fulfillment to one of desolation, and Duroy ascends from obscurity to a position of unchallenged social prominence. From among the Goncourt brothers’ depictions of women, I will examine the character Madame Gervaisais. I will
23 Bram Dijkstra provides evidence for this association of women with imitation and consumerism in Idols of Perversity (New York: Oxford UP, 1986). For example, he explains that men pursued originality in order to escape the “imitativeness” of women, because “to be original was to be masculine in the best sense” (207). Concerning women and consumerism, he writes, “Having little else to do with their lives than be trivial and decorative, they transformed the realm of trivia and decoration into a torture garden for the men who had collectively set out to turn them into the trained seals of consumer society” (355).
15 study the way she degenerates from being a successful society woman to dying of self-
imposed malnutrition and neglect due to her newfound religious fervor. For the
Goncourts’ male protagonist, I will examine the character Charles Demailly, who is a
writer and one of the only two male protagonists of their co-authored novels. An analysis
of his character will contribute to this study, since the protagonist’s independent and self-
determined temperament dominates until the persecution of his former colleagues at Le
Scandale and his wife cause him to lose his sanity and personal agency. For Flaubert, I
will mainly examine the character development of Emma Bovary and Frédéric Moreau.
Rather than progressing in a chronological fashion, I will proceed from the least
to the most radical case of resistance to societal expectations and literary norms and
detachment from society. I will begin by studying Maupassant’s Une Vie and Bel-Ami, in which the characters are more conventionally depicted than those of the other authors in question. Maupassant’s journalistic activity resulted in his being more engaged in current political debates than the others and one can even draw a parallel between his and
Zola’s prolific literary production, given Maupassant’s large production of nouvelles.24
Still, like Flaubert, Maupassant was careful to distinguish his novels from those
belonging to the school of literary naturalism. My analysis of character construction in
Maupassant’s novels will concentrate on the protagonists who illustrate the impossibility
of authenticity in a world of degraded values and their ensuing recourse to imitation and
deception or to passivity and resignation. In this way, the narratives of both Une Vie and
Bel Ami illustrate the threat posed to individuality in nineteenth-century society. In
24 In Les Romanciers du réel, Dubois evokes both the influence of journalism in Maupassant’s fiction as well as his reputation for being a classique (256-57). Also see Bancquart (155-66).
16 terms of genre, I will examine the elements of epic narrative that appear in each novel,
particularly at moments when the characters are most convinced of their individuality.
In chapter two, I will analyze two novels co-authored by the Goncourt: Charles
Demailly and Madame Gervaisais. Known for their detachment from society and their
religious devotion to artistic production regardless of societal criticism and disapproval,
the Goncourt brothers nonetheless reveal in their writing the anxiety produced by the
struggle to maintain their originality and individuality as artists.25 In my analysis of the novels, I will examine the combination of melodramatic and tragic elements and the fact that the denouements of each novel fail to satisfy the requirements of either melodrama or tragedy. In character construction, the threat to individuality is evident, as the protagonists of Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais believe themselves to be
impervious to the influence of their environment, but are gradually destroyed through the
practice of spectatorship.
Finally, in chapter three, I will examine two of Flaubert’s novels, Madame
Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale. First, from the point of view of character construction, we will see evidence for the illusion of individuality in the characters’ false belief in the strength of their identities and trust in the accuracy of their own perceptions.
Despite the opportunities for self-understanding the narration offers to the protagonists, they prefer to remain deluded in their imaginary worlds. We will then identify vestiges of tragedy as well as some comic elements that appear in the novels. As is the case with
25 Stéphanie Champeau, “Les Goncourt et la passion de l’artiste,” Les Frères Goncourt: art et écriture, ed. Jean-Louis Cabanès (Bordeaux: PU de Bordeaux, 1997) 49-69. Similarly, Dubois observes Flaubert’s habit of withdrawing from society: “Là où Balzac et Stendhal, chacun en son genre, se mêlaient intensément à la vie du siècle, Flaubert choisit, sur un mode quasi religieux, de pratiquer la littérature en reclus, coupé de l’agitation humaine” (214).
17 tragedy and melodrama in the Goncourtian novel, these genres cannot survive in their
traditional form due to the ideological disposition of the nineteenth century, so they are transformed and combined into a hybrid structure. Although we will find many generic discontinuities and moments where tragedy breaks down, we will propose Flaubert’s
novels to be works that exemplify Benjamin Constant’s theory on a different kind of
tragedy conceivable in the nineteenth century, a tragedy that represents characters as they
confront and struggle against the powerful and inescapable pressures of conventional
society.
18
CHAPTER 1
MAUPASSANT AND THE CAPITALIST EPIC
In the Nouveau Régime,26 since the general pursuit of wealth minimized class differences and social distinctions, differences in rank became secondary to financial success. Antonia Fonyi in her analysis of Maupassant describes the way the period in which he wrote leveled aspirations to individuality. She explains that the social mobility of the period made possible through the accumulation of wealth and possessions functioned as a homogenizing mechanism and precluded the possibility of individuality within society. 27 Fonyi expresses the same idea by contrasting the desire to have with the
desire to be, and observes that the goal of having more abolishes personhood: “Le désir
d’en avoir plus supprime la personne, sa vie ou sa différence, son identité, en les
convertissant en valeurs quantitatives” (65). No longer are people evaluated based upon
their qualities, but upon their “quantities”, that is, their possessions. While society
members believed they were carefully constructing their identities by decorating their
26 In Antonia Fonyi’s study on Maupassant, she proposes that the universe in Maupassant’s fiction is a simplified one in which there is a clear division between the country and the city. Provincial society, according to this breakdown, represents the territory of the Ancien Régime, where the social hierarchy is respected and classes remain distinct, and Parisian society (also symbolically referenced by other large cities) corresponds to the values of the Nouveau Régime, which is characterized by the pursuit of wealth and by social mobility. Throughout this chapter, I will be using Fonyi’s expression “Nouveau Régime” according to the definition she develops in Maupassant 1993.
27 For Fonyi’s description of this phenomenon, see the passage from Maupassant 1993 quoted in the introductory chapter (77).
19 homes with the “right” works of art, dressing according to the latest fashions, mingling with the most acclaimed socialites, they were in fact surrendering their individuality as they conformed to societal expectations.
In the opening chapter, we saw that Maupassant, like Flaubert and the Goncourt brothers, claimed to prize originality of thought above all else in literary production. At the same time, he was aware of the challenge of being truly original. Maupassant seemed to experience the threat to individuality both personally and in his writing. On the personal level, he contends that the only strategy that would ensure complete independence of thought would be to remove oneself from all social interaction:
…celui qui voudrait garder l’intégrité absolue de sa pensée, l’indépendance fière de son jugement, voir la vie, l’humanité et l’univers en observateur libre, au-dessous de tout préjugé, de toute croyance préconçue et de toute religion, c’est-à-dire de toute crainte, devrait s’écarter absolument de ce qu’on appelle les relations mondaines, car la bêtise universelle est si contagieuse qu’il ne pourra fréquenter ses semblables, les voir et les écouter sans être malgré lui, entamé de tous les côtés par leurs convictions, leurs idées, leurs superstitions, leurs traditions, leurs préjugés qui font ricochet sur lui, leurs usages, leurs lois et leur morale surprenante d’hypocrisie et de lâcheté.28
Since total withdrawal from society is inconceivable as a writer and certainly not the way of life he chose, one can conclude that Maupassant was painfully aware of being influenced by society despite himself. Thierry Poyet even sees his prolific production of short stories and his equally abundant sexual conquests as indications of a need to assert his individuality and prove his superiority to those around him, which to a certain extent proved that society did indeed exert power over him:
Maupassant ne peut pas vivre sans séduire la gent féminine. Façon de se rassurer et de trouver un complément nécessaire à la littérature qui n’est guère qu’une autre forme de ce jeu de la séduction? Peut-être. La volonté d’exister dans le regard d’une femme ou sous les yeux d’un lecteur traduit la même intention: se donner à l’autre pour être.29
28 Guy de Maupassant, Sur l’eau (1888; Paris: Gallimard, 1993) 114.
29 Thierry Poyet, L’Héritage Flaubert Maupassant (Paris: Kimé, 2000) 105.
20
Drawing a useful connection here between seduction of the reading public and of women,
Poyet puts forth a theme that will resurface in Maupassant’s fiction and, particularly
relevant for this analysis, in the novel Bel-Ami. Establishing connections between
Maupassant and Flaubert, Poyet hypothesizes that both writers felt their unique role as
artists diminish as a result of the new democratic policies in French society:
Maupassant et Flaubert se sentent diminués avec la démocratie et ses manifestations tel le suffrage universel, avec l’égalité et sa conséquence directe tel le service militaire obligatoire de trois ans pour tous. Réduits au rang commun, ils savent perdre alors l’aura de l’artiste. Cet état nouveau—(…)—leur est insupportable parce que c’est leur différence et c’est leur originalité, c’est-à-dire leur identité, qui sont remises en cause et bafouées. (176)
While Flaubert maintained some distance between himself and the rest of society by living in Croisset, Maupassant moved in the most elite sectors of the Parisian social world, thus facing this threat to his originality on a daily basis.
On the level of his literary production, Maupassant confronts a similar threat to
his individuality as a writer. Although he insists on the value of originality in “Le
Roman”, he also implicitly suggests that producing something truly new is a near
impossibility: “Après tant de maîtres aux natures si variées, au génie si multiple, que
reste-t-il à faire qui n’ait été fait, que reste-t-il à dire qui n’ait été dit? Qui peut se vanter,
parmi nous, d’avoir écrit une page, une phrase qui ne se trouve déjà, à peu près pareille,
quelque part?”30 Along with the threat of imitation, he alludes to the equally present
danger of repetition. Connected to the reduction of difference to sameness, of quality to
quantity as characteristic of capitalist society, Maupassant betrays a fear of reproducing
himself and his experiences in each of his characters and their stories, so that ultimately,
30 Guy de Maupassant, “Le Roman”, Préface, Pierre et Jean (1887; Paris: Gallimard, 1982) xliv.
21 his narratives are simply disguised copies of one another. Trevor Harris observes this
underlying thought in the following passage from “Le Roman”:
Notre vision, notre connaissance du monde acquise par le secours de nos sens, nos idées sur la vie, nous ne pouvons que les transporter en partie dans tous les personnages dont nous prétendons dévoiler l’être intime et inconnu. (…) Nous ne diversifions donc nos personnages qu’en changeant l’âge, le sexe, la situation sociale et toutes les circonstances de la vie de notre moi que la nature a entouré d’une barrière d’organes infranchissable. L’adresse consiste à ne pas laisser reconnaître ce moi par le lecteur sous tous les masques divers qui nous servent à le cacher. (Maupassant xliii-xliv)
From this passage, one can see that Maupassant is conscious of the need to disguise
himself in his works to hide his pervasive presence within each of his characters. Harris concludes from this excerpt that,
The reader is persuaded that he is being presented with something original, when in truth the novelist is simply recycling a limited quantity of material: the data of his personal experience. The reader, in short, is the victim of illusion, seeing difference where there is only sameness….31
He provides evidence later that Maupassant considered his own literary production and
that of his contemporaries as bound to simply repeat and imitate what had already been
written (122).
While we are focusing here on the negative perspective of imitation and
repetition, there is reason to suspect that, although Maupassant disliked these practices as
a principle, he was able to use them to his advantage in his writing. Fonyi demonstrates
the way he uses thematic repetition in order to expose the illusion of originality: under the appearance of difference in plots and characters lies a literary mass production. She claims that Maupassant intentionally depicted characters with doubles appearing at every turn of the narrative and reworked identical themes within short stories and novels to better illustrate and thereby denounce the evils of capitalism. Not only can we suspect
31 Trevor A. Harris Le V, Maupassant in the Hall of Mirrors (London: MacMillan, 1990) 121.
22 Maupassant of using repetition to his literary advantage, but also to his financial advantage. In a society where appearance of difference was all that mattered, he was able to successfully market three hundred short stories with very similar themes in all different combinations and forms, and in so doing, make a colossal fortune. Therefore, one might conclude that Maupassant’s principle of producing original art seems inconsistent with his practice of reproducing himself hundreds of times in his novels and short stories. For
Maupassant, it would seem that rather than building his identity upon his own consumption and possessions according to the model of capitalist society, he formed it through others “consuming” him both physically and intellectually. Fonyi adds weight to this theory when she states,
Le besoin de réaffirmer sans cesse son identité par la signature répétée des centaines, ou si l’on compte les reprises et les rééditions, des milliers de fois, allant de pair avec le besoin de réaffirmer sans cesse, par l’exercice journalier de l’activité sexuelle, la différence des sexes, attestent la fragilité du moi. (132)
Again, the connection between sexual and literary hyperactivity is suggested and is said to indicate Maupassant’s unsteady identity.
Given the economic situation in which Maupassant wrote and his own contradictory stance with respect to it, one would expect to find evidence of this struggle within his narratives. What I propose as my first object of study in this chapter is the way these issues play out in the lives of the characters. More specifically, I believe the issues at hand to extend far beyond finances to questions of personal identity and authenticity in a world of degraded values. To address these questions, my analyses will focus primarily on the characters of Jeanne Delamare of Une Vie and Georges Duroy of Bel-Ami.
Secondly, I will touch briefly on the way in which narrative voice is used to illustrate the power of illusion. Since we will see the way in which characters deceive or are deceived
23 by creating or believing illusions, we will discover that the narrator also creates illusions
to achieve certain effects in the minds of readers. Lastly, we will examine the two novels
in question from a generic point of view in order to determine what traditional genres
Maupassant has used to construct his narrative and in what ways they have been transformed due to the limitations imposed by nineteenth-century culture. In our generic analysis of the Une Vie and Bel-Ami, we will mainly consider the epic elements that are included in the novelistic form. We will see that, although Georges Duroy appears at first to be an individu problématique—novelistic protagonist par excellence—by the end
of the novel, he has evolved into a superhuman societal deity, who bears greater
resemblance to an epic hero than a typical novelistic character. In Jeanne’s case, we will
find the elements of epic in the earlier descriptions of the heroine, whereas the
disappointments of her life will reveal that she too is a problematic protagonist whose
inner desires can never be fulfilled in the world of convention. We will also study the
functioning of fatality in Une Vie and find that Jeanne’s fatalistic perspective contributes
to the deterministic atmosphere in the novel.
Une Vie: From Self-Possession to Dispossession
Literary critics often establish a contrast between Jeanne de Lamare of Une Vie
and Georges Duroy of Bel-Ami, because, if plotted on a diagram, their lives would seem
to follow exactly opposite courses, with the narrative of the first character beginning at
the very top of the axis of hope and happiness and plummeting to the lowest point of
despair, and that of the second beginning at the point of fewest prospects and ending at
the top of the chart. At first glance, it is easy to conclude from Jeanne’s narrative that her
identity was unstable from the beginning since it was constructed purely on illusions and
24 false hopes, and that thus, it was bound to be shattered through inevitable disappointments. While this is true to a large extent, it will be enlightening to first examine her identity in the beginning of the novel more closely in order to evaluate its foundations and solidity, before moving on to a discussion of its disintegration.
It must first be noted that Jeanne’s identity, while founded on many illusions, is quite strong. For example, the possessive pronouns of the first chapter emphasize her
strong sense of self. When she interrogates her father about the condition of Les Peuples,
she asks, “Est-ce beau, maintenant, mon château ?”, thus demonstrating a consciousness
of her aristocratic identity and secure future. (emphasis mine)32 Unable to sleep because
of her excitement at being finally home and away from the convent for the first time in five years, she spends the night looking out of her bedroom window and is overwhelmed by the dazzling spectacle of the sunrise. The narration describes her reaction using free indirect discourse: “C’était son soleil; son aurore; le commencement de sa vie! le lever de ses espérances! Elle tendit les bras vers l’espace rayonnant, avec une envie d’embrasser le soleil…” (19-20). (emphasis mine) In this excerpt from Jeanne’s reverie, we can see that she is portrayed as being thoroughly convinced of her own transcendence.
At this point in the novel, and from her perspective, the universe is at her command, the sun rises and falls exclusively for her, all of nature is working to guarantee her happiness.
Significantly, the tone of this passage is echoed in the closing scene of Bel-Ami in which
Georges Duroy is consecrated a Parisian god at his marriage to the rich heiress, Suzanne
Walter: “Il ne voyait personne. Il ne pensait qu’à lui. Lorsqu’il parvint sur le seuil, il
aperçut la foule amassée, une foule noire, bruissante, venue là pour lui, pour lui Georges
32 Guy de Maupassant, Une Vie (1880; Paris: Michel, 1983) 10.
25 Du Roy. Le peuple de Paris le contemplait et l’enviait” (emphasis mine).33 In this scene,
however, although the “éclatant soleil” also makes an appearance (307), the proof of
Duroy’s transcendence is established more on the public world revolving around him
than the natural world of Jeanne’s imagination. Still, they seem to share a similar self-
centeredness founded on the illusion of their superior destinies.
While evidence for Jeanne’s passivity can be found early in the narrative, there
are more descriptions that emphasize her boldness, a desire to initiate, and an exaltation
in her independence. A slightly trivial example is her desire to buy a fish from a sailor:
“Un matelot s’approcha pour offrir du poisson, et Jeanne acheta une barbue qu’elle
voulait rapporter elle-même aux Peuples (emphasis mine)” (22). Even though only a
young girl and accompanied by her father whom the reader would expect to initiate and
complete the purchase, there is no indication of Jeanne’s seeking his opinion or
permission, the elle-même serving to underline the desire she feels to assert her
autonomy. In the opening pages of chapter two, the reader accompanies Jeanne on her
gallivanting tours of the countryside, during which the allusions to the heroine’s delight
in being completely alone and free are plentiful: “Elle lisait, rêvait et vagabondait, toute
seule, aux environs”, “Un amour de la solitude l’envahissait…”, “toute vibrante d’une jouissance exquise”, “dans un affolement de joie, poussait des cris aigus…”, “Elle nageait à perte de vue, étant forte et hardie et sans conscience du danger (emphasis
mine)” (25). Not only does Jeanne rejoice in her freedom, but she is intrepid. This part of Jeanne’s character is more fully demonstrated during her honeymoon in Corsica in marked contrast to the cowardice of her new husband. Not that Jeanne herself despises
33 Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami (Paris: Classiques Universels, 2000) 307.
26 him for his fear on horseback, but the narrator uses her laughter at his awkwardness to
point out her superiority for the reader:
Ce long voyage au pas énervait Jeanne. “Courons un peu”, dit-elle. Et elle lança son cheval. Puis comme elle n’entendait pas son mari galoper près d’elle, elle se retourna et se mit à rire d’un rire fou en le voyant accourir, pâle, tenant la crinière de la bête et bondissant étrangement. Sa beauté même, sa figure de beau cavalier rendaient plus drôles sa maladresse et sa peur. (82)
Notice the way she takes the lead by suggesting that they go faster and then running
ahead without even waiting for his response to her proposition. A couple of pages later,
the narrator again brings our attention to her fearlessness and Julien’s fright: “Jeanne
légère et folle allait la première, faisant rouler des cailloux sous ses pieds, intrépide, se
penchant sur les abîmes. Il la suivait, un peu essoufflé, les yeux à terre par crainte du vertige (emphasis mine)” (85). During their honeymoon, the narrator repeatedly draws
attention to Jeanne’s mastery of situations. A final example of this is the scene at the mountain spring in which Jeanne surprisingly takes the lead in expressing her sexual
desire for Julien, which was a domain that had hitherto intimidated and repulsed her.
After filling her mouth with water and offering it to Julien (“Elle emplit sa bouche du
clair liquide, et, les joues gonflées comme des outres, fit comprendre à Julien que, lèvre à
lèvre, elle voulait le désaltérer”), Jeanne passionately presses her body against his:
“Jeanne s’appuyait sur lui avec une tendresse inusitée; son cœur palpitait; ses reins se
soulevaient; ses yeux semblaient amollis, trempés d’eau. Elle murmura tout bas:
‘Julien… je t’aime !’…” (86). Jeanne’s independence of thought and action as well as
her ability to initiate are unmistakable here and beg the question what the cause for her
confidence was during this period that would also account for her total loss of confidence
in the latter half of the novel. The theory I would like to propose and provide evidence
27 for is that, given the fact that Jeanne’s identity is founded to such a large extent on her illusory dreams, her individuality is strongest when her reality most closely corresponds to her hopes. It would logically follow that, since her honeymoon in Corsica was the most (and only) blissful period of her married life and therefore the closest her life came to fulfilling her dreams, she would demonstrate the most confidence in herself at this time. As a corollary to this theory, we would expect to see Jeanne’s disillusions result in the dissolution of her identity. This is precisely what happens: as each dream is shattered, so too a part of her identity dissolves, so that by the end of the novel, her personhood is utterly destroyed. This will be the focus of the second part of Jeanne’s character analysis.
As Jeanne faces one disappointment after another, we see her gradually resign herself to passivity and immobility. Although she was by nature an instigator and a leader, confident in her own ideas and opinions, Jeanne’s character becomes submissive to the point of obeying her former servant, Rosalie, someone she should have been commanding. As the narrative progresses through the various stages of her disillusionment, Jeanne regains some of her former self-possession after recovering from each crushing blow, but in the final stage, all signs of independent thought and action are nearly completely extinguished. Although we will not examine each stage in depth, it will be helpful to provide a global view by isolating the main stages of disillusionment: first, Jeanne is deeply distressed by the brutality of the sexual act on her wedding night
(“désespérée jusqu’au fond de son âme, dans la désillusion d’une ivresse rêvée si différente, d’une chère attente détruite…” (72).); next, when Jeanne and Julien return from their honeymoon and the heroine realizes that she no longer has anything for which
28 to hope (“Alors plus rien à faire, aujourd’hui, ni demain ni jamais. Elle sentait tout cela vaguement à une certaine désillusion, à un affaissement de ses rêves” (94)); then, when
Jeanne discovers Julien’s infidelity with her servant Rosalie (“Oh! sa vie était cassée, toute joie finie, toute attente impossible; et l’épouvantable avenir plein de tortures, de trahisons et de désespoirs lui apparut. Autant mourir, ce serait fini tout de suite” (130));
Jeanne’s discovery of Gilberte’s betrayal of their friendship by becoming Julien’s lover
(“la double trahison de la comtesse, de son amie, la révoltait. Tout le monde était donc perfide, menteur et faux. Et des larmes lui vinrent aux yeux. On pleure parfois les illusions avec autant de tristesse que les morts” (175).); and finally, the discovery of her mother’s infidelity when she reads her old love letters after her death (“Jeanne demeurait
écrasée sous le souvenir de ce qu’elle avait découvert. (…) son cœur broyée ne se guérissait pas. (…) sa dernière confiance était tombée avec sa dernière croyance” (195-
96).). Though her son Paul will later be a cause for much sorrow, Jeanne was sufficiently crushed beforehand to leave little room for more disillusionment at his hands. A last disappointment must be mentioned however because of its connection to another certain hope of Jeanne’s youth: the sale of Les Peuples. Jeanne was even dispossessed of the home she referred to as son château.
What I believe to be the most devastating blow to her sense of self is the discovery of her mother’s adultery. No matter how much Julien and others disappoint her, she always has the assurance that she herself was born to a trustworthy and upright family. In fact, the repugnance she feels towards Gilberte’s false display of affection for her while having an affair with her husband is what provokes her to invite her parents for a visit:
29 Elle les attendit avec une impatience grandissante, comme si elle eût éprouvé en dehors même de son affection filiale, un besoin nouveau de frotter son cœur à des cœurs honnêtes; de causer, l’âme ouverte, avec des gens purs, sains de toute infamie, dont la vie, et toutes les actions, et toutes les pensées, et tous les désirs avaient toujours été droits. (176)
Even after being betrayed left and right by those she trusted, she still clings desperately to
her lifetime illusion regarding the untainted character of her parents. They, at least, were
free of all hypocrisy, deceptive maneuvering, and shameful secrets. When she finds that
even her saintly mother behaved as shamefully as Julien, Rosalie, and Gilberte, she
surrenders her last illusion and her last source of inward strength. To repeat the state of
Jeanne’s confidence quoted above: “ …sa dernière confiance était tombée avec sa
dernière croyance.” As I already mentioned, her lost identity manifests itself in her total
submission to and dependence upon Rosalie in the novel’s closing chapters. These pages
are replete with Rosalie’s orders and interdictions that Jeanne passively obeys and their
new relationship is well-summarized by the narrator: “Rosalie en huit jours, eut pris le
gouvernement absolu des choses et des gens du château. Jeanne, résignée, obéissait
passivement” (254). The narrator makes an observation in the closing chapter that will add a final piece of evidence to the connection I am suggesting between the loss of identity and disillusionment:
…l’habitude de voir s’évanouir ses rêves et s’écrouler ses espoirs faisait qu’elle n’osait plus rien entreprendre, et qu’elle hésitait des journées entières avant d’accomplir la chose la plus simple, persuadée qu’elle s’engageait toujours dans la mauvaise voie et que cela tournerait mal. (286)
Since everything she had ever hoped for crumbled into pieces in her hands, she is afraid
of undertaking any project at all. She becomes almost completely passive, spending hours of inactivity in front of the fire, just as her mother used to do. Pierre Bayard touches on this theme of the contrast between internal hopes and external reality causing a dissolution of identity in his book Maupassant juste avant Freud, claiming that, “Cette 30 déstructuration complète hante l’œuvre de Maupassant, et se retrouve à des degrès divers dans de nombreux textes, tous ceux où la séparation entre intérieur et extérieur, constitutive de notre identité, est en cause.”34
I believe what Maupassant is demonstrating in the life of his heroine is the impossibility of surviving as an authentic person in a world of degraded values. While one might argue that Jeanne’s desires are not truly authentic since society has taught her what she should desire—namely a husband, children, and a happy life—still, the heroine
demonstrates a capacity, rare among those of Maupassant’s creation, to enjoy life to its
fullest, to experience real pleasure and gratification from her deep enjoyment of
everything natural.35 Until she begins to learn the survival tactics of deception and manipulation, Jeanne never censors her reactions or behaves in a way that is inconsistent with her feelings. Trevor Harris has already emphasized the significance of Jeanne’s sincerity for the message of the narrative:
If the story of Jeanne shows us anything at all, it is that her unfortunate fate is a direct consequence of her sincerity, of the victory, in her, of the belief that honest, open, direct emotional response to her existence will guide her towards happiness. But such qualities, as the novel makes clear, render Jeanne vulnerable to the ambitions of others. Her stubborn persistence in taking other people and what they say at face value leads, in tortuously slow stages, to her complete disillusionment and defeat. (163-64)
To add to the examples we have already seen of Jeanne’s guileless nature, here is another instance of Jeanne’s childlike and sincere enjoyment that occurs at the beginning of her
34 Pierre Bayard, Maupassant juste avant Freud (Paris: Minuit, 1994) 206.
35 Charles Castella, in his study of Maupassant, uses René Girard’s theory of mediated desire to analyze the protagonists of each novel. In Jeanne’s case, he attempts to prove that Jeanne’s desires are purely mediated through her parents, whom he describes as having godlike status in her eyes. My contention with this theory is that Jeanne demonstrates too much independence of thought for her desires to be purely mediated. While the narrator does draw the reader’s attention to the similarity between Jeanne and the baroness’s dreams, I still believe Jeanne to desire in her own right and to be among the most sincere of Maupassant’s characters. For a more detailed account of Castella’s theory, see Charles Castella, Structures romanesques et vision sociale chez Maupassant (Lausanne: L’Âge d’Homme, 1972) 25-98.
31 honeymoon. During their ferryboat ride to Corsica, Jeanne and Julien observe some
dolphins playing in the ocean: “Jeanne battait des mains, tresaillait, ravie, à chaque
apparition des énormes et souples nageurs. Son cœur bondissait comme eux dans une
joie folle et enfantine” (76).36 However, Jeanne’s childlike simplicity cannot remain
unaffected by the insincerity of those around her. In order to survive and recover some
happiness after her intense disillusionment, Jeanne eventually resorts to deception.
Deeply longing to have a baby girl, she pretends to desire Julien sexually so that he will
sleep with and impregnate her. Jeanne
…se promit de le forcer par ruse à lui donner le bonheur qu’elle rêvait. Alors elle essaya de prolonger ses baisers, jouant la comédie d’une ardeur délirante, le liant à elle de ses deux bras crispés en des transports qu’elle simulait. Elle usa de tous les subterfuges…. (201-2)
Evidently, Jeanne had retained the lessons well from those around her: the formerly
sincere and simple-hearted young woman has learned the art of deceptive manipulation.
When that plan fails due to Julien’s savvy about avoiding pregnancy while engaging in
abundant sexual activity, Jeanne accepts the counsel of a priest on the subject, who,
ironically, a full participant in the world of degraded values, suggests lying to Julien to
achieve the desired goal: “Vous n’avez qu’un moyen, ma chère enfant, c’est de lui faire
accroire que vous êtes grosse. Il ne s’observera plus; et vous le deviendrez pour de vrai”
(202). Jeanne then gives herself to this plan energetically and finally succeeds.
Before moving on to Georges Duroy, a brief analysis of Jeanne’s husband Julien
will serve as an enlightening transition between the two. Julien’s character is nearly completely opposite to Jeanne’s in terms of authenticity and individuality. Unlike
Jeanne, Julien’s modus vivendi is clearly one of disguise and dissimulation to enrich
36 See page 25 of Une Vie for more examples of Jeanne’s ingenuous enjoyment of nature.
32 himself and increase his reputation. From his very first appearance in the narrative, the vocabulary used to describe him subtly emphasizes his deceptive appearance, including such phrases as “en homme comme il faut”, “deux grands sourcils réguliers comme s’ils eussent été artificiels”, “le blanc semblait un peu teinté de bleu”, “Ses cils serrés et longs prêtaient à son regard cette éloquence passionnée qui trouble”, “cet œil faisait croire à la profondeur de la pensée”, “La barbe (…) cachait une mâchoire un peu trop forte”, “De temps en temps ses yeux, comme par hasard, rencontraient ceux de
Jeanne… (emphasis mine)” (33-4). Even the physical description of this character includes within it a semantic field of duplicity, thus revealing Julien’s deceptive nature and announcing his future treachery. Secondly, in contrast to Jeanne’s habit of initiating, there are numerous allusions to his imitative nature. In addition to the examples given above of Jeanne’s leadership during their honeymoon, there are moments when Julien virtually parrots Jeanne’s reactions:
Jeanne, tout émue, murmura: “Comme c’est beau !” Le vicomte répondit: “Oh! oui c’est beau!” (39)
“Tiens, dit-elle, tante Lison qui nous regarde.” (…) “Oui, tante Lison qui nous regarde.” (59)
Julien’s imitative habit could expand to include his tendency to make decisions by looking to the opinion of others. On numerous occasions, Julien asks for Jeanne’s advice about what to do and always receives a quick and confident response from her, the following passage serving as an illustration:
Julien, qui réunissait les bagages, demanda tout bas à sa femme: “C’est assez, n’est-ce pas, de donner vingt sous à l’homme de service?” Depuis huit jours il posait à tout moment la même question, dont elle souffrait chaque fois. Elle répondit avec un peu d’impatience: “Quand on n’est pas sûr de donner assez, on donne trop.” (79)
33 This example leads well into the two remaining differences between the characters. In contrast with two of Jeanne’s defining characteristics—generosity and freedom from self- consciousness—vanity and avarice are the two traits that best describe Julien. The narrator seems to poke fun at these aspects of his character in the comical scene describing Julien’s renovations of the family carriage. Not willing to use the barouche until the Perthuis des Vauds coat of arms has been repainted with his own de Lamare coat of arms taking an equal amount of space on the carriage door, Julien enlists the services of a painter who specializes in heraldic adornments. Notice the narrator’s mocking tone:
“Julien, pour rien au monde, n’aurait consenti à se présenter dans les châteaux voisins si l’écusson des de Lamare n’avait été écartelé avec celui des Le Perthuis des Vauds” (102).
In marked contrast to the energy and attention Julien devotes to the armorial bearings in order to satisfy his vanity, Julien reduces the other expenses connected to the carriage, so that when it is finally ready for driving, it looks completely ludicrous: the stingy man requires the tenant farmers to provide two mismatched horses at no charge, and he hires the young farmhand Marius to tend the horses and carriage, obliging Marius to don the oversized livery of the former coachman. Similarly to Jeanne’s merriment at her husband’s awkwardness during their honeymoon, the narrator uses Jeanne’s laughter at the “new look” of the carriage to highlight Julien’s gaucheness and the incompatibility of his stinginess and attention to appearance:
Elle rit d’abord de l’accouplement des chevaux, le blanc, disait-elle, était le petit-fils du jaune; puis, quand elle aperçut Marius, la face ensevelie dans son chapeau à cocarde, dont le nez seul limitait la descente, et les mains disparues dans la profondeur des manches, et les deux jambes enjuponnées dans les basques de sa livrée, dont ses pieds, chaussés de souliers énormes, sortaient étrangement par le bas; et quand elle le vit renverser la tête en arrière pour regarder, lever le genou pour faire un pas, comme s’il allait enjamber un fleuve, et s’agiter comme un aveugle pour obéir aux ordres, perdu tout entier, disparu dans l’ampleur de ses vêtements, elle fut saisie d’un rire invincible, d’un rire sans fin. (105-6) 34
Despite his efforts, Julien can not appear noble while being miserly. In this way,
Maupassant reveals the incompatibility of the Ancien and Nouveau Régimes. Antonia
Fonyi observes that Maupassant’s fiction portrays the Ancien Régime with its “valeurs
d’usage” as conferring social and individual identity, while the Nouveau Régime of
“valeurs d’échange” negates all identity. (73) While Julien seeks unsuccessfully to
operate in both Régimes at once, he demonstrates the loss of individuality that results.
The narration depicts the character as a false, brutal spendthrift—precisely the opposite
of the nobleman he considers himself to be. This scene quickly turns from hilarity to
soberness when in reaction to the uncontrollable laughter of Jeanne and her parents,
Julien responds with brutal violence towards Marius.
A last proof of Julien’s obsession with appearance over personal integrity is the
display of his vanity on the occasion of his mother-in-law’s funeral and the pathetic
statement he utters to Jeanne: “Julien entra, en grand noir, élégant, affairé, satisfait de
cette affluence. Il parla bas à sa femme pour un conseil qu’il demandait. Il ajouta d’un
ton confidentiel: ‘Toute la noblesse est venue, ce sera très bien’” (194). Even at a
moment of great emotional distress for his wife, Julien is portrayed as entirely preoccupied with his own reputation.
Before moving on to an analysis of the character Georges Duroy, I would like to
make some brief observations concerning the narrator’s presentation of Julien. As stated
in the opening pages of this chapter, there is a level of illusion in the narrative that
parallels that of Julien’s character. Even though the narrator alludes to Julien’s careful
disguise, he also conceals the full extent of the character’s hypocrisy. By recounting
Julien and Jeanne’s meeting and courtship from Jeanne’s perspective, the narrator is able 35 to reveal his character gradually, thereby deceiving the reader to some extent. We are
given the impression that Jeanne and Julien experience the same emotions in each other’s
presence due to the use of the third person plural:
Jeanne et le vicomte se trouvaient côte à côte, un peu troublés tous les deux. Une force inconnue faisait se rencontrer leurs yeux qu’ils levaient au même moment comme si une affinité les eût avertis…. (39)
Ils attendaient le moment fixé pour leur union sans impatience trop vive, mais enveloppés, roulés dans une tendresse délicieuse, savourant le charme exquis des insignifiants caresses, des doigts pressés, des regards passionnés si longs que les âmes semblent se mêler; et vaguement tourmentés par le désir indécis des grandes étreintes. (53-4)37
In these passages, we are led to believe that Julien is a sincere, slightly naïve lover,
overcome by his tender passion for Jeanne, and so contented by his affection for her that
he would remain indefinitely satisfied with simple, virtually platonic caresses. As readers, we are tempted along with Jeanne to ignore the subtle clues, and to believe in this romantic love story. Beginning with their wedding night, Jeanne and the reader are confronted with Julien’s brutal and selfish nature that will increasingly reveal itself in the following chapters. Eventually, we learn that Julien had raped Rosalie the servant on the first night he visited Les Peuples and we discern that Julien’s true motive for marrying
Jeanne was to ensure his own financial future rather than to consecrate his deep love for her. Far from tender, sincere, or naïve, Julien is violent, duplicitous, and extremely experienced with women. These passages help to illustrate the power of language to deceive, which the novelist demonstrates not only through his characters, but also
37 There are many other such examples included in the descriptions of this stage of their relationship. On page 43, for example: “Et plus leurs cœurs se rapprochaient, plus ils s’appelaient avec cérémonie “Monsieur et Mademoiselle” plus aussi leurs regards se souriaient, se mêlaient; et il leur semblait qu’une bonté nouvelle entrait en eux, une affection plus épandue, un intérêt à mille choses dont ils ne s’étaient jamais souciés.”
36 through his narration. We will observe a similar dissimulation on the narrative level in the novel Bel-Ami after an examination of its protagonist.
Bel-Ami: The “Act” of Transcendence
While Julien’s character is finally destroyed as a result of his obsession with his own desires, the next character to be analyzed only seems to flourish and increase in power thanks to his ruthlessness. Perhaps the difference lies in the setting: Julien with his greedy temperament is a minority among the country nobility of Normandy, many of whom are still firmly entrenched in the Ancien Régime, whereas Georges Duroy becomes a Parisian king surrounded by many subjects aspiring to the very same throne.
Duroy’s methods of social advancement are merely imitations of those whose positions he usurps. Although a superficial reading will persuade us of George’s staggering and indisputable success, I would like to suggest a more equivocal reading of the text. My contention is that the novelist portrays Duroy as equally trapped by his ambition as he shows Jeanne to be destroyed by her disillusionment. But, before exploring Duroy’s version of enslavement, we will first examine his secrets to success.
Like his literary relative Julien, if Duroy is a master of anything, it is of imitation and repetition. Unskilled in any practical sense, he quickly learns that life in Parisian society is a matter of clever game playing and expert acting, that success is simply the result of making the right moves and wearing the right disguises. Trevor Harris’s illuminating study of Bel-Ami functioning as a Saussurian sign in the text will provide much insight for our analysis of these two metaphors:
…Duroy plays with great seriousness and application. He is successful because he perfects the techniques of dissimulation he perceives at work around him. He excels or is distinctive to the extent that, having learnt the rules of the game, he imitates his fellow Parisians so completely and so well that he soon overtakes all of them. …he 37 is an instinctive actor, a natural illusionist, his only constant characteristic being his ability to change. He is a Protean, chameleon-like character. (100)
Indeed, these two metaphors dominate the entire text in the form of semantic fields and mises-en-abyme. In terms of game playing, characters are constantly engaged in play, whether literally or figuratively. For example, the staff of La Vie Française, where
Duroy is hired to be a journalist, spends the majority of their time playing bilboquet at the newspaper office. Behind a façade of hurried and serious journalism in the waiting room, the primary focus of the reporters behind closed doors is developing skill at this game.
During Duroy’s first visit to the newspaper room, he observes Forestier’s reporters following their boss’s example:
Dès qu’ils furent rentrés dans la salle de rédaction, Forestier retourna prendre immédiatement son bilboquet…. (…) Un des rédacteurs, qui avait fini sa besogne, prit à son tour un bilboquet dans l’armoire; (…); et plusieurs autres journalistes étant entrés, ils allèrent l’un après l’autre chercher le joujou qui leur appartenait. Bientôt ils furent six, côte à côte, le dos au mur, qui lançaient en l’air, d’un mouvement pareil et régulier, les boules rouges, jaunes ou noires, selon la nature du bois. Et une lutte s’étant établie, les deux rédacteurs qui travaillaient encore se levèrent pour juger les coups. (54-5)
In this passage, the reporters are described as carbon copies of one another, items in a series, with the only distinguishing feature being the different colored toys. Commonly thought by critics to be a sexual metaphor, bilboquet serves to illustrate the use of relations with multiple women as a means of achieving professional success. One critic,
Richard Grant, also sees the game as a metaphor for corrupt journalism that uses dishonest methods in order to seduce the public and make money:
The sexual symbolism, suggested by the form of shaft and ball with a hole in it, is ob- vious, and it needs to be understood that in Maupassant’s world, sexuality is not used for procreation and not even for pleasure, but rather to achieve dominance and control. Thus at the newspaper, the sexuality is metaphorical: they are screwing the public; on
38 the individual level, it is through real sexual activity as well as through the power of the word that Duroy comes to dominate both in his professional and personal life.38
In the same way that earning a high score catching the ball in the shaft of a bilboquet toy
is a prerequisite to promotion in La Vie Française, so too is accumulating multiple female conquests. To Grant’s analysis, I would also add that the game is an especially appropriate metaphor, since the men play it individually and yet are in competition with one another just as they are in sexual pursuits. In their sexual rivalries, women are simply toys through which men prove their superiority to one another and not ends in and of themselves. Thus, the regular reoccurrence of bilboquet in the novel is a constant reminder that personal and professional life is a game to be played and won, and Georges
Duroy’s mastery of this journalistic pastime is an indication of his certain ascendancy in life as well. The moment that demonstrates this most explicitly is when Georges takes over the ownership of Forestier’s newest bilboquet because of Forestier’s deteriorating health, the narrative making Duroy’s swift social ascension correspond directly to his
double’s rapid decline:
Forestier, de plus en plus souffrant, lui avait confié son beau bilboquet en bois des îles, le dernier acheté, qu’il trouvait un peu lourd, et Duroy manoeuvrait d’un bras vigoureux la grosse boule noire au bout de sa corde…. Il arriva justement, pour la première fois, à faire vingt points de suite, le jour même où il devait dîner chez Mme. Walter. “Bonne journée, pensa-t-il, j’ai tous les succès.” Car l’adresse au bilboquet conférait vraiment une sorte de supériorité dans les bureaux de La Vie Française. (110)
The symbolism in Duroy’s ability to master what Forestier has become too weak to
handle is obvious and clearly foreshadows Forestier’s total eclipse by Duroy. Harris points out that, in game playing, the players are interchangeable and easily replaceable, and the narrative seems to imply this in Forestier’s replacement by Duroy:
38 Richard Grant, “Escaping the Naturalist Trap: Language, Body, and Myth in Maupassant’s Bel-Ami,” Cincinnati Romance Review 13 (1994): 93.
39 As in all games, mastering the rules is the first prerequisite for victory and the best players tend to win. But even good players are liable at all times to be substituted by others, more enthusiastic than themselves. Each member of the team or cast, as it were, is ultimately dispensable, since the number of positions or roles available is finite. Or, to put this in a slightly different way, the interchangeability of the characters is equivalent to saying that they are quite arbitrary. Characters are defined not by their essential qualities, but in terms of their relationship to each other in the system. (99)
Since Forestier is losing the necessary strength to continue playing well, it is time for him
to be replaced.
A second example of game playing occurs between Georges and Laurine,
Madame de Marelle’s daughter. The cold, perfectly mannered young lady who is
unresponsive to all other affection melts in response to Georges’s efforts to befriend
(seduce?) her. On one of Duroy’s visits to Madame de Marelle, he succeeds in engaging
her in an energetic game of chat perché. What I believe to be the secret to his success
with Laurine is precisely his expert ability in both acting and playing. In his relationship
with the little girl, both skills are fully deployed: acting, because he must take Laurine’s
acting the role of a grown-up very seriously in order to be permitted to enter her world;
and playing, because once he has won her trust, he is able to draw her into his game. In
reality, Georges’s method of “seducing” Laurine is not very different from his methods with all other women. First, he acts whatever part necessary to win their affection; then,
he chases them, confident that although they resist him at first, they deeply desire to
“play” and “be caught”, and will eventually join in the game. When Laurine
ceremoniously offers to keep him company while he waits for her mother, Duroy’s
equally ceremonious attitude and reply reveal his acting ability and the extent to which
game playing is a way of life for him:
Duroy, qu’amusaient les manières cérémonieuses de la fillette, répondit: “Parfaitement, Mademoiselle, je serai enchanté de passer un quart d’heure avec vous; mais je vous préviens que je ne suis point sérieux du tout, moi, je joue toute la journée;
40 je vous propose donc de faire une partie de chat perché.” La gamine demeura saisie, puis elle sourit, comme aurait fait une femme, de cette idée qui la choquait un peu et l’étonnait aussi; et elle murmura: –Les appartements ne sont pas faits pour jouer. Il reprit: “Ça m’est égal. Moi je joue partout. Allons, attrapez-moi.” (72)
He plays the part of a suitor and she the part of a coquette to perfection, but rather than
their interaction ending in a sexual climax, it ends in a game of chat perché. In this
dialogue, the protagonist verbalizes himself the very aspect of his character we are
aiming to prove: Duroy never stops playing games all day long and in all locations.
Two last examples of playing and acting combined together are Georges’s
seduction of Madame Walter and the performances at the Folies-Bergère. When Georges
begins his serious campaign to woo Madame Walter and wear down her defenses, he
employs the very same methods used with Laurine. In fact, the parallel between the two
scenes is striking: by the end of one of their early interviews, Madame Walter is running
around her living room being pursued by Duroy just like Laurine. He does add a new
touch to his act though: the fake cry. The game atmosphere is evident throughout the
entire scene, but this final “play” will provide a sufficient illustration:
Il se releva brusquement et voulut l’étreindre, mais, libre une seconde, elle s’était échappée en se rejetant en arrière, et elle fuyait maintenant de fauteuil en fauteuil. Il jugea ridicule cette poursuite, et il se laissa tomber sur une chaise, la figure dans ses mains, en feignant des sanglots convulsifs. Puis il se redressa, cria: “Adieu! adieu!” et il s’enfuit. (213)
The comedy in Duroy’s feigned sobbing and dramatic exit is first-rate and would be
thoroughly amusing were it not for the fact that Madame Walter takes his behavior at face value and is completely convinced of his sincere attachment for her. While it is only a game for him, her passion for him will exert a death grip that will utterly destroy her.
Harris includes a detailed analysis of the Folies-Bergère performance in the
Saussurian sign chapter of his book, pointing out the way the three trapeze artists share
41 similar physical characteristics with Duroy and are identical to one another aside from being three different sizes. He remarks also on the similarity of the three performances, noting that, although there seems to be no increase in skill from the first to the third, the applause escalates with each act. Harris sees this scene as representative of the stages of
Duroy’s success which is achieved purely by repetition and imitation, without an increase in quality of performance: “The irony of Duroy’s final success, as in the case of the final acrobat in the Folies-Bergère sequence, is located in the fact that it is public, quantitative recognition which increases with each performance, while the qualitative aspects of the performer remain constant” (93). I would also like to take note of the “items in a series” theme that was already mentioned in relation to the game of bilboquet. Again, the narrator seems to be alluding to the growing influence of capitalism and mass production on social life that prizes appearance and quantity over true quality and originality. Not only does this allusion occur in the description of the performers on stage, but Harris also suggests this to inspire the description of the audience: Forestier and Duroy
…are inserted into a succession of people who are physically reduced, literally, since we see only their heads and upper body. Their pose is identical, the boxes are identical and the dominant lexical note of the whole description is one of resemblance and repetition. Moreover, the notion of reification is central to the scene, the occupants of the boxes being equated with the mass-produced chairs on which they sit…. (91)
In the Folies-Bergère theater, difference is reduced to sameness among both the spectators and the performers, thus serving as one of Duroy’s first lessons in the usefulness of repetition and imitation and as a mise en abyme of the future
“performances” of our hero.
Even more numerous than these explicit references to literal game playing and acting, a semantic field of theater vocabulary pervades the entire text, so that, when
42 closely examined, nearly every social interaction is described as though the participants
were actors on a stage. For example, when Georges is invited to dinner for the first time
by Forestier, the narrator allows us to observe the protagonist rehearsing “backstage” in
front of the mirror on the landing:
Alors il s’etudia comme font les acteurs pour apprendre leurs rôles. Il se sourit, se tendit la main, fit des gestes, exprima des sentiments: l’étonnement, le plaisir, l’appro- bation; et il chercha les degrés du sourire et les intentions de l’œil pour se montrer galant auprès des dames, leur faire comprendre qu’on les admire et qu’on les désire. (29)
Another scene where the theatrical language is especially abundant is during one of
Duroy’s visits to Madame Walter’s. Harris proposes that,
…the entire scene is presented as precisely that: a scene from a stage production, complete with entrances and exits of the dramatis personae. None of the characters within this playlet is speaking in communicative mode. (…) Madame Walter and her guests are actors working from a script. (97)
Extracting the expressions and descriptions that emphasize the theatrical atmosphere yields: “la mise en scène de l’entrée”, “cette entrée en scène de la gelée à Paris”, “Dès qu’elle apparut dans le boudoir, une des visiteuses se leva, serra les mains, puis partit”,
“ce changement de personnes”, “Ces dames discutaient ces choses de mémoire, comme si elles eussent récité une comédie mondaine et convenable, répétée bien souvent”, “Une nouvelle entrée eut lieu, (…), qui détermina la sortie d’une grande personne”, “Mme
Walter répondait gracieusement, (…), sans hésiter jamais sur ce qu’elle devait dire, son
opinion étant toujours prête d’avance”, “Duroy descendait le boulevard Malesherbes gaiement, (…), content de sa sortie” (105-7). Here again, we can see the interchangeable aspect of the characters: as soon as one guest enters, another guest leaves immediately, just like actors who enter and exit on cue as though to constantly maintain the same number of persons on stage. This scene also reveals the way the narrator portrays the dialogue as thoroughly premeditated and exempt of any original thought. 43 A last example to mention that highlights the omnipresence of drama in the life of the characters is Clotilde de Marelle’s fascination with disguising herself and frequenting low-class cafés with Georges. Rather than examining this in depth, the following example of exiting the scene of one seedy pub will suffice to demonstrate the titillation
Clotilde experiences in playing her part:
Elle, tremblante, apeurée et ravie, se mettait à boire le jus rouge des fruits, à petits coups, en regardant autour d’elle d’un œil inquiet et allumé. Chaque cerise avalée lui donnait la sensation d’une faute commise, chaque goutte du liquide brûlant et poivré descendant en sa gorge lui procurait un plaisir âcre, la joie d’une jouissance scélérate et défendue. Puis elle disait à mi-voix: “Allons-nous-en.” Et ils partaient. Elle filait vivement, la tête basse, d’un pas menu, d’un pas d’actrice qui quitte la scène…. (89)
Her pleasure seems to derive mainly from the fear involved in playing the part of a woman of bad repute and in the possibility that people might believe her act. However, the irony is that the part she plays everyday as a respectable married woman requires much more acting than her escapades with Georges do.
While references to acting and game playing are numerous, these only serve to create an atmosphere which makes it logically possible for Duroy to succeed the way he does. This world of disguise and scripts helps the reader to understand why Duroy is such a perfect match for the world of journalism and is certain to be triumphant in the
Nouveau Régime. According to Harris, “His own charlatanism fits snugly into the context of frivolous fraud in which he finds himself” (95). Although he is surrounded by many fellow actors, Bel-Ami is always the main actor and primary player in the novel, and the reason he succeeds so thoroughly is because he is such an excellent student of the rules. As writer and eventually chief editor of the Échos section—or gossip column—of
La Vie Française, Duroy has a constant source of ideas and models of how to work the system most effectively. Among the rules Duroy seems to respect the most carefully are 44 the following: appearance is everything and reality of no consequence; since every situation is a game, true emotion is not only unnecessary, but could be detrimental to
playing well and should be avoided at all costs; words are simply tools to obtain what one
wants, therefore, their truth is irrelevant; women are the fastest means to any end and
exist to help men make it to the top; and finally, there is a direct correspondence between
wealth and power, so the more money one accumulates, the better. We will touch on
each rule briefly with the help of a textual example.
First, since in the Parisian society of Bel-Ami, proper appearance is the
fundamental requirement for success of any kind, Duroy rightly devotes much attention
to tending to his “look”. This is one of the first lessons he learns from his narrative
double Forestier: “À Paris, vois-tu, il vaudrait mieux n’avoir pas de lit que pas d’habit”
(22). In addition to Georges’s backstage rehearsal in front of the mirror discussed earlier,
we gain another glimpse into his careful grooming when he waits for Madame de Marelle
in her living room: “Il alla droit à la cheminée pour constater l’état de ses cheveux et de
sa toilette; et il rajustait sa cravate devant la glace…” (80). More than an expert at dressing elegantly and wielding his mustache to its fullest seductive potential, Duroy is a master at using his eyes to convince people of his sincerity. As we observed in our analysis of Julien’s deceptive appearance, Duroy uses his piercing gaze in much the same
way. When he meets Madame de Marelle for the first time, the narrator emphasizes his
tendency to repeat what he has heard from others while using his eyes to make himself
convincing: Duroy
…recommença avec elle la conversation qu’il venait d’avoir avec Mme. Walter; mais, comme il possédait mieux son sujet, il s’y montra supérieur, répétant comme de lui des choses qu’il venait d’entendre. Et sans cesse il regardait dans les yeux de sa voisine, comme pour donner à ce qu’il disait un sens profond. (38) 45
This passage reveals that Duroy’s cleverness consists only in his ability to repeat what
someone else has just said while adding weight to it with the help of his never-failing
tactic: the meaningful look. To see the ressemblance between Duroy and Julien, it is
worth reviewing the narrator’s comment about Julien’s look that, similarly to Duroy’s,
“faisait croire à la profondeur de la pensée et donnait de l’importance aux moindres
paroles” (34). We will see Duroy using this same strategy with Madame de Marelle once
again when he is ardently pursuing her: “il souriait, sans dire un mot, en tâchant de
mettre dans son regard une infinité d’amour” (80). Here, he discovers the look to be so
effective that words are superfluous.
Concerning the rule of mastering one’s emotions, there is a point at which Duroy
seems tempted to break this tenet, but quickly checks himself and hardens his heart. It
occurs when Madeleine and Georges are driving in the Bois de Boulogne, caught up in a
stream of identical carriages carrying identical couples:
Une armée de fiacres menaient sous les arbres tout un peuple d’amoureux. Ils allaient, ces fiacres, l’un derrière l’autre, sans cesse. Georges et Madeleine s’amusaient à regarder tous ces couples enlacés, passant dans ces voitures, la femme en robe claire et l’homme sombre. (…) Ils passaient, passaient, les deux êtres de chaque fiacre, allongés sur les coussins, muets, serrés l’un contre l’autre…. (…) Tous ces gens accouplés, grisés de la même pensée, de la même ardeur, faisaient courir une fièvre autour d’eux. (194)
In this passage, incidentally, the illusion of individuality is made evident through Georges
and Madeleine’s manner of watching the other couples with amusement as though they
were not members of the same assembly line of carriages. The reduction of difference to
sameness in this scene echoes the items in a series emphasis of the bilboquet and the
Folies-Bergères sequences. Given the context, we can now resume our discussion of emotion as something to be mastered. Georges and Madeleine, finding themselves as
46 overcome as the other couples by the love-making atmosphere, soon give in to their tender feelings towards each other. There is a turning point however when the name of
Madeleine’s former husband enters the conversation and Duroy becomes consumed with jealousy. Then follows a mental reprogramming in the protagonist which results in a complete emotional shutdown, by the end of which Duroy has vowed to never let himself become attached to a woman again. The major stages of this process reveal his effort to repress and contain his strong emotions:
…peu à peu, une espèce de calme se fit en son esprit, et se roidissant contre sa souf- france, il pensa: “Toutes les femmes sont des filles, il faut s’en servir et ne rien leur donner de soi.” L’amertume de son cœur lui montait aux lèvres en paroles de mépris et de dégoût. Il ne les laissa point s’épandre cependant. Il se répétait: “Le monde est aux forts. Il faut être fort. Il faut être au-dessus de tout.” (…) Georges songeait: “Je serais bien bête de me faire de la bile. Chacun pour soi. La victoire est aux audacieux. Tout n’est que de l’égoïsme. L’égoïsme pour l’ambition et la fortune vaut mieux que l’égoïsme pour la femme et pour l’amour.” (197)
In this scene, Duroy resolves to never again let love enter into his relations with women, so that his emotions will never gain the upper hand and threaten his mastery of situations.
We can observe here the way Duroy rejects the pain he feels, refuses to verbalize his bitterness, and instructs himself according to the principles he has studiously learned.
After this watershed moment, the protagonist will never again expose himself to the dangers of authenticity and true feeling.
The best illustration of rule number three, Duroy’s reckless use of words without any concern for their truthfulness, is found in his interaction with Madame Walter. For example, he persuades her to let him accompany her home from a dinner party by playing on her gullibility and acting the part of a wounded friend when she refuses him: “Vous allez me blesser vivement. Ne me laissez pas croire que vous ne m’avez pas pardonné.
47 Vous voyez comme je suis calme.” Later, he adds, “Si vous me refusez, vous me froisserez jusqu’au cœur” (214). Of course, no sooner are they alone in the carriage then
Georges passionately kisses her hand and resumes his unending refrain of “Je vous aime” and “Je vous adore” until she agrees to meet him the next day at the church of the Trinity.
His acting ability is at its finest when she finally admits her love for him: “Il eut un sursaut, comme si un grand coup lui fût tombé sur la tête, et il soupira: ‘Oh ! mon
Dieu !…’” (219). To overcome her last defenses, he emphatically declares twice, “Je vous jure de vous respecter”, then proceeds to do exactly the opposite: “Et il la poussa dans son logis. Dès qu’il eut refermé la porte, il la saisit comme une proie” (228). Not only with Madame Walter, but in all of his other relationships as well as in his job as a journalist, Duroy never hesitates to lie to obtain what he wants.
Forestier is the first to teach Duroy’s favorite rule: “‘Dis donc, mon vieux, sais-tu que tu as vraiment du succès auprès des femmes? Il faut soigner ça. Ça peut te mener loin.’ (…) ‘C’est encore par elles qu’on arrive le plus vite’” (27). Significantly though, it is not only men who are conscious of this game strategy. It is the female protagonists themselves who guide Duroy in its application. The examples of this kind of advice are numerous and are most often transmitted from Madeleine Forestier to Georges, before and even after they are married:
–Faites donc votre cour à Mme Walter. (37)
–…allez donc voir Mme Walter, qui vous apprécie beaucoup, et plaisez-lui. (…) Vous y pourrez trouver mieux, en vous faisant bien voir. Je sais que vous occupez encore dans le journal une place inférieure. (103)39
39 For an additional illustration of Madeleine’s role as Georges’s adviser in using his relationships with women to his greatest advantage, see page 201.
48 Even Madame de Marelle, Duroy’s jealous lover, tips him off about Madeleine’s value to
Forestier, thus planting the seed of a plan he executes to perfection in the following chapters:
Duroy demanda: “Elle l’aide beaucoup?” –C’est-à-dire qu’elle fait tout. Elle est au courant de tout, elle connaît tout le monde sans avoir l’air de voir personne; elle obtient ce qu’elle veut, comme elle veut, et quand elle veut. Oh! elle est fine, adroite et intrigante comme aucune, celle-là. En voilà un trésor pour un homme qui veut parvenir. (125)
It almost seems as though the narrative itself treats these female characters as mere pawns strategically placed to guarantee Duroy’s successes.
The last rule to illustrate is the equation money equals power. In the Nouveau
Régime, money is the absolute value that, when possessed in large quantities, exonerates corrupt means, erases differences between classes, and redefines the social position of those who acquire it. The most extreme demonstration of this principle occurs when
Monsieur Walter becomes a millionaire. Despite Walter’s reputation as a corrupt banker and the editor of a disreputable newspaper, he becomes an instant celebrity when he collects millions from his underhanded knowledge of France’s occupation of Morocco:
Il était devenu, en quelques jours, un des maîtres du monde, un de ces financiers omnipotents, plus forts que des rois, qui font courber les têtes, balbutier les bouches et sortir tout ce qu’il y a de bassesse, de lâcheté et d’envie au fond du cœur humain. Il n’était plus le juif Walter, patron d’une banque louche, directeur d’un journal suspect, député soupçonné de tripotages véreux. Il était Monsieur Walter, le riche israélite. (257)
To flaunt his millions, Walter purchases the mansion of an aristocrat and the most highly acclaimed painting of the day: Jésus marchant sur les flots. There is no coincidence in a
Jew displaying a painting of the Christ in his home, as it symbolically reinforces the elimination of social differences made possible only through wealth. The message of the narration is clear: even a Jew can gain respect in an anti-Semitic Catholic culture if he
49 has enough money. As tangible proof of his new social domination, Walter invites the
cream of Parisian society to his home to witness his fortune firsthand, and they all flock to welcome him into their world.
Thanks to these five basic principles, Duroy almost effortlessly rises to the top.
By imitating those who have gone ahead of him, nothing obstructs his path to success.
Critics have even considered Georges’s character to be a kind of Christ-figure, especially in the way in which the narrator portrays him in the wedding scene, the final triumph of his narrative existence. As announced by his resemblance to the Christ in the painting
Jésus marchant sur les flots, Duroy experiences his ultimate triumph as divinely decreed
(295). Several passages from the wedding scene in chapter ten will help to illustrate:
…il sentait derrière son dos, une foule, une foule illustre venue pour lui. Il lui semblait qu’une force le poussait, le soulevait. Il devenait un des maîtres de la terre, lui, lui, le fils des deux pauvres paysans de Canteleu. (305)
…sur l’autel le sacrifice divin s’accomplissait; l’Homme-Dieu, à l’appel de son prêtre, descendait sur la terre pour consacrer le triomphe du baron Georges Du Roy. Il se sentait presque religieux, plein de reconnaissance pour la divinité qui l’avait ainsi favorisé…. (306)
In the above citations, we observe the character’s sense of divine election alluded to in
the phrases “une force le poussait, le soulevait” and “plein de reconnaissance pour la
divinité qui l’avait ainsi favorisé” which is confirmed by the parallel between Duroy’s
humble peasant origins and the Christ’s, the “deux pauvres paysans de Canteleu” bearing
striking resemblance to the poor peasant couple, Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. What I
would like to suggest is that Duroy is not truly a Christ-figure as much as he appears to
be a Christ-figure; in other words, he is an image of a Christ-figure. His resemblance is
not to the real Christ, but to the Christ as He is represented in the novel’s famous
painting. This distinction is significant, because it reemphasizes the importance given to
50 appearance over reality in Bel-Ami. Duroy’s character and inner qualities are completely
immaterial, because his exterior corresponds perfectly to the Parisian ideal of male
beauty, as proven by the physical similarities between himself and the male model used for the depiction of Jesus. Once again, Harris provides us with additional insight:
Duroy is a manufactured, artificial being, his apparent mastery of his society in fact being a function, as we have seen, not of his intrinsic merit, but of that society’s propensity to artifice and its readiness to invest in Duroy, to give him value and place its hopes in him. (102)
Although Duroy partakes of none of Jesus’s spiritual attributes (i.e. love, humility, purity, honesty), society nonetheless acclaims him and celebrates his ascension to the throne of the Parisian social world. Returning to the idea of Duroy as Saussurian sign, Harris theorizes that it is because Georges lacks substance and personal identity that society is able to invest him with this messianic status: “His vacuity is a purity into which the characters pour their hopes and ambitions, although the nature of these obviously constitutes a biting satire on the depraved aspirations the characters have” (102). Duroy as Christ-figure thus serves to reveal the depth of corruption upon which the Nouveau
Régime is built. I will close this section with one last remark by Harris on Maupassant’s satirical message in Bel-Ami: “…the greatest irony of Maupassant’s thundering,
apparently exaggerated, satire on bourgeois consumerism is that it is barely an
exaggeration at all, being a painfully accurate image of the modern star cult which makes
and markets heroes of doubtful talent” (104).
What I am suggesting in this study is that, despite Maupassant’s disdain for the corrupt practices of the Nouveau Régime, the novelist was still trapped in the same system, still tempted to exploit the capitalist economy to his greatest profit. I believe this inconsistency between principle and practice manifests itself in the novel. While we have
51 spent the majority of our discussion recognizing Duroy’s amazing skill in manipulating circumstances to promote himself in society, we have failed to observe the protagonist’s subjective experience of his success. Though it is true that the narrator reports feelings of exaltation at moments of Duroy’s greatest triumphs, the narrator also includes many descriptions of seething rage, corrosive jealousy, and consuming greed that plague Duroy with increasing intensity as the novel progresses. My contention is that the novelist wanted to demonstrate the enslavement that accompanies and poisons success in the
Nouveau Régime. The narrator depicts Duroy as struggling against his total lack of individuality and disturbed by the sense that he is not the author of his own successes.
Not only does the narrator underscore the overpowering emotions that directly afflict the
hero, but the narrative also subtly communicates the unavoidable trap awaiting even the
most affluent: certain death. In the end, even success is an illusion, since death is no
respecter of class and will one day obstruct the path of the indomitable. In this way,
death is the ultimate and inescapable equalizer in the universe. In the next stage of our
analysis of Bel-Ami, we will first examine the manner in which ambition enslaves Duroy and then the subtle, but omnipresent threat of death that pervades the narrative and prophecies an avoidable limit that will one day impede his progress and irremediably crush him. Death will be his last dramatic exit and the game will finally be over.
Duroy’s insatiable desire for more is so strong that it makes even his generous share of Vaudrec’s inheritance seem negligible to him. In view of Monsieur Walter’s
financial coup, it becomes completely impossible for Georges to enjoy his own good
fortune:
Du Roy rageait du triomphe du Patron. Il s’était cru riche avec les cinq cent mille francs extorqués à sa femme, et 52 maintenant il se jugeait pauvre, affreusement pauvre, en comparant sa piètre fortune à la pluie de millions tombée autour de lui, sans qu’il eût su en rien ramasser. Sa colère envieuse augmentait chaque jour. Il en voulait à tout le monde…. (259)
Although his own fortune has just skyrocketed, he convinces himself that he deserves
more, somehow feeling cheated out of Walter’s millions. As a result, he is constantly in
a bad mood. When Duroy visits Walter’s new mansion, his envy is described as a poison
that ruins his happiness: “Et l’envie, l’envie amère, lui tombait dans l’âme goutte à goutte, comme un fiel qui corrompait toutes ses joies, rendait odieuse son existence”
(262). Even when Madeleine obtains the croix de la Légion d’honneur for him, he responds with complete indifference: “Tout est relatif. Je pourrais avoir davantage, aujourd’hui” (271). Nothing is capable of shaking him out of this state of mind until he begins to execute a plan to marry Suzanne Walter, the rich heiress who will guarantee him a share in her father’s millions. The narrative makes it clear that Duroy is enslaved by his ambitious strategies, ruled by his desire to triumph over everyone. To make this happen, Duroy shirks at nothing, but his underhanded means are not without their unpleasant consequences. In her thematic analysis of the trap in Maupassant’s fiction,
Micheline Besnard-Coursodon suggests that, no matter how ruthless the character, he will
eventually become the victim of his own methods. She writes, “…quelque cruel, quelque
sadique qu’il soit, le personnage reste victime de ses impulsions, de ses passions, de sa
souffrance. (…) Le bourreau est d’abord une victime.”40
The trap Duroy unknowingly steps into and the one that will cause him the most
torment of all is becoming a double of Forestier. Through Forestier’s recommendation
40 Micheline Besnard-Coursodon, Étude thématique et structurale de l’œuvre de Maupassant. Le Piège (Paris: Nizet, 1973) 137.
53 only does he become a journalist at La Vie Française; thanks to Forestier’s careful
instructions, Duroy learns the rules of Parisian society; due exclusively to Forestier’s
offer of his wife’s assistance is Duroy able to write his first newspaper article and secure
the boss’s favor; and because of Forestier’s dinner invitation, Duroy is able to make the
necessary connections with the women who will ensure his success. In consequence,
when Forestier dies and Duroy replaces him at Madeleine’s side, it comes as no surprise
when his colleagues begin calling him Forestier, thereby incensing Duroy to the highest degree:
Ce mot: “Forestier” déchirait son oreille; il avait peur de l’entendre, et se sentait rougir en l’entendant. Il était pour lui, ce nom, une raillerie mordante, plus qu’une raillerie, presque une insulte. Il lui criait: “C’est ta femme qui fait ta besogne comme elle faisait celle de l’autre. Tu ne serais rien sans elle.” Il admettait parfaitement que Forestier n’eût rien été sans Madeleine; mais quant à lui, allons donc! (191-92)
Clearly, Duroy is rebelling against this total loss of individuality, being equated as he is
with another person. However much he might have used Forestier to attain his prominent
position, the protagonist wants to believe that he has succeeded in his own right. As I
indicated several times previously, the narrative repeatedly illustrates the reduction of
difference to sameness in capitalist society and this Forestier/Duroy double is yet another
illustration of the obstacles to originality in consumerist culture. Nearly every individual
is depicted as an imitation of someone else. There is one particularly comical moment in
the narrative in which this Forestier/Duroy example of narrative doubling is mockingly
alluded to. Duroy has just arrived in Cannes to support Madeleine during the last stages
of her husband’s illness and the servant says, “‘Monsieur a déjà demandé Monsieur deux
ou trois fois. Si Monsieur veut monter chez Monsieur’” (149). This four-fold repetition
54 of “Monsieur” amusingly hints at the complete interchangeability of the two characters, so that even the reader must make an effort to distinguish between them.
Although Duroy’s dislike for his association with Forestier and his inability to escape this double may sometimes seem comical, there is an underlying connection between the two that carries with it very serious implications. Just as Duroy follows
Forestier’s lead in climbing to the top, the narrative suggests that he will likewise sooner or later follow in the path of his decline. The theme of death is almost as pervasive as those of playing and acting, though a bit more subtle. As formerly mentioned, the steps of Duroy’s success correspond perfectly with the stages of Forestier’s deterioration. As
Duroy’s most clear double in the novel, one would logically expect Duroy to suffer a similar fate to Forestier’s at the end of his life. In addition to this evident foreshadowing, there are several other scenes that heavily reinforce this prediction. First, Duroy’s four- page exchange with Norbert de Varenne on the subject of death contains the following prophecy and one of the novel’s most essential messages: “‘Tant qu’on monte, on regarde le sommet, et on se sent heureux; mais, lorsqu’on arrive en haut, on aperçoit tout d’un coup la descente, et la fin, qui est la mort. Ça va lentement quand on monte, mais ça va vite quand on descend’” (118). Duroy is completely imprisoned by death, yet functions under the illusion that his own ambition will permit him to overcome any obstacle. Very little shaken by de Varenne’s depressing soliloquoy, Duroy quickly resumes his lighthearted attitude toward life. Directly following their interview, the narrator reports Georges’s thoughts in free indirect discourse: “Tout lui souriait, la vie l’accueillait avec tendresse. Comme c’était bon, la réalisation de ses espérances” (121).
55 The next narrative sequence that will again force the protagonist to confront the
issue of death is his duel with Louis Langremont. This time, Duroy is terrified by the
prospect of his death. When contemplating this possibility on the eve of the duel,
Georges’s emotions reach an unprecedented level of intensity: “Et il fut pris
brusquement d’une crise de désespoir épouvantable. Tout son corps vibrait, parcouru de
tressaillements saccadés. Il serrait les dents pour ne pas crier, avec un besoin fou de se
rouler par terre, de déchirer quelque chose, de mordre” (136). However, since the duel
produces no causualties, Duroy immediately resumes his usual confidence, feeling his
self-assurance to be even more warranted than before. Still, by including this event, the
narrative reminds the reader once again of Duroy’s powerlessness before death and of the
vulnerability that makes him like everyone else. Indeed, in the description just
mentioned, Duroy is tempted to give full expression to his animalistic nature, but gains control by using alcohol to anesthetize his fear.
The final allusion to death worthy of some attention occurs upon Madeleine and
Georges’s return home after collecting the inheritance left to them by the comte de
Vaudrec. It is a moment of triumph for Duroy, which makes the insistence on the
persistent threat of death even more striking:
Georges et Madeleine rentrèrent fort tard. Le gaz était éteint. Pour éclairer les marches, le journaliste enflammait de temps en temps une allumette-bougie. En arrivant sur le palier du premier étage, la flamme subite, éclatant sous le frottement, fit surgir dans la glace leurs deux figures illuminées au milieu des ténèbres de l’escalier. Ils avaient l’air de fantômes apparus et prêts à s’évanouir dans la nuit. Du Roy leva la main pour bien éclairer leurs images, et il dit, avec un rire de triomphe: ―Voilà des millionnaires qui passent. (256)
The flickering, ghost-like images remind the reader of the transience of the characters just
when they feel most imposing. By comparing Madeleine and Georges to phantoms who 56 might disappear at any moment, the narrator emphasizes their insubstantial and fleeting nature. Pierre Bayard, in his book Maupassant, juste avant Freud, devotes a chapter to the significance of the mirror in Maupassant’s fiction, and associates it chiefly with the issue of personal identity. Often, it is through a mirror reflection that characters become conscious of the devastating effects of aging and in consequence, of the existence of the
Other within oneself. The most extreme case occurs in the Horla, when the reflection in the mirror completely disappears. Bayard explains:
La rencontre dans la glace est ainsi rencontre avec l’Étranger que l’on porte en soi, celui qui est différent. Mais si l’on va plus loin encore, la crainte dépasse la différence, aussi grande soit-elle. Elle est de ne plus se voir du tout, de rencontrer dans le miroir, non pas une image changée de soi-même mais l’absence d’image, comme si l’Autre s’était entièrement substitué au je.41
From this perspective, I see the mirror scene in Bel-Ami to contain a double message.
First, the more wealth one accumulates, the more “dispossessed” one becomes of personal identity. The effect of great riches is to allow quantity to replace quality, avoir to replace être. Rather than fulfilling his desire of becoming someone, Georges is becoming like everyone else, thereby losing his individuality.
A second interpretation of the flickering mirror image is simply the threat of death that echoes the warnings of Forestier’s decline, Norbert de Varenne’s forebodings, and the terrifying experience of the duel. In this case, as in all the others, Georges is too preoccupied with his own good fortune to pay serious attention to the mirror’s premonition and laughs triumphantly instead. A further reason to view these scenes as foreshadowing the death of the protagonist is Maupassant’s own attitude toward this question. In his semi-autobiographical work, Sur l’eau, he writes of death: “Partout,
41 Pierre Bayard, Maupassant, juste avant Freud (Paris: Minuit, 1994) 76-7.
57 d’ailleurs, le long de cet adorable rivage, nous sommes chez la Mort. Mais elle est
discrète, voilée, pleine de savoir-vivre et de pudeurs, bien élevée enfin. Jamais on ne la
voit face à face, bien qu’elle vous frôle à tout moment” (57-8). Such an awareness of
death’s discrete, yet ever-present companionship seems to haunt the narrative of Bel-
Ami, however much the main protagonist chooses to ignore it. In fact, by the end of the
novel, Duroy is not only unconcerned about the threat of death, he has also completely
convinced himself of the strength of his own identity. The illusion of transcendence is
evident in the descriptions of the closing pages and the bishop’s flattering words confirm
Duroy’s belief that his successes are purely the result of his own talent:
Vous êtes parmi les heureux de la terre, parmi les plus riches et les plus respectés. Vous, Monsieur, que votre talent élève au-dessus des autres, vous qui écrivez, qui enseignez, qui conseillez, qui dirigez le peuple, vous avez une belle mission à rem- plir, un bel exemple à donner…. (305)
The narrative ends with a depiction of Duroy in his most glorified state, describing his
exaltation in the acclaim of Parisian society and his relentless ambition to gain even more
prominence by becoming a minister in the government. Still, there is the underlying
menace of death that will one day overtake even the most ambitious.
Trevor Harris points out a decrease in ironical distance between the narrator and
the character Georges Duroy as the novel evolves, and suggests that the narrator thereby cleverly manipulates the reader to see Duroy as the other characters do. He writes,
“Duroy begins life as the ironical victim of an unsympathetic narration but ends as the respected ‘hero’, supported by the narrator” (103). As we noted regarding the lack of bonne foi in the narration of Une Vie, we can perceive a similar deception operating in
the narration of Bel-Ami. It is as though the narrator would have us undergo the same seduction as the victims and admirers of Duroy, by limiting the reader’s perspective 58 mainly to that of the other characters by the end of the novel. Early in the narration, there is a mocking tone in the narrator’s descriptions of Duroy that gradually changes from irony to awe at his ruthless, but amazing feats. A couple of examples will serve as illustrations. In the beginning chapters, the narrator focuses primarily on Duroy’s awkwardness as he finds himself in new social settings, drawing attention to his every blush and gauche reply, including descriptions like: “Duroy, intimidé, ne trouvait rien à dire. Il retroussait sa moustache frisée en souriant d’une façon niaise” (26) and “Il rougit jusqu’aux oreilles, ne sachant plus que dire” (30). In contrast with his ultimate success as a journalist, his debut is pitiable:
Il continua l’aventure commencée par Mme Forestier, accumulant des détails de roman-feuilleton, des péripéties surprenantes et des descriptions ampoulées, avec une maladresse de style de collégien et des formules de sous-officier. En une heure, il eut terminé une chronique qui ressemblait à un chaos de folies, et il la porta, avec assurance, à La Vie Française. (64)
The ironical distance is particularly apparent in the last sentence, which points out
Duroy’s complete ignorance of his own inadequacy.
In addition to the final scene in which we witness the consecration of Duroy’s success and the open admiration of the Parisian crowd with very little narratorial commentary, from which we have already quoted at length, the character who most clearly demonstrates the change in narrative perspective is Monsieur Walter. Rather than exhibiting Duroy’s blunders or focusing on the despicable methods he uses to advance socially, the narrator reports Walter’s impressions of him. As both an instrument and a victim of Duroy’s manipulation, Walter’s respectful compliance to his employee reveals the extent of Duroy’s power. For example, when Duroy announces his plan to divorce
59 Madeleine after catching her in the act of adultery, Walter can only stare at him in
speechless amazement:
M. Walter n’en revenait pas; et il regardait Du Roy avec des yeux effarés, pensant: “Bigre. C’est un gaillard bon à ménager.” (…) Et le père Walter le regardait toujours de ses yeux découverts, ses lunettes restant relevées sur le front, et il se disait: “Oui, il ira loin, le gredin.” (284-85)
If the wealthiest and most influential man of Duroy’s entourage is awestruck by his
accomplishments, no one will be able to hinder his future success. Even when Duroy has
just kidnapped his daughter in order to force Walter to let him marry her, the distraught
father can only respond by expressing confidence in Duroy’s promising future: “‘Ah! le
gredin, comme il nous a joués… Il est fort tout de même. Nous aurions pu trouver
beaucoup mieux comme position, mais pas comme intelligence et comme avenir. C’est
un homme d’avenir. Il sera député et ministre’” (294). In this way, the reader is also led
to admire Duroy rather than despise him as is warranted by his devious methods. So, we
find that the narrative encourages us to believe the illusion along with Duroy and the
other characters that the hero is worthy of admiration, perhaps with the goal of
illustrating the power of this illusion of individuality characteristic of the Nouveau
Régime. Not only the characters of Bel-Ami, but all members of society are tempted to
disregard the means of someone’s advancement and to believe in his individuality,
provided the person is wealthy, influential, and attractive. In this way, I believe the
novelist to be leveling a critcism at his contemporaries who privilege avoir and paraître over être, while also confessing his participation in the same struggle.
Before moving on to an analysis of the epic elements that appear in the novels, we will briefly review our discoveries thus far regarding the illusion of individuality. In Une
60 Vie and Bel Ami, we observed that authenticity, like that of Jeanne Delamare, could not survive the pressures of the Nouveau Régime and that worldly success could only be attained at the cost of personal integrity. Like Julien Delamare of Une Vie, almost all of
the characters of Bel-Ami rely solely on proper appearance, imitation, and playacting to
function in the world of degraded values represented in the novel. Despite Georges
Duroy’s illusion of individuality in the closing scene, the narration repeatedly alludes to
the ever-present threat of death. I believe this recurrent theme is meant to be a reminder
of the meaninglessness of Duroy’s life and his powerlessness to ensure his own future, no
matter how convinced he is of his personal transcendence.
The Functioning of Epic in Une Vie and Bel-Ami
The last issue to address before bringing this chapter to a close is that of genre.
Genre is the form or forms which characterize a writer’s work and reflect his personal
belief system as well as the ideologies of his day. As a novelist who prized originality
and thus refused the literary labels popular during his literary career, Maupassant
distinguished himself through his unclassifiable style. While he claimed to reject
naturalism as a movement, there are definite signs of its influence in much of his writing,
such as pessimism regarding the human condition, domination of the animal instinct in
his characters, and crude realist descriptions. In addition to the presence of naturalism,
there are other genres woven throughout Maupassant’s fiction, which show the
unavoidable vestiges of the past and will help us gain more insight into the question of
individuality.
In Georg Lukàcs’s book La Théorie du roman, he describes the novel as being
comprised of a combination of genres inextricably intertwined, and associates this
61 phenomenon with the search for meaning in the modern world: “On voit désormais—
signes de quêtes visant des fins qui cessent d’être données de façon claire et univoque—
les genres s’entrecroiser dans un inextricable entrelacement.”42 Throughout his analysis, he distinguishes the novel from the epic, an ancient genre Lukàcs claims to have been the product of a time period when meaning was present and accessible and individuals could find their rightful place in the world: “…dans cette demeure, l’esprit se borne à accueillir passivement dans sa vision un sens déjà achevé. Le monde de la signification peut être compris et embrassé d’un seul regard. Il s’agit seulement de trouver en lui le lieu qui
convienne à chaque individu” (23). By contrast, the novel narrates the quest for meaning
and the lack of correspondence the protagonist discovers between his/her internal reality
and life experience. What I propose to study briefly in this last section is the appearance
of elements of epic within the novelistic form in both Bel-Ami and Une Vie. In La
Théorie du roman, Lukàcs claims that the epic developed within a very unique historical
and philosophical context, and therefore, could never reproduce itself in exactly the same way during a different time period without undergoing transformation.43 So, while
neither novel could be considered an epic, both contain elements of epic, whose
appearance contributes significantly to the overall effect of the novels. We will thus
examine which aspects of epic emerge in each novel and consider how their appearance
provides further insight into the functioning of each narrative.
42 Georg Lukàcs, La Théorie du roman, trans. Jean Clairvoye (1920; Berlin: Gonthier, 1963) 32.
43 “…la grande littérature épique est un genre lié à la situation concrète de l’instant historique, et toute tentative pour donner figure à l’utopique comme s’il existait, n’aboutit qu’à détruire la forme et non à créer du réel” (Lukàcs 154-55).
62 As we have already noted, Une Vie and Bel-Ami progress in an almost contrary
fashion, with Jeanne beginning and Duroy ending on a note of personal transcendence.
Each narrative includes a respective scene that emphasizes each character’s sense of
greatness and power. In Jeanne’s case, this occurs in the description of the sunrise in the beginning of the novel: “C’était son soleil; son aurore; le commencement de sa vie! le lever de ses espérances! Elle tendit les bras vers l’espace rayonnant, avec une envie d’embrasser le soleil…” (19-20). This and other early descriptions of Jeanne emphasize the harmonious relationship she enjoys with nature and demonstrate the perfect correspondence between her inner and outer worlds. The passages quoted earlier in this chapter describing Jeanne’s love of nature and perfect ease in her environment are reminiscent of Lukàcs’s description of the epic quality of Tolstoy’s novels. Lukàcs claims that portions of Tolstoy’s novels evoke “le monde organique naturel de l’ancienne
épopée”, but that this is only at the cost of making a clear separation between nature and culture. The natural world of Tolstoy’s novels provides
…la simple assurance qu’au-delà de la conventionalité, il existe effectivement une vie essentielle, une vie qui peut sans doute s’atteindre dans les expériences vécues du moi authentique et plein, dans le vécu où l’âme se vit elle-même, mais de laquelle cependant il faut, de toute nécessité, que l’on retombe à nouveau irrémédiablement dans l’autre monde. (149)
Jeanne’s life illustrates a similar phenomenon to the one described here, as the heroine’s
only experiences of fulfillment in the novel occur in nature. It is when she must function
in the world of convention that she experiences disappointment and dissatisfaction.
For the character Georges Duroy of Bel-Ami, his moment of transcendence
occurs in the final scene of the novel during his wedding to Suzanne Walter:
Il allait lentement, d’un pas calme, la tête haute, les yeux fixés sur la grande baie ensoleillée de la porte. Il sentait sur sa peau courir de longs frissons, ces frissons froids que donnent les immenses bonheurs. Il ne voyait personne. Il ne pensait 63 qu’à lui. Lorsqu’il parvint sur le seuil, il aperçut la foule amassée, une foule noire, bruissante, venue là pour lui, pour lui Georges Du Roy. Le peuple de Paris le contemplait et l’enviait. (307)
The wedding scene is replete with passages like this one that emphasize the contrast
between the illumination of Duroy and the darkness of the admiring crowd. In fact, the
description so exalts the protagonist that it resembles the coronation of a king more than a
wedding ceremony. Charles Castella points out that, unlike the traditional problematic hero who struggles against his/her inability to obtain happiness in a world of degraded values, Duroy actually does find happiness in this world, albeit temporarily:
…le héros capable d’accéder au bonheur—c’est-à-dire de se réaliser pleinement en complète adéquation avec les lois gouvernant un tel monde—ne saurait être un individu problématique, et dès lors l’œuvre qui retrace son destin se définit comme épopée plutôt que comme roman. Ne chante-t-elle pas d’ailleurs les exploits d’un jeune dieu en guerre contre des déités plus puissantes? Ne s’achève-t-elle pas dans un climat de gloire?44
As Castella suggests, the atmosphere of glory in the final scene is more characteristic of the epic than the novel, especially one written during the period of realism and naturalism. As previously mentioned, throughout the end of the novel, the narrator no longer describes Duroy in a mocking tone, but allows the admiration of his entourage to dominate the way he comes across to the reader. Jeremy Ingalls, in his study on epic, describes this ultimate glorified state as being one of the primary marks of the genre:
“Resolution of tragedy (…) occurs on a down-curve, at some point of humiliation for the protagonist. Epic, by its premise and motive, carries on through major humiliation points to an enclosing ascent and transfiguration.”45 Bel-Ami fulfills this requirement of epic,
as Duroy has to overcome all the odds and prove his superiority by rising from the lowest
44 Charles Castella, Structures romanesques et vision sociale chez Maupassant (Lausanne: Age d’Homme, 1972) 127.
45 Jeremy Ingalls, The Epic Tradition (Tuscon: Capstone, 1989) 34.
64 to the highest rung of society. One might consider Forestier’s verbal abuse and
Madeleine’s adultery as humiliations that test Duroy and strengthen his determination, thus proving his almost supernatural heroism.
As we observed in Bel-Ami, Parisian society comes to view Duroy as a Christ-
figure who embodies the realization of its collective dreams and ambitions. According to
E.M.W. Tillyard, a prerequisite for epic is a collective vision that is particular to a
specific time period, as opposed to tragedy, for example, which is considered to have a more timeless quality. To exist, epic requires strong belief in the current system: “Epic
(…) must have faith in the system of beliefs or way of life it bears witness to. (…) Only when people have faith in their own age can they include the maximum of life in their vision and exert their will-power to its utmost capacity.”46 In Bel-Ami, the society depicted fulfills this condition by placing all of its hope in the degraded values of appearance and wealth, with Duroy as its most ambitious member and representative.
The novelist depicts Duroy as succeeding through sheer will power and overcoming all obstacles despite his mediocre talents.
It is at these moments that the novels evoke a comparison to epic narrative, for the
protagonists are both completely “at home” in their cultural contexts and feel no
discrepancy between their desires and their experience of life in the world. For,
according to Lukàcs,
La sécurité intérieure du monde épique exclut toute aventure dans le sens rigoureux du terme: les héros de l’épopée traversent une suite bigarrée d’aventures, mais il est hors de doute qu’ils sont destinés à en venir à bout dans leur corps et dans leur âme…. D’où la passivité requise (…) pour tout héros épique: la ronde d’aventures qui orne et comble sa vie donne figure à la totalité objective et extensive du monde; lui-même
46 E.M.W. Tillyard, The Epic Strain in the English Novel (London: Chatto & Windus, 1963) 17.
65 n’est que le centre lumineux autour duquel ce déploiement tourne et, au-dedans de lui- même, le point le plus immobile dans le mouvement rythmique du monde. (85-6)
In the sense that Jeanne and Duroy believe themselves to be the center of their respective universes and are persuaded that nothing can hinder the divinely-orchestrated events of their lives from unfolding, they display epic qualities. Jeanne waits expectantly for “une
Providence souverainement bonne” to deliver her “l’époux promis par mille voix secrètes” (46) and Duroy expresses gratitude to “la divinité qui l’avait ainsi favorisé, qui le traitait avec ces égards” (306). In these passages, both protagonists are depicted as having a secure and harmonious relationship with their environment and there is a perfect convergence between their aspirations and what the world offers them. In the words of
Lukàcs, there exists “cette parfaite convenance des actes aux exigences intérieures de l’âme, exigence de grandeur, d’accomplissement et de plénitude” (21).
However, as I have demonstrated throughout this chapter, this sense of transcendence is clearly illusory in both novels. Despite Jeanne’s strong faith in
Providence, the circumstances of her life cause her to progressively lose all sense of self.
Notwithstanding Duroy’s great triumph at the end of the novel, the events leading up to this moment reveal the protagonist as being a typical nineteenth-century problematic protagonist, who, paradoxically, sacrifices all interiority in his pursuit of self-definition.
If we were to categorize the novels in terms of Lukàcs’s theory, Une Vie would fall into the “Romanticism of Disillusionment” category and Bel-Ami into that of “Abstract
Idealism”, with the first protagonist responding to her disappointments with an excess of interiority or passivity and the second with an excess of action. As we observed in
Jeanne’s life, the world’s failure to accommodate her genuineness causes her to withdraw and isolate herself more and more from the insincerity and deception she finds in it. 66 Functioning as a member of society requires too much compromise; therefore, she
chooses solitude and passivity. Jeanne’s response is characteristic of the novel of disillusionment as defined by Lukàcs:
…ici la solitude n’est pas accidentelle et ne porte pas témoignage contre l’individu; elle signifie plutôt que la volonté d’atteindre à l’essentiel conduit hors du monde des structures sociales et des communautés; qu’une communauté n’est possible qu’en surface sur le terrain du compromis. (135-36)
Bel-Ami, by contrast, responds to the lack of correspondence between his desires and his
experience of life in society by abandoning individuality and conforming entirely to
society’s model. Thus, his life becomes merely a series of actions:
La vie d’un tel homme ne peut être, par conséquent, qu’une série ininterrompue d’aventures choisies par lui-même et dans lesquelles il se précipite, car il lui importe moins de vivre que de faire face à l’aventure. La concentration sans problèmes de son intériorité qu’il prend pour l’essence ordinaire et quotidienne du monde; par rapport à cet aspect de son âme, il ignore toute contemplation, toute tendance et toute aptitude à orienter ses actes vers le dedans. (94)
Bel-Ami accepts the false identity conferred on him by society as a result of his actions,
thereby losing his individuality.
Throughout the novel, we see the limitations of the Nouveau Régime that make
traditional epic impossible. When people are concerned only about the way they appear
to others, true convictions are non-existent. There is nothing for which it is really worth
living or dying. In Bel-Ami, one of the best illustrations of this is the sequence of
Duroy’s duel with Louis de Langremont. Castella explains the way Duroy’s fear reveals
his inability to act nobly, thus making the entire scene a parody:
…c’est justement la contradiction entre la peur du duel (…) et l’acte du duel en soi, acte noble, épique par excellence, qui marque tout l’épisode de son empreinte caricaturale. Une telle parodie dénonce bien la dégradation subie par des valeurs dont l’authenticité absolue se trouve du même coup implicitement postulée. (133-34)
Just as tragedy is inconceivable in a post-sacred universe, the epic is equally implausible
given the fact that the characters uphold no defendable values. The example of the duel 67 demonstrates the lack of legitimate need to fight for one’s honor: newspaper reporters
who make their living from lies and gossip are dueling in response to an accusation of
false reporting! The message seems to be that acting noble will never confer true nobility
of soul, or to put it another way, avoir and paraître will never be able to compensate for a deficient être. Castella writes:
…le champion de La Vie Française a beau singer une coutume aristocratique: la grandeur d’âme lui demeure inaccessible. L’imitation d’un geste noble ne lui confère pas la qualité noble. (…) …on le croit preux, cela seul compte et cela le convainc qu’il l’est effective- ment. Ainsi, les signes extérieurs de noblesse—ici le duel; plus tard, la particule factice et la couronne de baron gravée sur sa montre—suffisent à le rendre heureux dans une fausse conscience totale. (134)
In this passage, Castella stresses that the obsession with appearance is the sole standard in
the Nouveau Régime. Just as Duroy resembles a Christ-figure, one might also say that
his narrative bears resemblance to epic, but without the nobility of characters to
substantiate it. From this perspective, one could consider Bel-Ami to be a mock epic,
since the narrator uses Duroy’s duplicitous and imitative nature to demonstrate the
inconceivablity of a nineteenth-century protagonist embodying epic qualities. Rather
than representing the collective values of French nineteenth-century society, Duroy
reveals that society’s complete lack of qualitative values.
The narrator contributes to the epic atmosphere of Une Vie by incorporating fairy
tale effects through the narration of events. For Lukàcs, fairy tale is an epic genre
because it allows for “la transcendence réalisée dans le réel” (139). In Une Vie, the
narration creates this fairy tale atmosphere to emphasize the way in which Jeanne
experiences the world. Just as the narrator only partially reveals Julien’s hypocrisy by
carefully limiting the reader’s perspective primarily to Jeanne’s view of things, the
narrator also uses fairy tale effects as he narrates to create an illusion of providential
68 fortuitousness. One manifestation of this is the reoccurrence of expressions like
“soudain” and “tout à coup”, especially amidst the descriptions of Jeanne and Julien’s
meeting, courtship, and honeymoon. For example, in chapters one through five alone,
“soudain” and “tout à coup” are repeated thirteen and twelve times respectively. This is
evidence of Jeanne’s way of seeing events as fatally orchestrated, following immediately one after the other.
In Harold Neemann’s theoretical work on fairy tale, he describes the fairy tale character as bereft of free will given his/her subjection to predetermined events:
…since they have other forces decide their actions, fairy tale characters find themselves divested of probably the most characteristic human quality; they seem to be without a will of their own. Instead of determining their own actions, fairy tale characters live a life that leaves nothing to chance by predetermining the outcome in favor of the hero, who is most often destined to succeed. (…) The protagonist thus succeeds with great ease, enjoying a quasi superhuman liberty, yet which is at variance with the human freedom of self-determination.47
While I focused earlier on the strength of Jeanne’s will and how it was crushed through
her disillusionment, Jeanne nonetheless abandons herself entirely to fate when it comes to
major decisions. Jeanne’s belief in the fatality of the universe often prevents her from taking action or questioning herself, preferring instead to react, respond, and passively submit as life takes its course. The narrator reports numerous thoughts and statements
that indicate her fatalistic way of thinking. For example, when she hears someone walking near the château, she wonders if it might be “the one”: “…dans un élan de son
âme affolée, dans un transport de foi à l’impossible, aux hasards providentiels, aux
pressentiments divins, aux romanesques combinaisons du sort, elle pensa: ‘Si c’était
lui?’ (emphasis mine)” (18). Later, when she has met Julien, Jeanne only questions
47 Harold Neemann, Piercing the Magic Veil. Toward a Theory of the Conte (Tübingen: Narr, 1999) 47.
69 whether or not Providence sent Julien to her rather than dwelling on his qualities and deficiencies. If he is the one chosen for her by fate, she accepts him unreservedly:
Était-ce bien LUI l’époux promis par mille voix secrètes, qu’une Providence souveraine- ment bonne avait ainsi jeté sur sa route? Était-ce bien l’être créé pour elle, à qui elle dévouerait son existence? Étaient-ils ces deux prédestinés dont les tendresses se joignant devaient s’étreindre, se mêler indissolublement, engendrer L’AMOUR? (46)
Her trust in fate does misguide her and prevents her from taking responsibility for her
life, as she expresses to Rosalie towards the end of the novel: “‘Oh! moi, je n’ai pas eu
de chance. Tout a mal tourné pour moi. La fatalité s’est acharnée sur ma vie’” (253). It
logically follows that if fate is responsible for the circumstances of her life, than she can
blame her misfortune entirely on its bad intentions toward her.
Obviously, the comparison between Jeanne and the traditional fairy tale character
breaks down very quickly. In contrast with the fairy tale, Jeanne’s version of Providence
seems to destine her for failure rather than success. Although the “superhuman liberty”
mentioned by Neemann does seem to characterize Jeanne in the beginning of the novel, it
proves to be cruelly illusory. Antonia Fonyi proposes an enlightening theory regarding
Maupassant’s representation of the clôture or fence that is always present to inhibit and
imprison, though it is often invisible to those enclosed within its boundaries: “La clôture
étant omniprésente, la sortie dans l’espace ouvert, dans la liberté, est une illusion.
L’autoriser équivaut à un mensonge, à une invitation à tomber dans le piège de la fatalité
universelle” (39). She explains that, in Maupassant’s fiction, freedom is only an illusion
that invites characters to revel in its breadth only to find themselves eternally trapped
when they venture out. According to Fonyi, the ultimate clôture constantly closing in on
Maupassant’s characters is death, as we saw in Bel-Ami: “La fatalité est cette loi de la
Mère-Nature: nul qui vit n’échappe à la mort” (92).
70 A reoccurring theme in Maupassant’s novels and short stories, fatality might be
evoked in Une Vie with the intention of warning against the dangers of fatalistic thinking.
Pierre Bayard suggests that Maupassant precedes Freud in his “neurosis of destiny”
theory and claims its intervention in many of Maupassant’s novels and short stories. He
writes that Freud
…fait l’hypothèse de la névrose de destinée. Celle-ci a été précisément forgée par lui pour qualifier les faux destins, c’est-à-dire les organisations de vie agencées de telle manière que la victime estime en toute sincérité être l’objet d’une fatalité obscure, alors qu’elle est l’agent discret de son propre malheur. (192)
In other words, relying on fate to direct the course of one’s life may actually serve to ensure one’s misfortune rather than one’s happiness. Such is the case of Jeanne who is shown to respond to life events as a helpless victim of her destiny.
Although neither Une Vie nor Bel-Ami is truly epic due to the ideological
disposition of nineteenth-century society, we can see that the inclusion of epic elements
underscores the quest for meaning in which the protagonists are engaged. Jeanne
believes that a beneficent Providence is ordering the events of her life, but the narrator
demonstrates this to be a false belief that will misguide her. The epic quality of the early
descriptions of Jeanne’s character in contrast with her disillusionment in the remainder of
the novel illustrates the impossibility of living an authentic and meaningful life in the
world of convention. In Bel-Ami, Georges Duroy begins as a problematic protagonist,
but through imitative action, he achieves so much prominence in the Parisian social world
that he resembles an epic figure by the end of the novel. In this case, we have an illusion
of epic, since there is still no correspondence between the protagonist’s internal reality
and life in society. In fact, society has stripped Duroy altogether of his capacity for
interiority. Both protagonists demonstrate that, although personal transcendence is not 71 possible in nineteenth-century society, the desire to attain it is still strong. Lukàcs
summarizes the difference between the epic and the novel in the following way:
Entre l’épopée et le roman—les deux objectivations de la grande littérature épique— la différence ne tient pas aux dispositions intérieures de l’écrivain, mais aux données historico-philosophiques qui s’imposent à sa création. Le roman est l’épopée d’un temps où la totalité extensive de la vie n’est plus donnée de manière immédiate, d’un temps pour lequel l’immanence du sens à la vie est devenue problème mais qui, néan- moins, n’a pas cessé de viser à la totalité. (49)
He explains here that even though an immanent meaning in life no longer exists as it did
during the period of the epic, the novelistic form demonstrates that the quest for totality,
despite its futility, is still ongoing.
In conclusion, Une Vie and Bel-Ami are in some ways opposite novels in that one
is entrenched in the Ancien Régime, the other in the Nouveau Régime; the first narrates
the decline of a promising and noble-hearted woman due largely to the infidelity of her
husband, while the second tells the success story of a callous and hypocritical opportunist
who exploits women to force his way to the top. Still, one can discern shared themes that
reflect the novelist’s own struggles with the economic climate of his day. In Une Vie, the
impossibility of authenticity in a world of degraded values, which leads Jeanne to resort
to deceptive manipulation, echoes Maupassant’s statement in Sur l’eau concerning the
negative, but inevitable influence of society:
…la bêtise universelle est si contagieuse qu’il ne pourra fréquenter ses semblables, les voir et les écouter sans être malgré lui, entamé de tous les côtés par leurs convictions, leurs idées, leurs superstitions, leurs traditions, leurs préjugés qui font ricochet sur lui, leurs usages, leurs lois et leur morale surprenante d’hypocrisie et de lâcheté. (114)
The narration as well as the character Duroy of Bel-Ami seem to incarnate
Maupassant’s fears concerning the precarious nature of personal identity. Just when one has finally succeeded in earning the approval of the crowd, and society acclaims one most enthusiastically, it is then that originality and individuality are most at risk, or
72 worse, have been altogether annihilated. In fact, those who are most successful in the
Nouveau Régime are merely imitations and reproductions of those who have gone ahead of them. Perhaps the character Forestier as Duroy’s narrative double incarnates the fear of imitation and lack of originality that haunts the novelist. Notwithstanding these fears,
Maupassant clearly uses his writing ability to earn money and reputation in French society. Although an avowed disciple of Flaubert, Maupassant’s desire to accumulate as much money as possible from his literary production was completely inconsistent with
Flaubert’s doctrine of producing art for art’s sake. As an illustration, Poyet remarks on
Maupassant’s attitude toward his editors:
Ses biographes présentent Maupassant comme redoutable en affaires et plus sa production littéraire rencontre le succès, plus il se montre exigeant envers ses éditeurs. Il n’hésite pas à discuter âprement les termes d’un contrat, à marchander et à changer d’éditeur pour se vendre au plus offrant.…(62)
However much he may have despised imitation and repetition as methods to attain success in society, his three hundred short stories published and republished in various combinations seem to indicate some exploitation of the Nouveau Régime to his own profit.
On an even more personal level, the repeated allusions to death throughout Bel-
Ami are perhaps indications of the novelist’s awareness of this persistent threat in his own life. An invisible enemy, death functions as the ultimate and unavoidable fatality in the universe, so that the experience of freedom in the world is only an illusion.
Finally, through the inclusion of epic elements, we can discern the conflict between Maupassant’s commitment to originality and high literary standards and the pressures of producing literature within capitalist economy represented in the novels in the form of an aesthetic solution. Although there are elements of epic and moments at 73 which the protagonists resemble epic characters, true epic cannot survive without meaning and authenticity. The deterioration of an authentic character like Jeanne and the unchallenged success of an artificial character like Duroy provide a symbolic representation of the challenges to achieving and maintaining true individuality in the nineteenth century.
74
CHAPTER 2
THE GONCOURT BROTHERS AND THE LITERARY MELODRAMA
In the Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson hypothesizes that all generic forms are inherently ideological and when older genres are reincorporated into contemporary ones, they either contradict or harmonize with the dominant ideology of the work (141).
As writers enamored with the past and fascinated by the theater, the Goncourt brothers could hardly avoid being heavily influenced by their objects of interest. An analysis of their literary work reveals genre to be one such area of influence. Although they promoted their writing as modern and scientific, they also connected their style to a revered form of ancient literature in their claim to write a tragedy of the lower classes.48
Also, the Manichean universe of many of their novels, which often divide the world into good and evil characters, the incorporation of long dialogues with little narrative intervention and an emphasis on gesture, are all elements of their writing that reveal the impact of melodramatic theater which was popular in the early part of the nineteenth century. But, what significance do such traces of older genres have for a study of the
Goncourt’s literary production? In the above statement, Jameson claims that genres are ideological in nature, and therefore, the genres that coexist in a work of fiction each carry
48 “Ils (…) proclament tout à la fois leur croyance en un roman moderne et scientifique, et leur désir de ressusciter ce genre d’un autre siècle, la tragédie” (Danielle Thaler, La clinique de l’amour selon les frères Goncourt: peuple, femme, hystérie (Québec: Naaman, 1986) 243).
75 an ideological message that either clashes or harmonizes with the others. And I would
suggest that these conflicting ideologies reflect those that compete within the psyche of
the authors and within society at large. If this is true, a generic analysis could provide insight into the ideologies contending for dominance in nineteenth-century culture as well as into the ideological struggles, both conscious and unconscious, experienced by the authors.49
All artists are cultural constructs rather than self-determined and self-created,
unavoidably fashioned by the past and the present from which they emerge. Even though
they pursue originality, artists are unavoidably shaped by the context in which they create
and by the possibilities that uniquely exist at the moment of their creation (Goldmann 16-
17). Adherents to the “art for art’s sake” philosophy of literary production, the Goncourt brothers believed they could produce novels that were somehow unaffected by popular culture and tastes, that were truly original and therefore superior to vulgar, capitalistic publications. What I will argue in this chapter is that the Goncourt brothers were very much products of their literary predecessors and contemporaries, and between the lines of
their rhetoric and through the characters and style of their novels, they reveal an ever-
present anxiety regarding this inevitable shaping. After an analysis of several key tragic
and melodramatic aspects of the two Goncourtian novels I have selected—Charles
Demailly and Madame Gervaisais—I will turn my attention to the signs of disquiet
regarding the obstacles that stand in the way of purely original artistic production. I will
49 Henri Mitterand advocates this approach in Le Regard et le signe: poétique du roman réaliste et naturaliste (Paris: PUF, 1987). He argues that, “Sous la narration d’une histoire prétendument survenue à des êtres supposés—et donnés comme authentiques—circule plus ou moins explicite, plus ou moins latent, un propos du romancier sur le monde, et ce propos nous intéresse dans la mesure où, au-delà d’une parole individuelle, il fait entendre le discours collectif, conscient et inconscient, d’une époque” (6).
76 draw connections between the pressures experienced by the Goncourt brothers as writers in nineteenth-century society and the deterministic atmosphere of the narrative world in which the characters of these novels exist.
Significantly, in conjunction with the intermingling of tragic and melodramatic genres within the novels, one can perceive a simultaneous application of fatalistic, deterministic and free will principles within one and the same narration. Although personal agency and determinism/fatalism are mutually exclusive by definition, I believe the fact that they operate concurrently is indicative of a tension experienced at a level beyond the narration—that is, in the minds of the authors. In the beginning of each novel, the depictions of both Madame Gervaisais and Charles Demailly highlight their initial freedom and their ability to rise above external pressures to maintain their independence from the surrounding environment, i.e. Rome in Madame Gervaisais’ case and the journalistic profession in the case of Demailly. The narrative initially portrays both Demailly and Madame Gervaisais as characters with strong identities and as autonomous spectators of the world around them, seemingly untouched by their milieu.
And yet, by dint of observation, unable to remain completely impervious to their surroundings, both characters gradually lose their objectivity and individuality and enter into the experiences they had originally been able to hold at a distance. What I will attempt to show is that this process of evolving from spectator to actor represented a real threat not only for the characters of their novels but for the Goncourt brothers themselves.
The very project of meticulous observation and transcription could be seen as an attempt on their part to keep the world at bay and to maintain their distance from the world, while at the same time being aware of its insidious influence.
77 To address these issues, I will divide my analysis into three parts. First, I will
explore several aspects of tragedy and melodrama within Charles Demailly and Madame
Gervaisais as well as some ways in which these two genres are limited and transformed
by the dominant ideological structure of the novels. In the second part, I will examine
how the narration alternatively evokes fatality, determinism, and free will to explain the behavior of protagonists. Predominantly descriptions of the slow but certain power exerted by the environment in shaping its population, the narration in both novels nevertheless depicts their protagonists as capable of a certain amount of independent thought and personal ambition. This contradiction will then lead me into the third and final section, in which I will suggest possible links between the Goncourt brothers’ personal struggles and the depiction of their characters and identify some of the authors’ fears and preoccupations that manifest themselves in their writing. For example, do the
Goncourt feel caught like their characters between environmental determinism and personal agency? Are they anxious about the danger of slipping into the role of
participants in the world they so conscientiously maintain at a distance through their
vigilant spectatorship? How do the generic messages transmitted through the
melodramatic and tragic elements of their novels expose the struggle to uphold the
literary value of artistic originality amidst the pressures of bourgeois society?
As a basis for my analysis of tragic and melodramatic aspects in Madame
Gervaisais and Charles Demailly, I will be using the definitions of tragedy and melodrama Robert Heilman proposes in his book The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the
Troubled Agent. Tragedy and Melodrama on the Modern Stage. Although Heilman
applies his definitions mainly to modern drama, the distinctions he establishes between
78 the two theatrical genres will provide useful insight into their manifestation in the novels
under consideration in the present study. Heilman’s approach is similar to mine in his
conviction that older genres will inevitably reappear in more modern ones: “My
approach in this essay assumes the continued life of traditional forms in all generations of
drama, even those apparently most innovative”.50 Another aspect of Heilman’s theory
that makes it relevant for my study is his belief in the interconnectedness of tragedy and
melodrama. As he juxtaposes these two genres, he points out that both are ways of grappling with calamity and misfortune caused by evil in the world. Rather than viewing
melodrama as an imitation or elimination of tragedy, he describes it as a
“counterstructure” that often competes with tragedy for center stage in the same dramatic
work.51 Given the tendency of the two genres to overlap and intermix, studying their interaction in a literary work may provide insight into its ideological substructure.
Since entire books have been written on the topic, I will not provide an exhaustive delineation of the differences between tragedy and melodrama. Instead, I will limit myself to describing those contrasts that will prove most useful for my study. First, does the narration portray characters as exhibiting personal responsibility or “will-lessness”?
Are they the victims of circumstances or are they shown to make conscious choices?
Secondly, is there a coexistence of good and evil in the same character or are characters assigned to moral categories, such that they represent either good or evil? Third, do
50 Robert Bechtold Heilman, The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent. Tragedy and Melodrama on the Modern Stage (Seattle: U of Wisconsin P, 1973) xv.
51 “Tragedy and melodrama are contiguous in that both are ways of dealing with catastrophe; though in part committed to catastrophes of different make-up and origin, in the main they look in different ways at catastrophes that emerge from the human capacity for evil. Hence they may be mistaken for each other. They overlap. They are often found in the same play; there is a sense in which they may compete for the play. We do not often find either in pure form” (Heilman 25).
79 characters suffer from internal pain and struggle or are hate and blame directed outwardly
to other characters and circumstances? And lastly, are suffering and death meaningful or
absurd in the novels? Is there knowledge to be gained by the characters and/or the reader
through the affliction suffered or is there no redeeming purpose for their pain?
Heilman explains that characters are tragic insofar as they have the capacity to choose, because without freedom, the inner moral struggle of tragedy cannot take place:
…the tragic has to do with the human, not the nonhuman (that is, the sheer brutality of men or events or natural cataclysms); freedom is essential because it means the power to make choices, the very center of tragic action; choice is the prime source of responsibility and guilt, a sense of which is the necessary completion of tragic consciousness. (5)
Referencing Friedrich Duerrenmatt’s dramatic theory, Heilman argues that suffering and
brutality are not tragic unless they evoke a sense of personal responsibility. He later adds
that, “…the tragic figure is an agent who brings on or contributes to his catastrophe,
whereas the melodramatic figure is simply the recipient of catastrophe which originates
elsewhere—in things or in other people” (48). Melodramatic characters are merely victims of catastrophic events rather than playing a significant role in determining their course. According to Heilman, there is a belief in the insignificance or “smallness” of human beings inherent in a melodramatic perspective, since they have no real power to determine outcomes through their decisions.52 There is less decision-making that occurs
than resignation to circumstances and submission to people.
52 “The sense of littleness—of weakness, incompetence, pleasurable subordination—is antitragic in that it means a one-sided view of reality; it implies no alternative value, and hence none of the tension of the tragic situation. To be little or commanded is to be outside a serious conflict of forces, claims, and desires, for conflict implies a vigor and direction incompatible with absolute smallness, that is, inadequacy and ineffectiveness. To be small is to lack inner room for the clash of motives and purposes by which the tragic figure is representative of human reality” (Heilman 13).
80 The second distinguishing factor between the two genres follows from the first: since a tragic character has the capacity to choose good or evil, it implies that he/she possesses both extremes within him/herself, whereas a melodramatic character incarnates one moral category or the other. He or she is depicted as either virtuous or villainous, innocent or guilty, angelic or demonic—never both at once.53 As a result, melodrama tends to focus on blame and punishment in contrast with the guilt and inner turmoil characteristic of tragedy. Simply put, “Melodrama may be seen as a detection of others; tragedy, as a detection of oneself” (Heilman 56).
Consequently, the tragic character, as he/she confronts him/herself, must face the pain that introspection entails. When one can blame no one but oneself, there is great guilt and internal struggle. The melodramatic character, by contrast, has permission to accuse people and circumstances, and so, can justify hatred and hostility toward others:
Whatever its source, hate implies evil without and ordered wholeness within; pain implies discord within, the inevitable clash of motives in the sentient man. The wholeness is gratifying, even when men evoke one’s hate; the pain is hard to bear, for, if one is mature and well, it cannot be released in outward blows. It marks the tragic condition. (Heilman 17)
When a character is wholly good or wholly evil, it logically follows that hate would be an appropriate response to evil or goodness in another, but when a character is conscious of his/her own moral ambivalence, hate and blame become unreasonable.
The last distinction to address is the attitude towards death and suffering in the worlds of tragedy and melodrama. In tragedy, death has potential to carry profound meaning as it may represent someone’s fidelity or failure to maintain his/her moral
53 “Melodramatic good and evil are highly personalized: they are assigned to, they inhabit persons who indeed have no psychological complexity but who are strongly characterized” (Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination (New York: Columbia UP, 1985) 16).
81 principles, his/her choice to suffer in order to demonstrate an ethical victory or establish a moral identity. However, death and suffering in melodrama are devoid of meaning.
Typically, melodrama ends with the conquest of good and the defeat of evil, because as
Peter Brook posits in The Melodramatic Imagination, the purpose of melodrama is to restore order in the moral universe: “By the end of the play, desire has achieved its satisfaction. No shadow dwells, and the universe bathes in the full, bright lighting of moral Manichaeism.”54 It would defeat the overarching purpose of melodrama if the virtuous hero or heroine were to die, because such a death would represent the death of goodness and virtue.
Having acquired these four distinguishing features of melodrama and tragedy as tools of analysis, we are now equipped to approach the texts. Not only will we observe the intermingling of both tragic and melodramatic aspects within the narrative and character construction, we will also investigate at which point these genres cannot fully manifest themselves due to the ideological disposition of the time period as well as to the belief system specific to the authors.
Melodrama and Tragedy Redefined in Charles Demailly
In the first novel written by the Goncourt brothers, Charles Demailly, the melodramatic aspects are much more pronounced than the tragic. When the narrator first presents Demailly, one could argue that he has the potential to be a tragic hero, since the initial descriptions emphasize his originality and independent thought. Although he earns his living as a journalist, he does not allow himself to become a mere product of the spiteful and ruthless world of shoddy journalism as it is described in the text. However,
54 Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination (New Haven: Yale UP, 1976) 43.
82 while Charles seems free to make choices independently of his cohorts, there is no indication of an inner struggle or deliberation as required by tragedy. And while one could argue that his ambitious decision to make a break with journalism in order to pursue a more serious writing career reveals a capacity to take responsibility for his life
rather than just accepting life as it comes, this is the only sign of personal agency and
willfulness in the protagonist.
After a significant literary success, Demailly settles into the role of victim and
maintains this posture until the end of the novel. Even while the protagonist is asserting himself most boldly by daring to publish an innovative novel, the narrator emphasizes
Demailly’s extreme vulnerability to public opinion. In response to the literary criticism leveled at his first novel, Charles is so demoralized that he loses his appetite and is afraid to go out of his apartment:
Sur une nature impressionnable comme celle de Charles, la douleur fut vive. Il essaya de la faire taire: il ne put. Des épithètes malsonnantes, et qu’il ne pouvait fuir, lui restaient gravées dans la mémoire et lui revenaient machinalement jusqu’aux lèvres. (…) Certains articles, lus avant le dîner, lui resserraient l’épigastre et lui coupaient l’appétit aussi net que la nouvelle d’un grand malheur. (…) Et il restait dans son coin, ayant peur de se montrer, peur de l’écho, peur de ses amis, ayant honte de laisser voir une telle faiblesse de constitution.55
Unlike a tragic character who would be more preoccupied with his opinion of himself
than the opinion of others, Charles is clearly portrayed as a victim here as he cowers in
his room waiting fearfully for the next attack. When he can rely on the safety of the
darkness, he finally ventures outside of his apartment to take a walk. To his surprise, the
talented writer Boisroger recognizes and calls to him in order to express his approval of
55 Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Charles Demailly, préface Nadine Satiat (1859; Bourgois, 1990) 154-55.
83 Charles’s novel. As encouraged as he had previously been crushed by the literary critics,
Demailly again reveals his reliance on public opinion:
Cette présentation du hasard, cette rencontre, cette parade impromptue, cette poignée de main, par la fenêtre d’un homme dont il aimait le talent et dont il enviait les sympathies, donna à Charles le plaisir d’un bonheur. Il y avait longtemps qu’il n’avait fait si beau temps au-dedans de lui. (159)
After sinking to his lowest point several pages earlier, Demailly suddenly soars to the
heights of self-satisfaction, simply because one person approves of his work. This
example demonstrates the way external factors determine the character’s responses more
than a well-defined personal identity, as is characteristic of a tragic character.
While most descriptions of the protagonist seem to privilege a melodramatic
outlook, there is one choice for which the narrative seems to hold Charles partly
responsible: his decision to marry Marthe. In the next part of my study, on the
functioning of fatalism and environmental determinism in the novel, I will explore this
more, but it is worth mentioning here how this event creates some tragic potential in the
novel. The narrator explains clearly to the reader that Charles’s love for Marthe is based
on the fact that she is the living incarnation of the heroine of the play he is writing, not on
knowledge of the person she is:
Il aimait peut-être plus encore en auteur qu’en amoureux. C’était moins la femme qui lui parlait dans cette femme que l’actrice. Marthe était pour lui la forme vivante et la vie charmante de son idée; elle était le rôle même qu’il avait caressé dans sa pièce et cherché con amore. Elle était son imagination personnifiée, sa création traduite et glorifiée en une créature, le corps et l’âme de son œuvre. (237)
One might argue that Demailly has no defense against the powerful illusion Marthe
represents and is therefore merely a victim of his circumstances. These lines leave doubt
as to the extent of Charles’s awareness of being deluded. Yet, there is another passage
that portrays Demailly as the creator of his illusion, thus holding him accountable for his
84 gullibility. Even when Charles is most in love with Marthe, he is aware of the lack of true relationship between them and the impossibility of more meaningful exchanges than those occuring between a ventriloquist and his doll:
…Charles jugeait Marthe capable de remplir parfaitement ce rôle que l’ironie d’un penseur de ses amis assignait à la femme, le rôle de Jean de la Vigne, ce petit bon- homme de bois auquel l’escamoteur adresse la parole, si bien qu’au bout de quelques instants il semble au public, à l’escamoteur lui-même, et presque au petit bonhomme de bois, que le dialogue existe. (264)
In this analogy, Charles is both the creator and the victim of his illusion. The
ventriloquist’s illusion is so effective that he even convinces himself that his doll is real.
Of his friends, Demailly was the writer most adamantly opposed to marriage and most
conscious of its potential to impede literary success. When asked his opinion about the
option of marriage and family for a man of letters, he replies, “…le mariage nous est
défendu” and “…le célibat est nécessaire à la pensée”, which is yet another indication
that Charles is too aware of the trap set for him to be considered merely a victim (229-
30). So, in this way, his downfall contains an element of tragedy.
However, as the novel progresses, the narrator increasingly portrays him as a
victim, both of the world of journalism and of his wife Marthe. And by the novel’s end,
Charles’s state has deteriorated to total brutishness:
Plus rien d’humain que ce corps, n’appartenant plus à l’humanité que par la digestion! ce corps lié sur un fauteuil, balbutiant des monosyllabes de l’enfant dans ses langes, immobile et remuant avec un mouvement incessant d’élévation et d’abaissement des épaules, jetant dans l’air, à la vue du soleil, ce cri d’animal: coc…coc, ouvrant la bouche à la nourriture qu’on apporte, et se frottant contre l’homme qui lui donne à manger avec la caresse et la reconnaissance de la bête… (444)
The narration depicts him as divested of all reasoning ability and self-control, reduced to
an animalistic state, and thus obviously emptied of all tragic potential. According to the
definitions set forth earlier, Demailly’s suffering is not completely tragic because he is
85 portrayed more as a victim than as an accomplice to his own downfall, or at least, he is
not made to bear the full responsibility for it.
I would like to suggest that Demailly is predominantly a melodramatic character
in that he embodies the moral category of “good” as defined by the authors. For the
Goncourt brothers, he represents the gifted writer envied by less successful writers and
underestimated by most friends and family members. Not only is Demailly “good”
according to the Goncourt’s ideal, he is also emotionally vulnerable, making him an even
more likely candidate for this melodramatic role. According to David Grimsted in his
study on melodrama, “Total goodness and extreme weakness combine to make the
heroine the emotional center of the melodrama….”56 Demailly’s greatest source of weakness is not difficult to isolate, as it is clearly described in the text as being his artistic
impressionability:
…Charles possédait à un degré suprême le tact sensitif de l’impressionnabilité. Il y avait en lui une perception aiguë, presque douloureuse de toutes choses et de la vie. Partout où il allait, il était affecté comme par une atmosphère des sentiments qu’il y rencontrait ou qu’il y dérangeait. (105)
The narrator depicts this fictitious author as sharing his creators’ extreme sensitivity, such
that the deception and betrayal of his wife and fellow journalists cause greater damage
than they would in a less sensitive person.
What is unusual in the case of Demailly is his gender—why would the Goncourt
choose a male writer to embody the moral category of goodness rather than a female
protagonist? There will be other attempts to answer this question in the course of this
chapter, but from our current generic approach, it would seem to indicate an ideological
56 David Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1968) 175.
86 shift that posits the surpassing innocence of a man of letters over that of the traditional
virtuous heroine.57
Not only do we have a virtuous man of letters to replace the virtuous heroine, but
we also have a female protagonist as a substitute for the male traître. While her traître-
like qualities are carefully concealed by an innocent appearance, the narrator makes it clear in the first physical description of Marthe that she is merely an Ingénue who transfers her theatrical role to the comédie humaine. The embodiment of the virtuous heroines she represents on stage, Marthe is the perfect picture of innocence and childlike
purity from an external point of view: she is described as having tiny feet, small hands
with dimples and pink nails, large blue eyes, small facial features, rosy cheeks, a milky complexion, a miniscule mouth, and a soft, faint voice that trembles when she whispers
into Charles’s ear (255). The narrator concludes,
Telle était cette créature séduisante, cette femme qui était un type, l’incarnation d’un âge de son sexe et d’un rôle de son temps; cette comédienne, qui unissait et réalisait en elle tous les dons, tous les charmes, tous les caractères et toutes les invraisemblances de la fille à marier de notre comédie moderne: l’Ingénue (emphasis mine). (256)
Bereft of personhood, Marthe is portrayed as merely a type, the incarnation of a fictional
creature, an actress whose role is never-ending and whose stage is the world in which she
lives.
Peter Brooks’s description of the traître will prove helpful as we further
investigate the character of Charles’s wife, Marthe: “Opposed to virtue and innocence
stands the active, concerted denial of them in the person of evil, known traditionally as le
traître, no doubt because he dissimulates, but also because he betrays and undoes the moral order” (33). What is particularly significant in Marthe’s character makeup is the
57 “Virtue is almost inevitably represented by a young heroine” (Brooks, Melodramatic Imagination 32).
87 fact that she is literally a melodramatic actress on stage. What fashions her for the function of traître is her acting experience and her inability to disengage from the various theatrical roles she plays. For Marthe, the real world is an extension of the imaginary world of drama with no separation between them. Her dissimulation is thoroughly effective, since she herself perceives life to be a series of melodramatic roles rather than a commitment to integrity and authenticity. In the beginning stages of her acquaintance with Charles, she plays the part of the charming and delighted housewife, but it is not long before she tires of her first role and chooses to act the part of the unfortunate woman suffering at the hands of a miserly and pitiless husband.
After the honeymoon stage of their marriage, Marthe takes a specific incident as her theatrical cue to switch roles. When Charles mocks her for sleeping with a mirror under her pillow and playfully tries to steal it from her, the mirror breaks. Marthe responds by crying like a child and declaring her superstitious belief that a broken mirror is a sure promise of misfortune: “―Ah! voilà un malheur! ―Et, retombée sur l’oreiller,
Marthe fondit en larmes. ―C’est votre faute aussi!… ―répondit-elle au baiser de
Charles, ―j’ai toujours eu peur d’une glace cassée. Ça porte malheur, vous verrez”
(266)! The change begins subtly, when in response to a slight rebuke from Charles for a month of irresponsible spending, she replies with a tight-lipped acquiescence (268).
After this point, she begins to question him regarding his tastes and his abilities, judging them according to mediocre standards and trite opinions. As the narrative continues,
Marthe’s unfortunate woman complex progresses from subtle to obnoxious as she spreads lies about Charles in order to purposefully denigrate his character and convince people of her destitution. When Charles discovers this and confronts her about her
88 betrayal, she replies matter-of-factly: “J’ai voulu poser en femme malheureuse, là, tout
bonnement…” (363). Enraged beyond self-possession during the last dispute before their
separation, Charles comes close to hurting her during her revelation of all that she had
said to desecrate his character. Suddenly, he becomes conscious of satisfying her desire
for drama through his violent reaction:
―Tu disais que c’était pour te déconsidérer… que je voulais te déshonorer… Eh bien! il y avait peut-être bien un peu de cela… ―Tais-toi! Tu as donc juré… tu es folle!… tais-toi! ―Attends donc! J’ai dit aussi que tu avais mis tous mes bijoux au mont-de-piété… ―Tu as dit cela! ―dit Charles en lui prenant les poignets. ―Laisse-moi… laisse donc! Et elle essayait de se débarasser de l’étreinte de Charles, puis d’un ton méprisant: ―Tu n’es pas un homme à battre une femme, toi! ―As-tu dit que je te battais?… Tu voudrais pouvoir le dire, n’est-ce pas? ―Je l’ai dit. (375)
In her desire to live out the melodramas in which she previously acted, she purposefully
incites Charles in order to perpetuate the plot she has fabricated. In her own way, Marthe actually writes the script for her real-life drama, for which she subsequently becomes the
director and leading lady. Thus, through her acting ability, Marthe functions as le traître of the novel, as she manipulates Charles and deceives others into doubting Charles’s integrity.
Returning to Brook’s description of le traître, this melodramatic role involves dissimulation as well as an attempt to “undo the moral order”. I would suggest that in
Charles Demailly, the moral order has shifted from its traditional meaning to one more
specific to the world of the authors. If the ideal man of letters has replaced the virtuous
heroine, then it would seem that artistic literary production has become the new standard
for goodness and virtue. In this way, one could argue that Marthe upsets the moral
89 universe of the novel, since she succeeds in first distracting Charles from his noble
literary pursuits and eventually in sabotaging his entire career.
To summarize then, I have shown Charles Demailly to invoke a predominantly
melodramatic perspective due to the fact that the main protagonists are one-dimensional,
representing moral categories rather than possessing both positive and negative traits at
the same time. Also, Charles is depicted in the narration as being his wife’s victim as well as being the victim of his impressionability and sensitivity to criticism rather than
demonstrating a capacity to remain detached from public opinion and his wife’s
machinations.
Another anti-tragic aspect, which I will briefly mention, is the novel’s conclusion.
If Demailly had died, his death would have undoubtedly been meaningless. However, the
novel ends on an even more absurd note. Experiencing a fate more meaningless than
death, the novel’s hero is condemned to live the remainder of his life in an animalistic
state divested of his power of reason and self-expression, which were the very defining
aspects of his character and literary identity. Marthe, one of Charles’s traîtres, is still a
successful actress; Couturat, a journalist who profited from Demailly’s final downfall
becomes the editor of Le Scandale; in short, none of the villainous characters truly suffers
a moral retribution for his/her wrongs. In other words, the “good” character suffers and
the “evil” characters are left unpunished—an inconceivable arrangement in a
melodramatic universe. Order is never restored in Charles Demailly, nor does Charles’s
suffering serve the meaningful purpose required by tragedy; therefore, in the end, neither
genre predominates.
90 At this point of breakdown in the assimilation of melodrama, we can begin to
speculate about the ideological determinant in question. Does it perhaps imply a
questioning of the ability to make sense of suffering and death and by extension of life
itself, a loss of confidence in the victory of a moral order—even of a literary one—or a
fear that true literary talent may not be able to survive the pressures of consumer culture
and abuse from ignorant and self-interested critics? I would go so far as to suggest that
Marthe’s character might be representative in the text of the bourgeois public with its
mediocre tastes, trust in public opinion, faith in ignorant critics, esteem of wealth rather
than talent, respectable exterior but cold-hearted and ruthless interior, inner falseness,
emptiness, and unfaithfulness.
Thus far, I have focused mainly on character construction, but there are other
aspects of Charles Demailly that attest to the influence of melodrama. According to Peter
Brooks, melodrama is fundamentally about expression and represents “the theatrical impulse itself, the impulse toward dramatization, heightening, expression, acting out,” and “the desire to express all” (xi, 4). We have already glimpsed Marthe’s love for expressing herself during dramatic moments. Another passage that highlights the way she manufactures melodrama occurs when attempting to arouse Charles’s jealousy through a “confession” of her “dangerous” relationship with Nachette:
—Pardon, mon ami, mettons que je ne vous ai rien dit… Je me confessais… Je venais à vous… Je venais vous dire comme une honnête femme à un honnête homme: j’ai peur de moi… je me sens faible… mes forces s’en vont… L’abîme est là… aidez-moi… secourez-moi… sauvez-moi! vous, mon secours, vous, mon aide… vous mon mari!… (368-69)
The melodramatic clichés and repetition in her lines are too obvious to require further
commentary. In this particular scene, Charles quickly catches on to her strategy and
91 guards himself against collaborating with her theatrics, but there is an earlier scene in
which he fully enters into Marthe’s premeditated drama. When verbal attempts to
communicate are insufficient, melodramatic characters typically resort to exaggerated
gestures to add emphasis to their words.58 In the scene to which I alluded earlier when
Marthe admits to having accused Charles of physically abusing her, he becomes so enraged that he tries to hurt himself by hitting his head against the wall and she mocks him for being unsuccessful. Finally, he carries her to the window with the intention to throw her out of it and she faints in his arms (375). The extreme emotions and exaggerated gestures of such scenes contribute to the melodramatic atmosphere of the novel.
Another moment in which the novel focuses on self-expression is in the progression of Charles’s insanitiy. From talented writer, Charles deteriorates to communicating with the one-syllable sound, “Coc…coc”. In the final passage of the novel, the narrator reduces Demailly’s activity to babbling like an infant, raising and lowering his shoulders, and rubbing himself like an animal against the person who feeds him. Not only does the novel illustrate the threat to self-expression through Charles’s character, it also once again encodes the non-verbal communication of gesture.
Melodrama and Tragedy Redefined in Madame Gervaisais
In the second novel to be analyzed in this chapter, the question of self-expression
is also significant. On the surface of the narrative, Madame Gervaisais, like Charles
Demailly, possesses several significant melodramatic aspects such as the problematizing
58 Peter Brooks elaborates on the special place occupied by gesture in melodrama and nineteenth century novels in the chapter entitled “The Text of Muteness” (56-79).
92 of self-expression and the privileging of gesture. The heroine’s son, Pierre-Charles, is
developmentally delayed and severely limited in his verbal skills. Thus, a significant
portion of the text is devoted to descriptions of his attempts to communicate non-
verbally. Not coincidentally perhaps, Peter Brooks isolates muteness as an extreme
physical state that he specifically connects to melodrama, since he defines it to be a genre
about expression. Moreover, he theorizes that muteness in melodramatic works is the symbolic representation of the “defenselessness of innocence” (56-60). This carries
considerable implications for the present study, since Pierre-Charles is the primary victim
of the heroine’s religious conversion. It is through the interaction between mother and
son that the narrator demonstrates the dreadful effects of her degeneration. In addition to gesture and muteness, music also plays an important role in the narrative, which according to David Grimsted was an essential component of melodramatic stage productions.59 In my analysis of Madame Gervaisais, I will first explore these
melodramatic elements visible on the surface of the text—gesture, muteness, and
music—then, I will return to our definitions of melodrama and tragedy to determine
whether one genre is more dominant than the other.
Madame Gervaisais is the story of a woman whose religious fervor develops to
the point of perceiving all earthly attachments as hindrances to her spiritual growth.
Counseled by her spiritual director, Père Sibilla, she begins to consider love for her son to
be evidence of a less than total consecration to God and determines to eradicate all
emotional ties to him. Depicted as an extremely affectionate and expressive mother in
59 “The term ‘melodrama’ was first used to describe pantomimed scenes accompanied by music to help establish a mood, and in the nineteenth century music was generally played to underline the emotional feeling at high points throughout a performance” (Grimsted 240).
93 the beginning of the novel, Madame Gervaisais undergoes a transformation that causes
Pierre-Charles an intense emotional shock:
Arrivée à sa chambre, elle se détacha brusquement de lui, et ferma la porte sur elle. Étonné, interdit, l’enfant regarda longtemps cette porte qui ne s’ouvrait pas: à la fin, se gonflant de larmes et pris d’une colère furieuse, il se mit à frapper le bois de ses pieds, de ses mains, de tout son petit corps, avec des cris, des appels, des jurements trop gros pour sa bouche et qui n’y passaient pas, fou de rage; puis il se laissa tom- ber par terre contre la méchante porte, se roulant et se noyant dans ses pleurs.60
In this account of Pierre-Charles’s response to the impassibility of his mother, the
description of his gestures translates his anguish much more effectively than his own
words could. His inability to swear while desperately attempting to do so makes the
vicarious pain felt by the reader more poignant. In his discussion of the importance of
gesture and the “inarticulate cry” in melodrama, Brooks describes their power to signify
more profoundly than words:
Gesture, a ‘return’ to the language of presence, became a way to make present available new, or revived, indications of meaning, emotional conditions, and spiritual experience. In the silence created by the ‘gapping’ of the traditional language code, mute gesture appears as a new sign making visible the absent and ineffable. (79)
Another example in the text of the communicative potential of mute gesture is Pierre-
Charles’s excessive and repeated displays of affection before his mother withdraws from him. In one scene, the narration portrays him as an overenthusiastic and affectionate puppy: “…l’embrassant sur la figure, les yeux, les bras, les mains, à des places de son peignoir, avec les caresses d’un petit animal tendre, avec des baisers qui léchaient presque” (78). Pierre-Charles’s likeness to an affectionate animal would seem to emphasize his innocence and prepare the reader to react with greater repulsion when he bears the brunt of his mother’s fanaticism. And yet, this description also evokes an
60 Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, Madame Gervaisais, préface Marc Fumaroli (1869; Paris: Gallimard, 1982) 276.
94 unmistakable sensuality that will resurface in later passages. For example, during their carriage rides near Castel-Gandolfo, the narrator describes one of Pierre-Charles’s regular habits: “En route, attirant à lui sa mère, lui prenant le menton avec le bout de ses doigts, il approchait et penchait sa figure sur la sienne, pour faire tomber son baiser sur le sien…” (170). The gesture described so closely resembles that of a lover, the average reader would never imagine this could be a son kissing his mother without the context provided. Once again, somewhat paradoxically, Pierre-Charles’s muteness permits the narration to translate through gesture emotion of greater intensity than it could communicate through words. The extreme—one might argue incestuous—intimacy is felt much more profoundly in the non-verbal expression of a kiss.
Gesture plays a crucial role throughout the entire narrative; therefore, it would not be possible to complete an in-depth analysis here.61 But, before moving on to the role of
music, we will examine one more example of its central function in helping to render the
transformation of Madame Gervaisais. In the accounts of the heroine’s sightseeing trips
in Rome, the narrator repeatedly describes her contemplation of works of art and statues
in particular:
La femme d’un goût supérieur au goût de son sexe, s’élevait à l’intelligence, à la jouis- sance de ce Beau Absolu: le Beau de la statuaire antique. Son admiration se passionnait pour la perfection de ces images humaines, où le ciseau de l’artiste lui paraissait avoir dépassé le génie de l’homme. (…) Elle ne se lassait pas, dans ces vastes musées, de se promener sous l’éternité des gestes suspendus…. (144)
This is but one of many examples in the novel of the subtle transformation constantly
being wrought by the Roman environment on the heroine. Once Madame Gervaisais
surrenders her will to religion, she begins appropriating the characteristics of all she has
61 For more on gesture in Madame Gervaisais, see the chapter on this novel in Robert Ricatte’s La Création romanesque chez les Goncourt (Paris: Colin, 1953) 379-452, 458.
95 so carefully observed. She literally begins to resemble the ancient statues and subjects of
paintings she had previously admired with such detachment. A couple of examples will
help to illustrate. In one of her favorite churches, Sainte-Marie du Transtevere, the
narrator tells of her habit of kneeling on the marble to pray for hours, only changing
position when she comes close to fainting, at which time Pierre-Charles quickly
approaches the flask of vinegar to her nostrils as instructed. In this scene, the narrator
depicts her as literally entering into the scene painted on the ceiling of the church:
Elle commençait à prier, à prier sur ses genoux, sur ses genoux écorchés. Et son adoration se mêlant d’un peu d’épouvante, ses yeux se perdaient dans la vision du plafond…. (…) …enlevée au sentiment de la réalité, sa vue troublée, entrant en union avec ce qui brillait au-dessus d’elle dans l’or…. …et l’inconscience lui venant presque, elle se sentait, non sans un anxieux plaisir, comme celui de perdre terre, transportée au delà du lieu et de l’heure, dans un décor qui aurait été l’Apocalypse…. Presque toujours elle restait des heures agenouillée, droite et se roidissant. Par moments, elle devenait blanche, comme si tout son sang l’avait quittée…. (…) Et, au bout de sa prière, son visage, mortellement las et tiré, avait l’agonie de traits, les yeux rentrés, le regard cave et presque renversé en dedans du Saint Jérome recevant la communion dans le tableau du Dominiquin (emphasis mine). (238-39)
The description of Madame Gervaisais’ tense, immobile body and her white, blood-
drained face evoke the marmorean quality of the statues she studied before her
conversion. In this passage, the narrator compares her lifeless physiognomy to a painting
of Saint Jérome with his cavernous orbits. The statue comparison in the narrative
becomes even more explicit when Honorine comes home to find her mistress
unconscious and prostrate with her arms raised in worship: “…la femme de chambre
trouva, à côté d’une bougie dont la flamme expirante avait cassé la bobèche, sa maîtresse
évanouie, renversée à plat sur le dos, les mains encore étendues au-dessus de sa tête dans un mouvement d’adoration” (240). It is as though religion itself were sculpting her into a lifeless and inhuman icon that recalls the museums statues with “gestes suspendus” that
Madame Gervaisais never tired of admiring. 96 In addition to gesture and muteness, another melodramatic aspect immediately
evident in the novel is the recurrent theme of music. Due to his verbal limitations, Pierre-
Charles finds comfort in music and shows a keen ability to appreciate it. The following
passage reveals not only his musical passion but illustrates once again the sensual nature
of the mother-son relationship:
C’était l’habitude de l’enfant, après le déjeuner, de prendre sa mère par la taille, de l’entraîner au piano, et avec la supplication de son visage et de ses mains tendres, il l’asseyait presque de force sur le tabouret. Puis, tout serré contre elle, la tête penchée et reposante entre l’épaule et la joue maternelles, il écoutait, suivant le mouvement du corps aimé, et recevant en lui la musique des doigts de sa mère sur l’instrument sonore. (100)
Music was Pierre-Charles’s way of maintaining intimacy with his mother and being
connected to the world. When he experiences the total emotional severing of their
relationship, he also loses interest in music (253).
As David Grimsted remarks, music in a melodramatic performance creates a
mood or helps to evoke emotion at significant points in the story. In Madame Gervaisais, the narrator devotes a lengthy passage to transcribe the profound influence music exerts on the heroine. During the second year of her stay in Rome, Madame Gervaisais decides to attend religious services during Holy Week as a curious tourist, but is surprised to find herself deeply stirred by the ceremonies, and by the music in particular. The strong, regular bass penetrates her defensive shell and succeeds in touching a realm beyond her intellect:
…Madame Gervaisais demeurait, languissamment navrée sous le bruit grave de cette basse balançant la gamme des mélancolies, répandant ces notes qui semblaient le large murmure d’une immense désolation, suspendues et trémolantes des minutes entières sur des syllabes de douleur, dont les ondes sonores restaient en l’air sans vouloir mourir. (121)
97 The chant tells the story of the Passion of Christ and ends with the final cry of the
crucifixion, which, the narrator informs us, resonates in Madame Gervaisais’ mind and
emerges on her lips long after the service is over:
Ce chant, cette voix qui avait fini par l’ineffable note mourante et crucifiée, le Lamma sabachtani du Golgatha, laissaient à Madame Gervaisais un long écho qu’elle emportait, une vibration dont le tresaillement aux endroits sensibles de son être, montait jusqu’à ses lèvres qui, d’elles-mêmes, tout bas en répétaient le soupir suprême. (122)
Directly after this experience, the narrator establishes a direct connection between this
powerful music and a rush of painful memories that surface in the heroine. He is also
quick to negate the possibility of the music inspiring any true religious feeling in
Madame Gervaisais and to blame her emotional response to the music on her feminine
sensibility. Later, as the protagonist muses about her religious conversion, she will
acknowledge this moment as a crucial first blow to her intellectual defenses (185).
Given the melodramatic aspects of Madame Gervaisais, one could easily argue for
the predominance of melodrama over tragedy in the novel. However, upon closer
inspection, there also appears a coexistent tragic perspective beneath the surface of the
narrative, particularly in the character construction of Madame Gervaisais. Although the
environment exerts an undeniable and profound influence on the heroine, it does not
operate without Madame Gervaisais’ collaboration. I will be exploring the cooperative effort of fatalism and environmental determinism in bringing about the heroine’s conversion further in the next section, so here, I will underline the moments at which the narrative does not fully exempt her from personal responsibility or take away her freedom to choose, which, as we discussed earlier, is a prerequisite for tragedy.
98 Unlike Charles Demailly, there are frequent descriptions of inner turmoil in
Madame Gervaisais. Perhaps the moment of greatest internal struggle occurs when the heroine chooses to relinquish all attachment to her son as evidence of complete consecration to God. The following excerpts provide a summary of the narrator’s account of this intense process:
Le combat fut long, la dispute intérieure fut épouvantable chez la mère. La lutte dura des semaines, des mois. (…) Mais déjà cependant, d’un jour à l’autre, l’enfant sentait un peu moins de sa mère dans la femme qui le faisait manger, l’em- menait quand elle sortait, laissait tomber par hasard, le matin et le soir, sur son front, la froideur de sa bouche. (…) …cette froideur de Madame Gervaisais grandissait péniblement, au milieu de tourments, de rechutes, de retours qui la rejetaient à son enfant, la traversaient d’envies soudaines de l’étreindre, d’élans dont elle se sauvait en fuyant brusquement dans sa chambre, où elle fondait en larmes, se grondant de ses faiblesses…. (251-52)
The semantic field of struggle, including such phrases as “combat”, “dispute intérieure”,
“lutte”, “péniblement”, “tourments”, “rechutes”, “retours”, “se sauvait en fuyant”, and
“faiblesses”, clearly emphasizes the battle of the will taking place in the protagonist, thus implying a tragic dividedness rather than the inner wholeness typical of melodrama.
Madame Gervaisais feels torn between her religious and maternal fealties, feeling obligated to choose between the two. And yet, the mixed perspective is apparent when the narrator suddenly attributes the final severance between mother and son to “une main puissante et efficace” rather than to the heroine’s own effort:
…tout à coup, une main puissante et efficace lui fit l’effet de lui retourner le cœur et d’en renverser tout ce qui restait de tendre: elle ne se sentit plus aimer son enfant, elle ne se sentit plus aimer personne. (253)
Although her struggle began as an internal one, Madame Gervaisais abruptly becomes the focus of an external power. Once again, the melodramatic influence resurfaces.
Another tragic aspect of Madame Gervaisais’ character is the guilt she experiences when her eyes are opened to the shameful condition of her son. When her
99 brother comes to visit her and reacts in shock to the neglected state of his sister and her household, Madame Gervaisais realizes what she has done and accepts responsibility for their condition:
Les yeux de Madame Gervaisais s’étaient ouverts, comme si, tout à coup, la vue des choses de la terre et son fils rentraient dans son regard épouvanté. Elle se précipita sur l’enfant, lui jeta deux bras de douleur autour du cou, l’embrassa sur ses boutons, et longtemps elle le mouilla de ses larmes, l’agita de ses sanglots. (264)
When she realizes how poorly she has treated Pierre-Charles, she is overcome with grief
and a desire to repair the damage caused by her emotional abandonment. Her reaction is not to hate others or blame her surroundings as would a melodramatic character; her first look is inward and the result of her sense of guilt is inner brokenness:
Ce qui venait de tomber dans le lâche néant de son âme, l’arrivée foudroyante de ce frère, de ce revenant de la famille dans son existence, ce crime contre son fils qu’il avait jeté à sa face de mère, ce fut comme un choc suprême, sous lequel, brisée en dedans, s’écroula la femme qu’avait faite Rome. (265)
I propose that the sudden realization of her maternal crime leads to an experience of
tragic suffering in the protagonist. Significantly though, in the very same passage, the
narrator blames Rome for its transformative work in the phrase “la femme qu’avait faite
Rome”, thus exonerating Madame Gervaisais at least partially by portraying her as
Rome’s victim.
While I conclude from these examples that the heroine manifests more tragic than
melodramatic characteristics, I would suggest that Pierre-Charles’s character represents
almost exclusively melodramatic qualities. He is purely a victim, innocence incarnate, a
living demonstration of the heroine’s deterioration.62 According to Peter Brooks,
melodramatic plays often “put children at center stage as tests of other characters’
62 Ricatte also discusses the way Pierre-Charles’s innocence is used to emphasize the extent of Madame Gervaisais’ madness (423-24).
100 reactions to patent virtue. For children, as living representations of innocence and purity, serve as catalysts for virtuous or vicious actions” (Brooks 34). In the novel, religious extremism could be shown to represent the “vicious actions” of melodrama, as it will be the cause of Pierre-Charles’s suffering and his mother’s insanity and death. Although it is not portrayed as evil, Madame Gervaisais’ first pious act is actually prompted by
Pierre-Charles’s life-threatening illness. In an act of desperation inspired by her son’s closeness to death, she prays to the Madonna del Parto in the hope of obtaining a miraculous healing. Although she does not convert immediately in response to his subsequent recovery, the fact that his rapid improvement directly follows her desperate recourse to prayer leaves its mark on the heroine. In this way, even though Madame
Gervaisais quickly dismisses the event as coincidental, Pierre-Charles’s character serves as a catalyst in this first step toward her conversion.
If we were to complete the melodramatic cast of characters, it would be difficult to assign the role of villain to a specific protagonist. Madame Gervaisais does not fully qualify due to her divided mind and guilty conscience, and even though the harsh Père
Sibilla is the driving force behind her most self-destructive practices, he takes the role of spiritual director against his will and so his demands on Madame Gervaisais are prompted as much by her own masochistic designs as by his “evil” nature. The most likely candidate for the role of villain seems surprisingly to fall to the city of Rome.
Throughout Madame Gervaisais, there are repeated allusions to Rome as a villainous personification of evil. The narrator devotes all of chapter sixty to describe Rome’s subtle luring into religion of even the most wary. In one passage, he summarizes,
Tout s’y rencontre pour vaincre et conquérir une âme par l’obsession, la per- sécution, la conspiration naturelle des choses environnantes; tout y est rassemblé 101 pour mettre un cœur près de la conversion, par la perpétuité, la succession ininter- rompue des atteintes, des impressions, des sensations, et accomplir en lui à la fin ce fréquent miracle du pavé de la Ville éternelle, le miracle d’un chemin de Damas, où les esprits les plus forts d’hommes ou de femmes, terrassés, tombent à genoux. (185)
Here, the temptation Rome presents to its victims is of a religious nature rather than a sexual one as is characteristic of melodrama. In this novel, instead of religion holding the moral universe together, it represents a threat to the power of the intellect, to the preeminence of human reason. The fact that the environment plays such a significant role in the novel underscores a critical ideological shift occurring in nineteenth-century society. The environmental deterministic mindset was so entrenched in writers and their reading public that they could conceive of a location taking on human characteristics, manipulating events and circumstances to specific ends, in short, operating as the most influential character in the novel.63
If artistic literary production represents the “virtue” at risk in Charles Demailly, I would suggest that the related “virtue” of reason is being threatened in the moral universe of Madame Gervaisais. The fact that Père Sibilla isolates the heroine’s intellectualism as the primary target of his project of subjugation provides evidence of this: “Mais dans sa pénitente, ce que le P. Sibilla s’acharna surtout à opprimer, ce fut la pensée” (217).
63 Both Robert Ricatte and Jacques Dubois mention the important role given to Rome in Madame Gervaisais: “Rome entoure et transforme Madame Gervaisais: c’est à ce titre le personnage le plus important du roman” (Ricatte 419) and “…le décor est promu ici au rang d’acteur, puisque Rome est à la source du choc mystique de l’héroïne” (Dubois, Romanciers français de l’Instantané au dix-neuvième siècle (Bruxelles: Palais des Académies, 1963) 95). The theory of environmental determinism was made popular by writers such as Hippolyte Taine who attributed behavior and identity to the factors of race, environment and situation. For more on Taine’s theories, see Pascal Seys, Hippolyte Taine et l’avènement du naturalisme: Un Intellectuel sous le Second Empire (Paris: Harmattan, 1999). Maurice Larkin describes the effect of a deterministic outlook on the development of Realism in the nineteenth century and explains that what distinguished nineteenth-century realism from earlier forms “was its greater concern for material existence as a shaper of Man: a concern which invested the detail of daily existence with an active creative role in the lives of the novelist’s main characters, instead of being largely a back-cloth to their activities. Heredity and environment became major protagonists in the drama, until by the time of Zola they were usurping the stage” (Man and Society in Nineteenth-Century Realisim. Determinism and Literature (Totowa: Rowman, 1977) 2).
102 Connecting religious devotion to mortification of the intellect, Père Sibilla sets out to
abolish all reliance on rational thought in his disciple:
Ce fut alors que, pour finir d’abattre la superbe de cette intelligence, il com- mença à l’arracher à la grandeur, (…) lui prêchant avec l’Imitation la détestation chrétienne de la connaissance et de l’étude, suppliciant enfin, avec une haine opiniâtre et un zèle de fiel, dans cette femme supérieure, ce que l’Église appelle “l’ambition de la curiosité d’une âme”, y éteignant la lumière et le raisonnement, essayant enfin de ne plus laisser à ce cerveau, dans une refonte sacrée et impie, que la crédulité ignorante et les puériles superstitions. (218)
In this passage, the narration clearly portrays Catholicism as incompatible with intellectual thought, thus requiring a suspension of reason and an espousal of superstition and ignorance.
The last issue to consider in terms of the novel’s tragic and melodramatic aspects is the question of suffering and death. Do suffering and death convey a profound message consistent with a tragic perspective or are they involved in the process of restoring the moral order as typical of melodrama? Similar to their function in Charles
Demailly, suffering and death appear to accomplish little good in Madame Gervaisais, leaving the reader with a sense of the futility of pain. The narrative underscores the meaninglessness of Madame Gervaisais’ sacrifices particularly in the final chapter, when she dies just before her audience with the pope:
Enfin, elle parvint à une dernière pièce, ne voyant plus rien, les yeux en arrêt sur une porte, ―la porte derrière laquelle il y avait le Pape. Subitement, un coup de sonnette la traversa, la porte battante s’ouvrit: elle se dressa sur ses pieds en sursaut, courut presque au seuil, s’arrêta court devant l’éclair rouge et sombre de la chambre de pourpre, leva les bras en l’air, s’affaissa lentement sur son enfant. (271-72)
Representing the culmination of her religious zeal, this papal visit might have lent some
meaning to the death of the heroine. However, the death of Madame Gervaisais when
she is within steps of reaching her most desired objective and has not yet attained it
emphasizes the absurdity of all that she has suffered and of all the suffering she has 103 caused. Some scholars believe that Pierre-Charles’s perfectly articulated cry “Ma mère!”
in reaction to his mother’s death, indicates a sudden verbal triumph over his muteness
which was only possible because of this traumatic shock.64 So perhaps, this could be
seen to give some meaning to an otherwise absurd ending. Then again, there is no
evidence of further verbal ability and no indication of future hope for the abandoned son.
There is a collapse of both tragedy and melodrama in Madame Gervaisais similar to that
which occurred at the end of Charles Demailly, since there is no significant knowledge imparted through Madame Gervaisais’ death, the “virtue” of reason never triumphs over the “evil” of religious fanaticism, and the innocent victim is left an orphan under the control of the victorious city of Rome.
I would like to conclude this generic analysis of Madame Gervaisais with several
closing thoughts before moving on to a discussion of fatalism, determinism, and free will in the two novels. Although there is a definite combination of tragic and melodramatic aspects in Madame Gervaisais, I would have to conclude that the scale tips in favor of
melodrama. While the heroine does demonstrate some ability to choose (which I will
examine further in the next section), there seems to be a persistent attempt on the part of
the narrator to absolve her of personal responsibility. Returning to the question of
ideological implications, I believe this to be evidence of a cultural belief in environmental determinism and to be symptomatic of a sense of human smallness and powerlessness in modern society. In his study, David Grimsted theorizes about the difficulty of incorporating tragedy into modern plays and the resulting predominance of melodrama.
64 Martine Mathieu, “De la métaphore à l’allégorie dans Madame Gervaisais,” Les Frères Goncourt: art et écriture, ed. Jean-Louis Cabanès (Bordeaux: PU de Bordeaux, 1997) 312-13.
104 He explains that the tragic hero was privy to an autonomy inconceivable in modern
society, due to the extremely structured quality of modern life.65 Charles Demailly could not completely isolate himself from the world of journalism, therefore, Marthe was able
to use his colleagues and critics as tools to influence him. Madame Gervaisais has the
possibility for more independence and thus engenders more tragic potential than
Demailly, but her environment is portrayed as wielding so much power in shaping her
character that the heroine could not be said to act with full autonomy.
Although a melodramatic perspective appears to dominate over a tragic one, it is
clear that even the melodramatic aspects manifest themselves as limited and transformed
by the Goncourt’s belief system. To summarize the specific ways in which melodrama is
reappropriated in Madame Gervaisais, the city of Rome incarnates the traître who entices
the virtuous intellectual heroine away from reason into evil religious fanaticism, which
causes the suffering of the innocent and defenseless Pierre-Charles. No longer the
guardian and standard bearer of morality, religion becomes the source of immorality in
the novel, for it requires Madame Gervaisais to abandon her faith in reason and causes
her to fail in her maternal obligations.
Fatality, Determinism, or Free Will?
In the beginning of both Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais, the main
protagonists are depicted as spectators of the world in which they live and of the people
who surround them. However, in both novels, the environment, in conjunction with the
respective temperaments of the characters, exerts a powerful, yet unperceived influence
65 “The tragic hero controlled his own destiny with little interference from forces less than those of fate or the gods, but modern man couldn’t achieve such independence” (Grimsted 206).
105 on the hero and heroine. Although they believe themselves to be unaffected by the
people and objects they encounter, the narration continually emphasizes the
transformation occurring without their knowledge.
What I propose to study in this next section is an encoding in the Goncourtian text
of an issue particularly relevant to the nineteenth century—namely, the question of
determinism. Instinctively, human beings cling to their right to freedom, to their ability
to choose, and they feel threatened by anyone or anything that would challenge that right.
The scientific obsession with classification and explanations for human behavior as well
as the pressures of a capitalist economy created a sense of powerlessness and a loss of
individuality in nineteenth-century society. Writers in particular experienced pressure to
write for the consumer rather than for the noble purposes of art they championed and
constantly fought the temptation to seek the approval of the ignorant masses who could
enrich them and the critics who had power to immortalize them. My contention is that
the tension between the desire to exercise personal freedom and the pressure to conform
to the influence of one’s environment is the fundamental conflict being addressed in both
Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais. Moreover, I believe this tension to be so
central in the narrative because it is one of the authors’ most consuming preoccupations.
To study this issue of determinism versus personal agency, I will begin by describing the various external factors to which the narrative continually alludes as working together to assure the eventual demise of the protagonists. Significantly, we find the very same principles at work in the lives of both Charles Demailly and Madame
Gervaisais: both suffer from chronic illness and an extreme impressionability, both characters become increasingly aware of an internal emptiness as the novel progresses,
106 and both are said to be surrounded by people of inferior intellect and beliefs. In order to
analyze this third common element, we will examine the evolution from spectator to actor
that occurs in each character, and the way in which the loss of personal agency seems to
come as a direct result of his/her spectatorship. Through the process of close observation,
the protagonists show signs of being affected and transformed by their objects of
scrutiny. Lastly, we will analyze the domains in the lives of Demailly and Madame
Gervaisais that are not completely dictated by external factors, the areas in which each
protagonist demonstrates some ability to choose. It is precisely at these moments in the
narrative when the reader is best able to detect the aforementioned tension. Demailly
chooses the martyrdom of writing and marriage and Madame Gervaisais the martyrdom
of marriage and religious devotion; yet, both are simultaneously portrayed as products of
their situation rather than completely free agents. It is to this tension that we will turn our
attention in the last part of this section.
In both novels, it is rarely a question of fatality determining events. There are few
references to an obscure metaphysical force directing circumstances, such that the
protagonists experience life as a series of random occurrences leading them in a specific
direction. Instead, there is usually a logical progression that the narration establishes
from one episode to the next and from one emotional state of the characters to the next.
In Charles Demailly, there are virtually no examples of purely chance occurrences
determining events. In Madame Gervaisais, there are a few such examples, but there is a fairly reasonable explanation that one could imagine even for these mysterious happenings. For example, it would be impossible to confirm that Pierre-Charles’s amazing recovery was indeed a miraculous healing in response to his mother’s prayer to
107 the Madonna del Parto rather than simply a natural recuperation from a misdiagnosed
illness. I speculate that the doctor’s gently mocking tone in his consultation with
Madame Gervaisais is a reflection of the narrator’s skepticism concerning the general belief in miraculous healing. Several lines will help to illustrate:
“Et je vous en réponds maintenant, il est sauvé… C’est un miracle, voyez-vous… ―Et il appuya malignement sur le mot “miracle”. ―J’ai été inquiet un moment… (…) Ah ! San-Agostino, reprit-il avec un sourire, fait de belles cures; et si la Madone n’était venue donner un petit coup d’épaule à l’indigne docteur Monterone… (159)
Doctor Monterone’s malicious emphasis on the word “miracle”, his smile, and his mock appreciation for the Madonna del Parto’s assistance all underline his disbelief. As one of the novel’s main “spectators”, a character who is able to maintain his objectivity despite the pressure of his surroundings, the docteur Monterone is likely to express similar views to those of the narrator, the ultimate “spectator” of events. So, rather than supporting a fatalistic perspective, this scene actually seems to communicate the very opposite message—that those events perceived by the secondary characters as involving providential intervention should be attributed to mere coincidence and nothing more.
A similar example occurs at a later stage of Madame Gervaisais’ conversion process. Having become a regular visitor to the church of Gesù, the heroine happens to be present when the priest is preaching an accusatory sermon directly aimed at the princess of Belgiojoso, in which he condemns her for ignoring the clear signs of God’s calling. Perceiving the rebuke to be a message for herself due to its astounding applicability to her circumstances, Madame Gervaisais is convinced that either someone had read her diary or that God had revealed her intimate thoughts directly to the priest.
108 Even when she discovers the true identity of the accused, the heroine becomes convinced
that God had intended to use the priest’s invective to catch her attention:
…l’impression avait été trop forte et trop poignante, pour qu’elle ne demeurât point frappée par la peur religieuse de cet anathème lancé contre une femme osant penser à peu près ce qu’elle pensait. Il y avait eu là comme un éclat de la foudre de l’Église tombée à côté d’elle, et qui l’aurait effleurée. (183)
This part of the passage conveys the heroine’s perception of the situation: a bolt of lightning sent from God that barely missed striking her. Directly following her account, the narrator subtly interposes his perspective:
Bizarrerie des conversions qui ont leur jour, leur heure, qui peuvent venir d’un contre- coup sans raison, que des années amènent, préparent, et que fait jaillir souvent un accident, un hasard, le rien immotivé qui décide et enlève! (183)
In a single sentence, the narrator repeatedly underlines the fortuitous nature of such
catalysts to conversion by using the expressions “bizarrerie”, “sans raison”, “accident”,
“hasard”, and “immotivé”. What the heroine perceives as fatality, the narrator portrays as
pure chance.
Rather than constructing the narrative from a fatalistic point of view, the narrator
clearly delineates the factors that contribute to the transformation of each protagonist.
Since Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais share so many comparable areas of
influence, I will analyze both characters simultaneously. The first characteristics they
share, chronic illness and impressionability, help to provide an explanation for their vulnerability to environmental factors. These personal attributes make it easier for the reader to accept their unusual susceptibility to the influence of their surroundings, thus adding a measure of plausibility to the narrative. Isolated earlier as being Demailly’s
109 source of melodramatic weakness, impressionability increases his powers of observation
and perception, while at the same time making him the continual victim of his senses.66
Connected to his sensitivity is constant physical suffering: “Charles devait peut-
être tout son caractère, ses défaillances comme ses passions, à son tempérament, à son
corps presque toujours souffrant” (107). Not coincidentally, Charles’s health problems
worsen in direct proportion to his discoveries regarding Marthe’s true character.
Although the narration portrays Charles as being unaware of Marthe’s contribution to his
suffering, it seems to convey to the reader a close relation between the two. For example,
chapter fifty-six begins with a description of Marthe’s passive aggressive behavior, the
continuation of “sa petite guerre sourde”, after which the paragraph transitions directly
into an account of Charles’s deteriorating health:
Il tâchait de la distraire, de l’amuser, traitant son moral comme un enfant maussade à qui l’on montre des images, oubliant par moment toutes ses désillusions, et espérant voir le passé revenir en elle peu à peu, préoccupé malgré tout, troublé et ne pouvant travailler. Cependant il se sentait énervé par des malaises dont il ne se rendait pas compte…. C’étaient en lui des souffrances qui passaient, et disparaissaient, une con- tinuité renaissante de sensations pénibles et fugaces, mais persistantes, qu’il attribuait aux grandes chaleurs de cet été exceptionnel. (303-4)
It is as though the narrator were trying to lead the reader to a particular conclusion by
connecting these two seemingly disparate ideas and by emphasizing Charles’s own
ignorance concerning the source of his suffering. Without explicitly naming Marthe as
the direct cause, the narrator implies it here and in other similar passages.
Another example occurs at the end of the preceding chapter. Right after a
description of Marthe’s outrageous all-day beauty treatments—sitting in front of the
66 “…Charles possédait à un degré suprême le tact sensitif de l’impressionnabilité. Il y avait en lui une perception aiguë, presque douloureuse de toutes choses et de la vie. Partout où il allait, il était affecté comme par une atmosphère des sentiments qu’il y rencontrait ou qu’il y dérangeait” (Goncourt, Demailly 105).
110 window every morning for two hours, taking a bath for one hour and spending her
afternoons reclining on the couch, immobile, silent, and strictly forbidding her husband
any physical contact—the narrator adds, “Charles était souffrant depuis quelque temps,
sans trop savoir ce qu’il avait” (302). Here again, the narrator underlines Charles’s
unawareness of the degree to which his wife’s attitude towards him affects his sanity.
Marthe’s behavior is portrayed as destroying his health and his mental soundness so
gradually that it is imperceptible to the hero, even while it is being clearly demonstrated for the reader.
Madame Gervaisais is portrayed as having a sensitive nature like that of Charles, but the narration associates her impressionability more closely with her sex. Although she is described as having a musical temperament and unusually refined artistic taste for a woman, the narrator repeatedly points to her feminine nature as being the primary root cause of her impressionability and ultimately, her religious conversion. Several phrases scattered throughout the text, such as “attendrie dans toutes les fibres intimes de son sexe” (171) and “cette formation cachée d’un être religieux au fond de la femme” (172), as well as some key explanations proffered by the narrator illustrate this:
L’amollissement des premières approches d’une foi la livrait à la séduction de ces sensations spirituelles, dont l’action est si agissante sur l’organisme d’une femme à l’âge où elle redescend sa vie. (176)
Avec sa nature, ses secrètes chaleurs d’amour, si peu dépensées dans sa vie, cette femme de sentiments extrêmes avait vu en imagination, dans la religion, un dur sacrifice, un martyre en détail, une grande occasion d’héroïsme contre elle-même. (210)
These sentences and fragments imply a close correlation between essential femininity and
a proclivity for religious devotion. The narrator stresses the heroine’s sensitive and
emotional character, which makes her defenseless against the spiritual seduction in
process. The term seduction may seem surprising when used in reference to religion, but 111 as the second citation attests, the narrator continually describes Madame Gervaisais’
religious experiences in amorous and even sexual terms. He clearly suggests religious
activity as being a necessary outlet for a lifetime of repressed sexuality.67
In addition to a predisposition to religion resulting from her gender and artistic
sensibilities, the heroine’s fragile health provides another justification for her religious
conversion. The initial reason for her trip to Rome, tuberculosis is described as causing a slow degeneration, such that, according to the narrator, Madame Gervaisais’ brain is
becoming that of a young girl and her soul is being naturally elevated to the immaterial
and the sublime. Chapters ninety-three and ninety-four give a long, detailed account of
this process of which I will only include a summary sentence: “La maladie, la lente
maladie qui éteignait presque doucement la vie de Madame Gervaisais, la phtisie, aidait
singulièrement le mysticisme, l’extatisme, l’aspiration de ce corps, devenant un esprit, vers le surnaturel de la spiritualité” (241).
The second common theme in Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais regarding the interaction of environment and temperament in determining behavior is a shared experience of emptiness in the protagonists that prepares the way for their downfall. For example, in Charles’s diary entry, he writes about the sense of emptiness he experiences after an orgy: “Après quelques ardeurs, une satiété immense, une indigestion morale, un vide, et comme une poche d’eau dans la cervelle” (108). Later, the narrator includes a sensation of emptiness in his description of the hero reacting to the
67 Maria Watroba studies this in detail in her article “Madame Gervaisais, roman hystérique ou mystique,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies 25.1-2 (1996-97): 154-66. She writes, “Madame Gervaisais est conduite au mysticisme par une mauvaise gestion de son économie libidinale: trop d’épargne, pas assez de dépense. Dès lors, la dépense instinctuelle qui n’a pas été faite se convertit en dépense religieuse. Dans la mesure où la religiosité n’est jamais que de la sexualité contrariée, elle relèverait toujours de la conversion” (157).
112 criticism of his first novel: “Il sentait en lui un vide douloureux, une indifférence immense, tout à la fois un dégoût et un besoin d’action” (154). The most significant example comes in a letter included in the text addressed to his old friend Chavannes.
After the funeral of his last living relative, he writes to his friend about the emptiness he feels without a family of his own:
…au fond, je suis triste. Me voilà tout seul dans la vie. (…) À présent, je n’ai plus personne de mon sang, plus de famille… Ah! quand la dernière pelletée de terre tombe sur ce qui vous en restait, il se fait un fier vide en vous, et vous revenez la tête plus basse que vous n’auriez cru. (219)
Ten pages after this letter, Charles unequivocally declares to his literary circle that marriage is not an option for the man of letters, that writing poetry is his substitute for love and literary works his replacement for children. A writer is condemned to spectatorship rather than being allowed to participate in life, which Demailly illustrates through the role of a theater critic: “…la pièce qu’il écoute et regarde, c’est sa vie. Il s’analyse quand il aime, et, quand il souffre, il s’analyse encore… Son âme est quelque chose qu’il dissèque… (…) Nous ne vivons que nos livres…” (231). Then, in the very next chapter, Charles sees Marthe on stage for the first time and falls in love with her.
Only three chapters later, they are married. I believe that the narration portrays the protagonist’s sense of emptiness as unconsciously working in him to desire marriage despite his principles as a writer. His internal void turns his encounter with Marthe into an almost inescapable trap.
In the very same way, the narrator draws the reader’s attention to a similar emptiness in the life of Madame Gervaisais as preparation for her conversion. As in
Charles Demailly, the most significant passage in which she describes this emptiness occurs in a letter:
113 Une chose singulière qui m’arrive: depuis quelque temps, je sens un vide, une solitude en moi. Est-ce l’exil? l’étranger? l’absence? Non, non, il ne faut pas se faire d’illusion. Ma solitude me vient bien de moi, et je ne la tire ni de mon milieu actuel ni des conditions présentes de ma vie. J’ai mon enfant, je l’aime plus que jamais; et pourtant l’aimer et n’aimer que lui ne me remplit plus toute comme autrefois. (…) En fait d’affection humaine, il a tout ce qu’il lui faut. Et que me manque-t-il? Pourquoi ce vide, où, quand ma pensée descend, elle a presque peur? (165)
Despite Madame Gervaisais’ conviction to the contrary, the narration demonstrates that it is precisely her milieu that has created this void within her. As we have already seen, the city of Rome is given almost human qualities as the narrator describes its influence on the heroine. More specifically, it appears to be the omnipresent theme of death operating as
Rome’s tool to anesthetize and empty her mind in order to better conquer her soul.
Madame Gervaisais’ encounters and obsession with death so pervade the narrative that death could be said to form a thematic foundation upon which the entire text is constructed. Even the narration of the heroine’s daily habit of buying a bouquet of flowers serves as an illustration of this thematic substructure:
Tous les jours, Madame Gervaisais revenait de sa promenade du matin avec un de ces paniers. Les fleurs, pendant la journée, s’épanouissaient dans la pièce où elle se tenait; et avec la fin du jour elles commençaient à mourir en suavités exquises, en parfums expirants, comme si de leurs couleurs fanées s’exhalaient leurs adieux odorants. (…) À regarder un camélia luisant et verni, une rose aux bords défaillants, au cœur de soufre où semble extravasée une goutte de sang, ses yeux avaient une volupté. (87-8)
In addition to Madame Gervaisais’ regular confrontations with the morbidity of Rome in her visits to the colosseum68 and burial grounds69, continual religious celebrations of
68 “Elle se rebâtit toute vivante cette grande scène où s’étaient rencontrées, comme des deux bouts et des deux extrémités du cœur humain, la passion de voir mourir et la folie de mourir…” (83).
69 “Elle longea le mausolée de Cécilia Metella. La Via Appia continuait. De la plaine, une brise du soir se leva, ainsi que de la pierre soulevée d’un immense tombeau. Madame Gervaisais s’enveloppa de son châle contre la fraîcheur, songeuse, rêvant, pensant à cette grande Rome où menaient des avenues de tombes, et qui plantait tout le long de ses routes, sur le pas du départ et du retour, au lieu de l’ombre de ses arbres, l’ombre de ses morts” (142).
114 Christ’s Crucifixion70, her contemplation of macabre artwork71 and of the ancient city
itself72, the heroine is fascinated with death to such an extreme that she creates a daily spectacle for herself in a dying bouquet of flowers emanating their fragrance of death as
the day progresses. The view of a yellow rose with wilting petals and a red center evokes
a comparison to a drop of blood spilling out, which is said to create a voluptuous sensation in the heroine.
The numerous references to death that saturate the narrative lay the groundwork for Madame Gervaisais’ conversion. As death mesmerizes her, she gradually allows her mind to be emptied of her long-held beliefs in philosophy and her reliance upon intellectual reasoning. With little left to occupy her mind, the narrator concludes, “Dans le vide de sa pensée, dans la solitude de sa tête, un jour, se leva sans raison, sans motif,
sans cause, la figure du Christ” (147). In this remark, the narrative voice is purposely ambiguous. As I have just shown, the text is carefully constructed to demonstrate the persistent work of death in preparing the protagonist for her surrender to religious belief and yet, this statement alleges that the thought of Christ in the mind of the heroine is
“sans raison, sans motif, sans cause”. Although these lines are attributed to the narrator, he seems to be expressing the view of the heroine, for whom there is no connection
70 In a letter to her brother, Madame Gervaisais describes a religious procession commemorating the death of Christ and featuring “une grande, très grande bannière, brodée et peinte, où des gouttes de sang pleuraient sur une face de Christ” (98).
71 “Il y a à Saint-Pierre une superbe et royale porte de la Mort: c’est un portique de marbre noir, sur lequel s’enlèvent de travers les tibias envolés d’un squelette doré soulevant la solide portière, la tenture écrasante qui lui retombe sur le crâne, et fait un masque aveuglé à l’image du Trépas dressant en l’air, au-dessus du passant, avec le bout de ses phalanges d’os, le sablier du Temps éternel” (114).
72 “Une solennité immobile et muette, une grandeur de mort, un repos pétrifié, le sommeil d’une ville endormie par une puissance magique ou vidée par une peste, pesait sur la cité sans vie, aux fenêtres vides, aux cheminées sans fumée, au silence sans bruit d’activité ni d’industrie, où rien ne tombait qu’un tintement de cloche, espacé de minute en minute” (103-4).
115 between her environment and her sudden interest in religion. For the narrator, in
contrast, the morbid atmosphere of Rome is the primary cause of her transformation.
My theory is that the very aptitude for and acts of close observation lead to
Madame Gervaisais’ religious fanaticism and Charles’s insanity. Neither character believes herself/himself to be affected by what or whom she/he observes, but both develop conditions that bear the marks of their objects of scrutiny. The narrator presents
Madame Gervaisais and Charles Demailly as characters superior to those around them yet susceptible to their influence. As I mentioned in the introductory chapter, in her study on
American naturalism, June Howard argues that a clear division between spectators and actors in a literary work is evidence of the influence of naturalism.73 What is noteworthy
in these two Goncourtian novels is that although the main protagonists behave initially as
spectators, they both show signs of being profoundly influenced by what they observe,
thus taking on the characteristics of actors by the end of the novels. While the typical
naturalist division is apparent at first, the carefully constructed dividing wall between
spectators and actors erodes gradually throughout the course of each novel.
The character Charles Demailly is portrayed as a more highly skilled writer than
the rest of his colleagues at Le Scandale. The other journalists even acknowledge his
superiority while they also envy it intensely. When Charles isolates himself in order to
focus on writing his first novel, two of his former colleagues, Nachette and Couturat,
publish vehement attacks against him. Occupied with a more important literary project,
Charles does not reply to the offensive articles:
73 For a thorough investigation of the actors and spectators dichotomy, see the chapter entitled “Slumming in Determinism: Naturalism and the Spectator,” Form and History in American Literary Naturalism (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1985) 104-41.
116 C’était le premier châtiment qu’inflige le petit journal à celui qui le quitte, et qui n’ayant plus d’arme, voit tous les ressentiments, toutes les rancunes et toutes les jalousies qu’il a semées derrière lui sortir de leur passivité et de leur silence, prendre voix, s’enhardir et commencer à se venger. Mais Charles en fut à peine effleuré, il oublia de s’en souvenir après les avoir lus, tant il était distrait par son livre, tant son œuvre le remplissait! (132)
The narrator emphasizes Charles’s superiority by contrasting his complete indifference
with the intense jealousy and resentment felt by those he leaves behind. Demailly has no need to participate in petty rivalries because he is confident in his greater skill and focused on pursuing his nobler goals. Another demonstration of his superiority occurs
when Couturat offers him the opportunity to edit his newspaper and Demailly
categorically refuses: “‘Si je refuse, c’est tout simplement que je veux essayer de faire
quelque chose qui ressemble à une œuvre. Et puis c’est peut-être un préjugé, mais je
crois que les gens d’esprit passent dans le journalisme, mon cher, et n’y restent pas…’”
(142). Demailly declares his ambitious goals clearly in this remark and implies that he
considers journalists to be inferior to true men of letters. Not surprisingly, this
condescending statement only fuels the fire of a deep resentment that will smolder and
eventually burn the hero so seriously that he never fully recovers.
Another indication that Demailly belongs initially to the group of spectators rather
than actors is his approach to writing. His novel is described as being an analysis of
bourgeois society, a breakdown of the social class into its constituent parts and a study of
its stages of development:
…quoique l’œuvre tentée par Charles appartînt plus au domaine de l’observation qu’au monde de la pure imagination, elle demandait une création d’ensemble et de souvenir, une invention d’après nature, l’idée animante du romancier social. (…) Dans son roman, l’idée mère était la gradation et l’assemblage de trois générations de la bourgeoisie, montrée à ses trois âges et sous ses trois formes. (130)
117 In this description, Charles is depicted as capable of distancing himself from the social class to which he belongs in order to provide an objective account of the bourgeoisie.
Closer to a scientific analysis than to a traditional novel, his literary project assigns him
to the category of the knowledgeable, the professional, and the rational.
Likewise, from the beginning of their marriage and especially when Charles begins to detect faults in Marthe’s character, he assumes the role of judge of her conscience. To illustrate this point, it will suffice to list the expressions used in reference to Charles’s attitude toward his wife: “jugeant l’esprit de sa femme” (263), “les premières investigations de Charles” (264), “Charles, dont les yeux s’ouvraient (…) commençaient à voir clair dans l’intelligence de sa femme” (275), “Charles se mit à
éprouver l’esprit de sa femme et à fouiller son âme” (279), “Il resta stupéfait de ses découvertes” (279), “Maintenant je l’ai déshabillé au moral du haut en bas” (280), “Je ne suis plus un mari, je suis un public: je juge. J’analyse ma femme froidement, aussi froidement que la femme d’un autre. Je la regarde, je la vois comme si j’avais devant les yeux la coupe morale de son être” (331). The semantic field of investigation makes the scientific study of Marthe’s character in progress quite apparent. There is no question which protagonist is depicted as superior, especially since Marthe is said to be totally
unaware of her husband’s ongoing research into her character: “Marthe ne se doutait de
rien, et avec la liberté, l’aisance, et cette loquacité qui vient aux femmes avec l’aisance,
elle se confessait sans le savoir” (279). Marthe is the perfect psychological subject: a
talkative, ignorant, and unsuspecting female.
As I noted earlier, Charles’s health deteriorates in proportion to his discoveries of
Marthe’s despicable personality traits. Through the combined efforts of Nachette,
118 Marthe, and Couturat, not only does Demailly lose his physical health, he loses his
mental sanity. Although seeing Marthe unexpectedly on stage at the very end of the
novel brings the final blow to his fragile mental stability, it is the journalistic plot to
discredit Charles in the eyes of his literary circle that terminates his career prematurely,
drives him away into self-imposed exile, and eventually sends him to an insane asylum.
The narrator describes the rapid decline of his reasoning ability in chapter eighty-six
during the period of Charles’s isolation:
Chaque jour augmentait en lui le trouble de ce bien-être intime que fait dans l’homme la conscience de la raison. Entre lui et les sensations se rompait peu à peu la chaîne des rapports…. (424)
Qui dira l’humiliation de cette faculté d’orgueil, la torture de cette raison? Et maintenant faites déchirer par toutes ces douleurs un homme ayant mis toutes ses espérances précisément là, dans ce cerveau, un homme qui s’était flatté d’en régler la fièvre et d’en tirer la fortune de son nom et l’immortalité de ses idées…. (425)
So, despite his initial superiority to those around him, Charles loses the very basis for it
when he suffers the loss of his intellectual faculties. It would seem that merely the fact of
his coexistence with inferiors coupled with his impressionability are sufficient to bring about his downfall. Charles’s character is shown to degenerate from that of spectator to actor as he is divested of all capacity for critical or independent thought. As evidence of his complete deterioration, I will only recall the previously cited passage in which
Charles is described as an animal in the final scene. Another key passage recounts his final unsuccessful attempt to resume his writing:
…ramassant un jour ses forces et son énergie, il voulut lutter une dernière fois sur son terrain. Il se jeta à une table, écrivant, couvrant en courant des pages d’écriture, et jetant tout haut des mots sans suite en l’air. Puis il laissa retomber la plume, et vint se rasseoir accablé, et comme vaincu, au coin de la cheminée, sur un fauteuil qu’il ne voulut plus quitter. (425)
From analyst Charles regresses to the ranks of the analyzed. Watched and followed by
his housekeeper, examined and diagnosed by his doctor, force-fed and punished by the 119 staff of the mental institution, Demailly is left with no personal agency in the closing
chapters of the novel. The narrative mercilessly deprives him of the last bit of self-
respect by mentioning Marthe’s participation in the decision to institutionalize him: “La femme de Charles fut prévenue. (…) Un conseil de famille prononça l’interdiction, et le malade fut transporté à Charenton” (434). The very person among his acquaintances whom Charles most dominated intellectually and who was most responsible for his demise now has power to decide his fate.
We can observe a comparable process in the life of the heroine of Madame
Gervaisais. Like Demailly, Madame Gervaisais is said to possess superior qualities to those who surround her, to be one of the rare members of the female bourgeoisie who exhibits “le goût des choses d’intelligence”. To account for her exceptional tastes, the narrator recounts the premature death of her mother, her isolation from other children and age-appropriate activities during her youth and the resulting comfort she found in the books of her father’s favorite reading room, which served as her “seules poupées”.
According to the narrator, the product of her abundant exposure to history, science, and especially philosophy, was the development in the heroine of an extraordinary insight into the human soul:
Une curiosité supérieure et dominante s’emparait d’elle et la poussait à chercher le mécanisme secret des facultés, à essayer d’entr’ouvrir le sanctuaire voilé et caché des pensées et des sensations, à étudier sur sa propre intelligence l’esprit humain tout entier. (…) …elle parvenait à une remarquable puissance d’observation interne: peu à peu elle se forçait à sentir des choses que les autres ne sentent pas; et avec l’espèce de lucidité de “voyante” qui lui venait pour ce monde indistinct, fermé à l’aveug- lement du commun des vivants, et si ténébreux encore pour la science elle-même, elle apercevait par instants à l’horizon, à travers le déchirement d’un vaste voile, des éclaircies qui doivent faire, un jour, la lumière sur tous les grands mystères de l’humaine pensée. (95)
120 This “femme philosophe” is depicted as able to perceive far more than the average
person, as belonging to the intelligentsia of her period. As such, the narrator clearly
assigns her to the category of spectator in the novel.
Again recalling Howard’s study, where there is a spectator, there is often the
presence of windows to illustrate the clear separation between the world of actors and
that of the spectator.74 Whether from behind the window of her apartment or carriage
door and sometimes without a physical separation, Madame Gervaisais is constantly
portrayed as observing the world around her. For example, in the first part of the novel, the narrator describes her regular habit of looking out the window of her apartment: “De temps en temps, elle suivait entre les lames des persiennes le spectacle changeant de la place d’Espagne…” and “Le plus souvent, après son dîner, elle ne sortait pas, demeurait à la fenêtre, écoutait le bruit décroissant de la place…” (86).
In chapter twenty-seven, the condescension with which the heroine observes the
Roman peasants in church on Holy Saturday is striking. Several excerpts will help to demonstrate the distance established between the spectating heroine and the ignorant masses:
Le Samedi Saint, l’intérieur de Saint-Jean de Latran donnait à Madame Gervaisais le spectacle de la piété fauve qu’y apporte, avec sa foi d’animal sauvage, le peuple de la campagne de Rome. (…) Madame Gervaisais était surprise qu’un grand artiste n’eût pas saisi cette sculpture des poses, (…) la stupeur presque bestiale de cette prière. Le tableau surtout la frappa des confessions élancées de femmes qui, debout, la bouche tendue, plaquée contre le cuivre du confessionnal, se soutenaient et s’appuyaient avec leurs deux mains près de leur tête, posées à plat contre le bois, dans le mouvement de ces buveuses de campagne approchant la bouche d’un filet d’eau plus haut que leur bouche. …elle admira encore un triple rang de femmes, à la beauté dure, pressées, serrées l’une
74 “The window offers a location for defining the self and the Other; it also invites one to consider the boundary” (Howard 115).
121 contre l’autre, versées et tassées par places, comme un troupeau effaré, (…) qui avaient l’air, contre la balustrade, de ruminer l’Eucharistie…(emphasis mine). (125-27)
I have drawn attention to the two semantic fields in this passage that serve to distinguish between the spectator and the actors. This example provides a useful illustration, since it
is quite extreme: the narrator identifies the actors by the animalistic terms “fauve”,
“animal sauvage”, “bestial”, “troupeau”, and “ruminer” and the spectator by the artistic
expressions “spectacle”, “artiste”, “saisi”, “sculpture”, “poses”, “frappa”, “tableau”, and
“admira”. The Roman peasants are so divested of personal agency that they are likened
to wild beasts and later, to a herd of cows chewing the cud of their Communion bread.
By contrast, Madame Gervaisais takes in the scene as an appreciator of fine art who is
admiring a sculpture or enjoying a fascinating painting. The picture of the confessional
identifies yet another layer of spectatorship, with the priest, carefully hidden from view behind the brass grill, assuming a god-like role in the eyes of the repentant. The narrator goes on to describe these women as thirsty souls drinking from a trickling water source just out of reach.
This image of the confessional is quite significant in the text, as the narrator will revisit it many times to measure and accentuate the extent of Madame Gervaisais’ transformation. After a detailed description of the confessional of the church of Gesù, the narrator reveals it to be the heroine’s new destination of choice:
C’était le confessionnal où régulièrement, le mardi et le vendredi, le P. Giansanti recevait la confession de Madame Gervaisais. Souvent elle y passait près de deux heures pendant lesquelles, du confesseur secret, caché, ténébreux, invisible, enfoncé et disparu là, sans tête et sans visage, ne paraissait qu’une main qui tenait renversé le petit volet derrière lequel le Père écoutait masqué…. L’heure se passait, puis la demie: Madame Gervaisais posait son front, qu’elle avait peine à porter, contre l’accotoir. (189-90)
122 Whereas in the former passage, Madame Gervaisais observed the penitent and the confessor as one superior to both the actors and even to the priest (another spectator in the novel), now she enters as a full participant into the scene and submits herself to the authority of the priest. The line of demarcation between the “professional” and “the powerless” remains clear, but the heroine has now crossed over to the other side of the dividing line. Although the description of an exhausted Madame Gervaisais pressing her forehead against the headrest of the confessional does not evoke the same desperation as the image of the thirsty peasant women, it nonetheless invites a comparison and places her in a similar category with them. It is not long before Madame Gervaisais’ confessions become more frequent: “Madame Gervaisais se confessait alors quatre fois par semaine, et communiait tous les dimanches. Et ses confessions, pour être si rapprochées, si fréquentes, n’en étaient pas plus courtes” (204). In addition to her regular confessions, she also joins the ranks of the female communicants described in the earlier passage.
As I mentioned before, her second spiritual director, Père Sibilla, makes it his express goal to thoroughly subjugate the heroine’s reliance on her own powers of reason.
The narrator records various stages of this process, recounting each sacrifice Madame
Gervaisais is required to make against her natural inclinations. She abandons her favorite religious books, forsakes her social connections, and gives the majority of her furniture and clothes away to the poor. But, the changes impact the heroine far beyond the realm of externals. The process described involves a severing of all earthly attachments on the heart level as well as the physical, so that, in the end, she achieves such a complete
123 detachment that she no longer feels love for her son75, exercises her refined tastes76, or desires anything at all:
Elle n’attendait plus rien, elle n’espérait plus rien, elle n’avait plus envie de rien, elle n’était plus touchée par rien. Parfois, elle avait dans les yeux l’absence et l’effacement d’un regard d’aveugle; et elle tombait dans un abîme d’indifférence où le vide, les épuisements, les pertes de son être, paraissaient la faire presque un peu défaillante à la Religion même. (260)
Like Demailly, this protagonist is divested of the very qualities used initially by the
narrator to define her character and to establish her identity for the reader, i.e. her artistic
taste, her skills of observation, her keen intellect. In this passage, the heroine has
regressed so far from the realm of spectators that her look is compared to that of a blind
person. Her total indifference towards life and even religion make her hardly even qualified to be an actor—the character is relegated to a living death, not unlike that of
Demailly.
While some of Madame Gervaisais’ sacrifices are imposed by her spiritual
directors, many of them are self-inflicted. For example, the narrator informs us that even
the brutal Père Sibilla forbids the heroine to wear a penitential hair shirt, so she secretly
invents an even more painful version of her own by sewing thorny rose branches into the
fabric worn next to her skin. We learn of this when Honorine, the housekeeper, notices
bloodstains on the tips of small branches in her mistress’ blouses and the narrator
explains: “Madame Gervaisais avait, sur le refus du P. Sibilla de lui laisser porter un
cilice, pris l’habitude de coudre, sur la toile qui couvrait sa poitrine, de petites branches
de rosier dont les épines lui déchiraient la peau” (237). This is noteworthy since it
75 “…elle ne se sentit plus aimer son enfant, elle ne se sentit plus aimer personne” (253).
76 “L’artiste, la femme prédestinée aux jouissances raffinées du beau, était parvenue à se faire, de ses sens exquis et raffinés, des sens de peuple” (233).
124 reveals the portion of free will still accorded to the protagonist. Although Madame
Gervaisais gives the appearance of perfect submission to Père Sibilla’s authority, she nonetheless rebels in secret.
This example brings me to the third part of my analysis of fatality, determinism, and free will in Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais—namely, the intersection of
determinism and free will in the novels. At what moment do determinism and free will
operate simultaneously in the Goncourtian text and when this occurs, to what degree is
this coexistence problematic and incongruous? This analysis will accomplish some
significant final groundwork before I draw parallels between the authors, their lives, and
their literary work in the third and last section of the chapter.
In the generic analysis portion of my study, I observed that Charles Demailly is
portrayed more often as a victim than as a contributor to his suffering. However, there are at least two areas in which the protagonist is granted a measure of free will: in both
his identity as a man of letters and to a lesser extent, his decision to marry Marthe.
Throughout the novel, there are repeated references to the theme of martyrdom as a way
of describing these two spheres of Demailly’s existence. Despite their vastly different
subjects, plot, and characters, Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais unexpectedly
share this theme. Since the treatment of the subject of martyrdom is much more
extensive in Madame Gervaisais, it will require an analysis of greater depth, but
observing the way it functions in Charles Demailly will serve as an introduction. The
term martyrdom makes somewhat of a surprising appearance in a predominantly
deterministic text, because although it involves suffering and even submission for the
125 sake of a higher calling, it also implies conscious choice rather than mere victimization.77
A novel constructed from a deterministic perspective often involves the suffering of innocent characters, but the idea of martyrdom would seem inconsistent with determinism, because it implies an ability on the part of the characters to choose and in some cases, invent their own suffering. However unattractive this choice might appear, it still represents one remaining option in the otherwise deterministic world of the
Goncourtian novel.
In the earlier descriptions of Demailly, when we first discover his dedication to the world of letters and observe him as he undertakes his first important literary project, we learn that, far more than a career, literary production is a religion for the protagonist.
For example, in chapter sixteen the narrator explains, “Charles n’avait qu’un amour, qu’un dévouement, qu’une foi: les lettres. Les lettres étaient sa vie; elles étaient tout son cœur. Il s’y était voué tout entier; il y avait jeté ses passions…” (107). For Demailly and the other “true” men of letters in the novel, writing requires a death to the world, not unlike the spiritual death sought by Madame Gervaisais. The narrator describes the writing of Demailly’s novel as a mystical, out-of-body experience, during which his mind becomes completely detached from physical desires and preoccupations:
Le travail! le travail mystère de vie profond comme ce mystère de mort: le sommeil! un état actif de l’homme, où l’homme échappe à la chair et s’en dégage; où l’homme n’a plus faim, n’a plus froid (…) ce débarras et cette évasion du corps qui donnent à l’esprit la libre volée d’une âme dans le monde immatériel des ab- stractions; cette fièvre divine, Charles la posséda et en vécut pendant de longs jours. (…) Et plus il allait, plus il s’enfonçait tout entier dans le travail, plus il mourait au monde. (126)
77 Danielle Thaler touches briefly on this idea in her analysis of Soeur Philomène and Germinie Lacerteux: “La relation entre martyre et fatalité reste fort complexe. Car si la fatalité s’impose à l’individu, le martyre symbolise sa résistance, sa volonté face au destin. L’héroïne se révèle aussi être une rebelle, et pas seulement parce qu’elle transgresse les interdictions que lui oppose le code social. Il y a une part de choix dans le chemin de croix qu’elle accomplit” (220). 126
In the middle, uncited section of this lengthy passage, there is a thorough description of this death of the senses that occurs in order to facilitate the mind’s optimal functioning.
In addition to the expression “fièvre divine”, more religious language is used to translate the hero’s experience of exhilaration when he completes his novel: “C’était en lui une joie sourde, un contentement qui le pénétrait, cette intime et grande satisfaction que l’homme éprouve après la création, comme après un essai et une œuvre de sa divinité”
(128). In contrast to Madame Gervaisais, Demailly is said to actually attain a god-like sensation through literary creation. Whereas the first protagonist detaches herself from worldly affections in order to experience closeness to God, the second forsakes material concerns, so that he might actualize his own divine attributes.
Later, when Demailly becomes a recognized member of the literary elite, he boasts in a letter to his friend Chavannes of the cruel suffering a true man of letters must endure. The first person plural in the following passage attests to Charles’s identification with this priesthood of letters:
Toutes les religions nous manquent, oui, mais nous avons notre religion, une religion de tête pour laquelle nous luttons, souffrons, mourons: la conscience de l’esprit. Les ironies, les insultes, les insolences de redoutables, le travail, un travail du jour et de la nuit, un travail de fièvre qui épuise, vieillit, tue; une vie sans repos, la lutte, toujours la lutte; les maux du corps et les lassitudes de l’âme, la longue épreuve, le long martyre d’une pensée qui confesse jusqu’au bout ses croyances spirituelles…. (…) Nous allons, les yeux à une autre étoile des mages. Les uns tombent, d’autres se lassent, nous semons les morts et les traînards sur notre chemin, et, serrant nos rangs, ralliant le drapeau, nous ne nous retournons pas… (199)
Again, a religious theme dominates in this literary credo, as it proclaims the willingness of men of letters to sacrifice everything for their ideals, even to the point of bearing insults, suffering, and death. Comparing men of letters to the wise men of the Bible who were seeking God, Demailly declares that they follow a different star in the hope of
127 attaining “l’Idéal”. Although religious terminology had already been used to describe the
world of letters, here, the theme of martyrdom is explicit for the first time, as Demailly
describes the high cost of staying true to one’s beliefs and persevering in one’s literary
calling despite opposition, exhaustion, and physical suffering.
The theme of martyrdom reappears in a different context in the latter part of the novel. From the suffering of letters, Demailly regresses to the martyrdom of marriage.
While there are many references to this theme, I would suggest that the meaning of martyrdom shifts slightly, since Charles submits to his wife’s torture as a victim. He is not suffering voluntarily with confidence that he is accomplishing a higher good, as with his literary production. As we saw earlier in the analogy of the ventriloquist, the narrator holds him partly accountable for stepping into the trap of marriage, since he created the illusion for himself. He wants to believe that a true exchange of ideas is possible between him and his wife, that Marthe’s character is as beautiful and innocent as her appearance. Although the narrator assigns a small portion of the blame to Charles, the majority falls not to the deceived or even to the deceiver, but to the power of the illusion.
Describing this husband-martyr, the narrator explains,
Il se peut que le mariage le blesse autant que la femme, et comme elle, aux endroits nobles, élevés, tendres et douloureux de son être. Pour ne pas pleurer, il a comme la femme, ses découvertes, ses souffrances, ses larmes, les plaies que font les trahisons de l’illusion, de l’espérance, de l’avenir, de la vie, de la foi dans une compagne semblable à lui… Imaginez ce pauvre diable, sous le mensonge du corps et sous la comédie du reste, sous les dehors, sous les parures, sous tout ce qui arrête le regard et le jugement, et les empêche de voir et de fouiller…. La femme ne se lit pas comme l’homme. Elle est enveloppée, fermée, cachée souvent à elle-même. (286)
The narrator’s contention is that although it is traditionally the miserable wife-martyr
featured and pitied in nineteenth-century novels, many times the husband deserves compassion for the disillusions he experiences in marriage. Notice the emphasis in this
128 passage on the misleading feminine exterior that deters a man from careful investigation
into a woman’s character. According to the narrator, deception is so much a part of a
woman’s makeup that her true nature is even hidden from herself. Marthe serves as an
extreme illustration of this as she transfers the roles she learns for the theater to the real
world and believes herself to actually live the lives of these fictional characters. In this
way, Marthe exists in a fantasy world and is out of touch with reality. In fact, both
Charles and Marthe believe in the illusions they themselves create and look to the other
person to help maintain them. So, while Charles chooses to marry Marthe and then
suffers at her hands, he is not portrayed as a true martyr but as a victim of this double illusion.
Significantly, Madame Gervaisais was a wife-martyr long before choosing the path of religious martyrdom. In contrast to Demailly, this protagonist was under no illusions when she chose to marry Monsieur Gervaisais. She agreed to marry someone for whom she felt no love, friendship, or respect to fulfill the dying wish of her father:
“A ce bonheur de ses derniers jours, à ce vœu près de la mort, elle s’était sacrifiée” (135).
The theme of self-sacrifice persists in this chapter as the narrator recounts the daily torture of life married to a man of inferior character and intelligence. For example,
Une persécution hypocrite, la persécution lassante, incessante, acharnée, d’un petit esprit, tous les supplices mesquins et taquins qu’invente la méchanceté des imbéciles, le martyre sous la torture de la rancune d’un sot qui lui jetait toujours, et à propos de tout, sa phrase ironique: “Vous, une femme si supérieure! (emphasis mine)” (136)
I have accentuated the semantic field of affliction in order to demonstrate the narrator’s
depiction of the heroine. I believe that the narration is intentionally presenting the
heroine as someone who has grown accustomed to suffering and has come to accept it as
129 a necessary proof of love. As she chose to sacrifice for her earthly father, so she chooses
to sacrifice for her spiritual Father.
Another way in which the narration prepares the reader for the heroine’s extreme acts of self-denial is by stressing her obsession with martyrdom in Rome. Related to the fascination with death that we already studied, martyrdom is evoked specifically in
numerous places. This is significant, because while the heroine’s constant study of death seems to mainly anesthetize or empty her mind, martyrdom has a different function. Her encounters with martyrdom appear to nourish a desire for choosing and designing her
own form of suffering. In a strange way, it affords Madame Gervaisais an opportunity to
assert her independence and individuality. As long as she can choose how and when she
suffers, she still maintains a degree of autonomy and control over her life.
We have already examined some of Madame Gervaisais’ self-imposed sacrifices,
but it would be helpful to review the various forms in which she encounters martyrdom
before forging her own path. The first thought related to the subject occurs in the Roman
colosseum, when she remembers its main role of providing a spectacle of death: “Elle se
rebâtit toute vivante cette grande scène où s’étaient rencontrées, comme des deux bouts et
des deux extrémités du cœur humain, la passion de voir mourir et la folie de mourir…”
(83). I would suggest that the two extremities of the human heart mentioned actually
coincide in Madame Gervaisais’ pursuit of martyrdom. Through the sacrifices she makes
in the name of religion, she finds a means of causing her own death and providing herself
with a spectacle of it. As we saw in the example of her daily bouquet of flowers,
Madame Gervaisais becomes obsessed with watching death at work during her stay in
Rome. Her fixation develops to such an extreme that she becomes enamored with death
130 and specifically with anticipating her own death: “Lentement et sombrement enivrée,
Madame Gervaisais devenait ‘amoureuse de la Mort’; et la Mort lui tardait comme une
venue d’amour. Elle en avait faim et soif. Et elle s’impatientait de l’attendre” (256).
Waiting for her death and speeding its coming have become the primary goals of her life.
Another indirect encounter with martyrdom occurs when the comtesse
Lomanossow recounts the martyr’s death of her relative condemned to marry an eighty- year old woman. After the almost comical account of this revered ancestor dying on an
icy nuptial bed, the heroine’s influential friend expresses her strong desire to die as a
martyr: “une sourde envie et des appétits sauvages d’une mort martyrisée” (168-69).
This story plants a seed in the mind of Madame Gervaisais that, as it grows, will help
justify her self-destructive behavior and eventually result in her own “mort martyrisée”.
Another comical moment in the text is also connected to the theme of martyrdom.
The narrator devotes an entire chapter to describe the eccentric and totally inept doctor
Pacifico Scarafoni, before we discover that Madame Gervaisais has requested his
services. When he arrives to treat his new patient, his disheveled appearance and strange
manner are enough to frighten her into sending him away immediately, but suddenly, he
changes his tactic. Guessing that she is religious, he attempts to earn her trust by
claiming to mix “martyr paste” into his homeopathic powders: “j’y mêle, j’y mêle…―il dit cela en baissant religieusement la voix et les yeux―…de la pâte des Martyrs… Oui,
de la pâte des Saints-Martyrs…’” (232). The theatrical effect of the mad doctor’s eyes
and voice adds to the comic value of his claim, while it also seems to translate the
narrator’s skepticism. Like the previous example, the comedy related to martyrdom
undermines the seriousness of the protagonist’s conversion and associates her with the
131 ranks of the ignorant, religious fanatics of Rome. Elsewhere, the narrator blames the
general atmosphere of the papal city for feeding the heroine’s desire for martyrdom:
“Rome, avec ses martyrs, le soupir de leurs tombes dans les corridors du Vatican; Rome,
avec ses grands ossuaires, ses ostensions et ses vénérations de reliques, les fragments de
membres, les linges sanglants, les morceaux de Saints et de morts miraculeux…” (184).
The narrative is constructed in such a way that every direction the protagonist turns
brings her into contact with examples of martyrdom and encourages her inclination
towards suffering, whether it be her visits to museums, churches, tourist attractions or
encounters with peers, priests, or doctors.
The fact that these various encounters with martyrdom inspire the heroine to
create her own version of masochism seems to corroborate the theory of environmental
determinism. However, I contend that martyrdom lies at the juncture of determinism and
free will, since, while the environment helps to form the desire for martyrdom within the
heroine, she consciously uses it as a means of asserting her freedom to choose, to
determine the outcome of her life. To illustrate this further, I will investigate Madame
Gervaisais’ relationships with her confessors. These are significant, because, although
the priests exert authority over the protagonist, they only wield as much power over her
as she grants them and therefore do not function solely as spectators. In both the case of
Père Giansanti and Père Sibilla, the heroine carefully selects them to be her confessors, and when she becomes impatient with the first priest’s indulgent attitude toward her, she simply searches for a more demanding spiritual director:
Ce qui lui manquait et lui faisait défaut, c’était une absence d’aliment à des appétits nouveaux, et tout à coup irrités en elle: un goût lui était venu, un désir de rigueur, d’âpreté, de sévérité, de pénitences rudes. Le confesseur di manica larga, à l’absolution coulante et facile, suffisant pour la routinière dévotion traditionnelle du pays ne lui 132 suffisait pas. Il lui fallait, à elle, le prêtre qui en demande trop. …cette femme de senti- ments extrêmes avait vu en imagination, dans la religion, un dur sacrifice, un martyre en détail, une grande occasion d’héroïsme contre elle-même. Elle ambitionnait d’y trouver la privation, l’immolation, une sorte de sainte torture journalière. (210)
The references in this passage to Madame Gervaisais’ pursuit of martyrdom could not be
more explicit. The verb “ambitionnait” emphasizes that it is the heroine herself who
longs for and seeks new forms of daily torture.
Since her current confessor is too lenient for her tastes, she determines to find
someone who shares her preference for harsher forms of penitence. Again, the
expressions used to describe the heroine’s search for a new director underscore her strong
will, thus revising the picture of total victimization and subjugation: “Elle cherchait à se
renseigner, essayant de se mettre sur la trace d’un sévère pénitencier…” (211), “Madame
Gervaisais eut l’ambition de l’avoir pour directeur” (214), “Mais le refus net, presque
impoli du P. Sibilla, ne faisait qu’exaspérer le désir de Madame Gervaisais…” (215).
Spurred on rather than deterred by Père Sibilla’s categorical refusal, the heroine
redoubles her efforts and obtains a recommendation from the pope himself.
Unexpectedly, this heroine who shows signs of conforming to the pressures of her
environment divests one of the novel’s authority figures of his personal agency, since he
must submit his will to that of the pope and consent to become her spiritual director.
Portrayed as belonging to the strictest religious order in Rome, Père Sibilla is indeed an ideal candidate for Madame Gervaisais. Not coincidentally, the elected Père
Sibilla is said to have an excess of martyr’s blood flowing in his veins among other noteworthy characteristics: “soldat avant d’être moine”, “l’apôtre désireux des dangers et se sentant le trop-plein du sang des martyrs dans les veines”, “missionaire à travers les
peuplades sauvages”, “l’air d’avoir pris, dans son apostolat chez les noirs (…) un peu de 133 la dureté d’un négrier” (215). Predictably, the priest succeeds in humiliating and
discouraging his disciple, forbidding her all enjoyment and satisfaction, suppressing all
reliance on human reasoning. Not only does the heroine submit to his every injunction,
she becomes so attached to him that she decides to move in to an apartment across from
his church: “Au bout de quelques mois, pour être plus près de sa parole, pour la posséder plus fréquemment, Madame Gervaisais se décidait à quitter son appartement de la place d’Espagne, et venait habiter le quartier de son confesseur” (220). Here again, although this decision demonstrates Madame Gervaisais’s submission to her confessor, it is also a further indication of her independence, with the verb “posséder” implying her ownership of the priest’s “parole” and therefore her authority over him. Like her determination to obtain Père Sibilla as her spiritual director, her decision to move to his neighborhood originates within the protagonist, rather than from without.
While at first, Madame Gervaisais is content to submit to her moral executioner
(“bourreau moral”), even this soldier-priest, missionary to African savages, is not harsh enough with the heroine to satisfy her ever-growing craving for suffering. So, she soon begins to develop her own secret forms of daily torture:
Avec un entier secret, elle s’ingéniait à trouver des souffrances, des supplices pour son corps, ce pauvre corps malade, que ses confesseurs eux-mêmes avaient défendu contre elle, ne voulant pas lui permettre de le macérer et de le tourmenter. Elle était arrivée à s’inventer toutes sortes de privations recherchées et rares. (236)
The narrator emphasizes that Madame Gervaisais torments herself against the express
orders of her confessors, thereby signaling again that martyrdom affords the heroine a
realm of personal agency. So, while her conversion is very much a product of the
environment of Rome, the protagonist is portrayed as maintaining some control over the
expression and outcome of her spirituality.
134 The Practice of Spectatorship and the Rhetoric of Martyrdom
The subject of martyrdom is important, not only in the character construction of
Madame Gervaisais, but also in the lives of the Goncourt brothers. In the Journal, they attest to feeling victimized for their dedication to the world of letters, while they also give the impression that their suffering is self-imposed to a certain degree. In this last section, we will examine this and other connections between the Goncourt’s writing and lifestyle.
Before examining the role of martyrdom in the lives of the authors however, it will be helpful to review the implications of the generic analysis portion of this study, which will lay some necessary groundwork for an understanding of the importance of this concept.
Returning to the opening quote of this chapter, given the ideological nature of genre and the messages that coexisting genres express within the same work of fiction, it will further illuminate our study of the Goncourt and the period in which they wrote to investigate the functioning of tragedy and melodrama insofar as this generic combination provides insight into the ideological approach of the authors. According to Jameson, a study of genre provides a link between textual analysis and the culture in which the text is produced due to the “mediatory function of the notion of genre, which allows the coordination of immanent formal analysis of the individual text with the twin diachronic perspective of the history of forms and the evolution of social life” (105). After reviewing some of the conclusions concerning the generic fabric of the texts, we will be able to see how the appearance of these genres is closely related to the preoccupations specific to nineteenth-century France.
One of the most significant findings in the textual analysis of Charles Demailly
and Madame Gervaisais was the discovery of the functioning of melodrama and tragedy
135 as counterstructures throughout the novels, with the melodramatic aspects ultimately
predominating over the tragic. We observed that, while there are tragic elements present
in both novels, specifically when the protagonists are shown to bear some responsibility
for the suffering they experience and/or cause, the narrators largely absolve both
Demailly and Madame Gervaisais of their guilt by attributing their choices mostly to
environmental factors. Thus, the main characters appear to be victims rather than free
agents, with the majority of the novels’ secondary characters seeming to embody moral
categories. For example, we saw that Charles’s wife Marthe comes to represent evil as
she sabotages her husband’s promising writing career by continuously questioning,
criticizing, and maligning him. In Madame Gervaisais, we observed the way Pierre-
Charles serves as an incarnation of innocence as the narrator uses his physical and
emotional suffering to demonstrate the evils of his mother’s religious extremism.
Yet, despite the many evidences of the profound influence of melodrama, we
found that, in both Madame Gervaisais and Charles Demailly, there was a significant
breakdown of melodrama at the end of the novels. According to melodramatic theory,
one of its main purposes is to reestablish the moral order that is being threatened in the
fictional universe—by the end, victims should be delivered, villains punished, and virtue
rewarded. What we observe in the melodramatic universe of the Goncourt is problematic
because, at the end of the novels, the victims remain victims, the villains not only go
unpunished but are quite successful in most cases, and virtue as defined by the narrator is utterly defeated. What might account for this breakdown of melodrama? Richard
Terdiman offers one possible explanation in his study The Dialectics of Isolation, in which he argues that the high death rate, often by suicide, of nineteenth-century
136 protagonists is indicative of the pessimistic outlook of authors and society at large after
1830. Terdiman diagnoses the root cause of this pessimism as being a general belief in
the inefficacy and futility of individual action and the impossibility of self-actualization
during this period due to the failure of revolutionary ideals.78 The Restoration appeared
to confirm the infeasibility of genuine social change, since none of the lofty humanitarian
aims of eighteenth-century philosophers and politicians seemed to have borne lasting
fruit. Thus, this disillusionment found expression in the failure of the nineteenth-century
heroes and heroines to overcome the obstacles on the way to realizing their ambitions.
Terdiman claims that the protagonists of the nineteenth-century novel lack the potential
for “a transcendence that might redeem the individual in the world” (8).
For the Goncourt brothers, as well as other authors of this time period, the difficulty of self-actualization represented a significant threat to the ideal of artistic
literary production, because the possibility of individual transcendence was brought into
question. Nineteenth-century authors wanted to believe in their ability to make an
original and significant contribution to French literature, but the cultural climate made
this pursuit quite challenging. If, as I suggested, Marthe of Charles Demailly represents
bourgeois readership and the journalists employed by Le Scandale the literary critics who
unjustly denigrate original literary production, we can infer that the Goncourt brothers considered the reconciliation of their literary ideals with life in nineteenth-century France
to be an impossibility, with this impossibility finding its symbolic equivalent in the
78 “…in the first great period after 1830, plots typically end with the death or suicide of the protagonist. A fictional plot is an exploration of the causality of experience, and these novelistic deaths are verdicts— profoundly pessimistic verdicts—concerning the possibilities of the individual’s realization in a particularly trying socio-historical context” (Richard Terdiman, The Dialectics of Isolation (New Haven: Yale UP, 1976) 7).
137 insanity of Demailly by novel’s end. The restoration of order in the moral universe
required by melodrama is not possible in the fiction, because the “virtuous heroes” of
nineteenth-century society—the men of letters among whom the Goncourt brothers
counted themselves—were unsuccessful at achieving this reconciliation of authentic
literary production and bourgeois values in real life. So, while Madame Gervaisais’
death and Demailly’s insanity might at first appear tragic according to a superficial
understanding of the term, the ending of these novels should be seen rather as indicative
of the ideological determinant that makes the traditional resolution of melodrama
inconceivable. While scholars debate about the inconceivability of tragedy in a post-
sacred universe, I believe there is reason to question the possibility of melodrama in post-
Restoration nineteenth-century society.
In the previous chapter, we already discussed a different, but related reason why
writers felt the threat to their individuality and original literary production so strongly
during the nineteenth century. I will recall the theory that, while capitalism made social
mobility possible through the acquisition of wealth and possessions, it also transformed
the creators of artistic production into commodities for public consumption. Due to the
close association between women and commodification, both as consumers and as
objects of consumption (as prostitutes and bourgeois wives), I believe that the resistance
of the Goncourt brothers to commodification manifested itself in a fear of feminization
and resulted in the rigorous analysis of women that characterizes their oeuvre.
Of their six co-authored novels, five of them are named after their primary female protagonist and two, Charles Demailly and Manette Salomon, recount the story of men
whose careers and lives are destroyed by women. Reputedly misogynists, the Goncourt
138 brothers are very interested in analyzing the female psyche through their characters.
Some critics theorize that the authors preferred featuring women in their novels, because
they could more easily project their own impressionability and physical weakness on
female as opposed to male characters.79 The fact that both Charles Demailly and
Coriolis, the male protagonist of Manette Salomon, have an artistic temperament and
therefore are similar in character to the authors adds weight to this hypothesis. I see this
overwhelming majority of female protagonists as an indication that the authors are
attempting to take control of their feminine tendencies through scientific observation.
A contributing factor to this fear was the predominant female influence during the
formative years of the Goncourt brothers.80 After the death of their father when Edmond
was twelve and Jules only four, the main influences in their lives were their mother and
their aunt Nephtalie de Courmont, whose conversion in Rome would later inspire the plot
and female protagonist of the novel Madame Gervaisais. It was this aunt in particular
who instilled in the brothers their love for “bibelots” and for art in general.81 Edmond de
Goncourt wrote a postface to Madame Gervaisais in 1892, in which he described
79 “L’on comprend aussi que les personnages des Goncourt doivent avoir une sensibilité, une vulnérabilité, une nervosité qui puissent justifier une perception du réel et des réactions psychologiques somme toute assez proches de celles des auteurs. Plus mobiles, plus sensibles, plus fragiles que l’homme, les femmes se prêtent mieux à prendre à leur compte les perceptions où excellent ces artistes nerveux et les réactions qui sont familières à ces sensitives. Et voilà pourquoi ces misogynes, lorsqu’ils ne se mettent pas en scène eux- mêmes (…), placent infailliblement au centre de leurs romans des figures de femme” (Enzo Caramaschi, Réalisme et impressionisme dans l’œuvre des frères Goncourt (Paris: Nizet, 1964) 287).
80 “Cet excès de lymphe dans le sang, cette mollesse de fibre, ils l’attribuaient parfois à leur éducation, sans s’aviser que cette timidité devant la vie leur était venue d’une éducation trop exclusivement féminine et maternelle; l’autorité d’un père leur avait manqué…” (André Billy, Les Frères Goncourt (Paris: Flammarion, 1954) 226).
81 Marc Fumaroli, préface, Madame Gervaisais by Edmond et Jules de Goncourt (Paris: Gallimard, 1982) 11; Richard B. Grant, The Goncourt Brothers (New York: Twayne, 1972) 13-15; Robert Baldick, The Goncourts (London: Bowes, 1960) 8.
139 Madame de Courmont and the profound influence she had on his artistic tastes and love for literature. After a description of his Sunday shopping trips with his mother, aunt and her sister-in-law to the “marchands de curiosités”, Edmond writes,
Ce sont certainement ces dimanches qui ont fait de moi le bibeloteur que j’ai été, que je suis, que je serai toute ma vie. Mais ce n’est pas seulement le goût de l’art que je dois à ma tante—et du petit et du grand: c’est elle qui m’a donné le goût de la littérature. (…) Dès ce temps, elle mettait en moi l’amour des vocables choisis, techniques, imagés, des vocables lumineux (…) —amour qui plus tard devenait l’amour de la chose bien écrite. (…) Et certes, dans l’ouverture de mon esprit et dans la formation de mon talent futur, elle a fait cent fois plus que les illustres maîtres qu’on veut bien me donner.82
The Goncourt’s passion for “bibelots” is relevant to this fear of feminization, because these collector’s items were valued especially by women and were seen as constitutive of the female identity.83 My conjecture is that their stereotypically feminine tastes coupled with their fragile health and neurotic dispositions made the Goncourt brothers insecure about their masculine identities and fearful that their “feminine” characteristics would
begin to dominate. Even their passion for literature and writing, traditionally a masculine
pursuit, was nurtured by a feminine influence and might have produced insecurity at an
unconscious level.
The Goncourt brothers were particularly anxious about the threat of feminization because of their belief in the connection between women and conformity to public opinion, women and the enslavement to pursuing wealth, even at the cost of
82 Qtd. in Marc Fumaroli, préface, Madame Gervaisais by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt 19-20.
83 Bernard Vouilloux provides an insightful perspective into the typically feminine activity he terms “bibeloter”: “…c’est pour la femme que sont conçus les bibelots, et elle se montre plus propre que personne à ‘bibeloter’: le monde de la femme (…) est bibelotier, et il l’est, pour ainsi dire, au plus proche d’elle-même, à travers les parures, colifichets, bijoux et autres accessoires qui sont des extensions de sa toilette et de sa personne (…) et dont le réseau a si bien pris Edmond dans ses lacets que, revenant en 1892 sur les circonstances de la conception de Madame Gervaisais, il fera la part belle au rôle joué par les femmes de sa famille (…) dans la formation de son goût pour les bibelots, les modes et les lettres” (L’Art des Goncourt. Une Esthétique du style (Paris: Harmattan, 1997) 155-56).
140 compromising one’s ideals. Seen from this angle, they were equally afraid of succumbing to the pressures of consumer society themselves as they were of allowing women into their lives who would promote conformity and compromise. In their journal entry of May 1, 1864, they explain,
Dans le ménage actuel, la femme est bien certainement le dissolvant qui défait le caractère et l’honorabilité de l’homme. Elle est la conseillère qui pousse à toutes les lâchetés, à toutes les transactions de conscience, à tous les abaissements, à toutes les platitudes. Ce qui voile aujourd’hui la statue de l’honneur au foyer, c’est l’épouse et la mère de famille.84
Illustrated in the fictional lives of Demailly and Coriolis and declared explicitly in their
Journal, this fear of conformity through feminization resulted in careful observation of women in their novels and a commitment to celibacy in their personal lives.
Those dedicated to art for its own sake were not valued in bourgeois society, because of the emphasis these artists placed on quality over economic profit. Moreover, artistic literary production of this period depicted bourgeois culture in a critical light, as evidenced by the ironic detachment of authors towards their characters and situations.
Unlike epic literature, which expresses
…l’adéquation de l’âme et du monde, de l’intérieur et de l’extérieur, l’univers dans lequel les réponses sont présentes avant que ne soient formulées les questions, où il y a des dangers mais pas de menaces, des ombres mais pas de ténèbres, où la signification est implicite dans chaque aspect de la vie et demande seulement à être formulée et non pas découverte,85 the nineteenth-century novel exposes the lack of harmony between the inner self and society and leaves the questions it raises unanswered. Rather than advocating bourgeois
84 Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, Journal. Mémoires de la vie littéraire, 1 May 1864, ed. Robert Ricatte, préface Robert Kopp, vol. 1 (1956; Paris: Laffont, 1989) 1068.
85 For more on the contrast between the nineteenth-century novel and epic literature, see Georges Luckàcs, La Théorie du roman and “Narrate or Describe?”, Writer & Critic and Other Essays, ed. and trans. Arthur D. Kahn (New York: Grosset, 1970) 110-48. This quote was taken from an essay by Lucien Goldman entitled, “Introduction aux premiers écrits de Lukàcs,” from p. 171 of La Théorie du roman referenced above.
141 values, novels during this period questioned and challenged these accepted beliefs. The difficulty writers such as the Goncourt brothers confronted and encoded in their novels was this irreconcilability of artistic and bourgeois ideals. As Jameson points out, “…the aesthetic act is itself ideological, and the production of aesthetic or narrative form is to be seen as an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal ‘solutions’ to unresolvable social contradictions” (79). What we find illustrated by many nineteenth-century novels and those of the Goncourt in particular is that there is no way of reconciling the contradictions the authors experience between their values and those of capitalistic culture. The death or demise of the protagonist at the end of the majority of nineteenth-century novels is a manifestation of this ideological impasse. In the Goncourt brothers’ novels in particular, the contradiction reveals itself in the breakdown of melodrama, with its formal solution being this seemingly tragic ending fastened to the end of a predominantly melodramatic narrative. In addition to this aesthetic solution, there are two other responses to the pressure to conform to bourgeois ideals illustrated by the protagonists and evident in the lives of the authors: spectatorship and martyrdom. The fictional writer Demailly responds to the threat of bourgeois ideals at first through isolation from society and devotion to writing and later, by attempting to protect himself from the threat Marthe poses to his high literary standards through his observations of her. Similarly, Madame Gervaisais at first tries to protect herself from
Rome’s influence by careful spectatorship, and later, uses martyrdom to retain a measure of personal agency in her religious practices. We will next explore the way these two responses find expression in the lives of the authors.
142 According to many Goncourtian scholars, the authors create characters who bear
strong resemblance to themselves.86 I have already noted the surprising similarities
between Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais, but equally significant is the fact that
the authors share many of these same characteristics. Like the characters we have
studied, the Goncourt brothers complain of chronic illness and claim to possess an acute
impressionability as well as highly developed skills of observation. Notorious for their
arrogance, most biographers agree that the Goncourt brothers considered themselves well
above average in most respects (Baldick 7-9, Billy 228-32). In the same way, we saw
that they portray Demailly and Madame Gervaisais as superior to those around them.
But, by far the most significant correspondence between the novelists and these two
characters is the practice of spectatorship as a way of maintaining distance from what
they are observing or as a method of reassuring themselves of their superiority and
mastery over objects of analysis. The desire for this distance betrays a fear of being contaminated or influenced, or of losing one’s objectivity. Just as Charles Demailly and
Madame Gervaisais reflect the authors in their scrutiny of the people and environment
surrounding them, I believe that the downfall of each protagonist as a result of their
spectatorship reveals the authors’ fears regarding their own susceptibility to such
86 For example, Enzo Caramaschi and Lazare Prajs make numerous remarks on this subject. In Réalisme et Impressionnisme dans l’œuvre des frères Goncourt, Caramaschi writes, “…les personnages des Goncourt se mettent très vite à ressembler aux Goncourt…” (116) and later, “Les Goncourt, qui dans leur Journal parlent d’eux-mêmes et de toute chose par rapport à eux-mêmes, ne sauraient s’aventurer dans leurs romans à imaginer des êtres trop différents d’eux. Ils cherchent leur certitude dans la subjectivité, comme d’autres la poursuivent à travers l’objectivité” (123). In Prajs’s study La Fallacité de l’œuvre romanesque des frères Goncourt (Paris: Nizet, 1974), he argues that, “Tout part d’eux dans leur tentative de découvrir les autres qui ne demeurent, malgré leur documentation savante ou tronquée, que leur propre reflet” (239) and that, “Les personnages goncourtiens ne sont que des reflets de leur esprit, de pâles incarnations de leurs conceptions ou de leurs réflexions. Il n’y a pas chez eux création proprement dite, mais réverbération” (253).
143 influence. This fear is only logical since, as Jameson suggests, the existence of the
individual separate from the rest of society is merely an illusion (20).
Despite their careful observation and documentation of women and the dangers
they pose to men, there is a significant way in which the Goncourt brothers conform to
the image of stereotypical femininity. Returning to our defining characteristics of
melodrama, the Goncourt’s tendency to separate people into good and bad categories, to
which they attest in their Journal, suggests that they espoused a melodramatic perspective
in regard to their world. They built their lives upon an attitude of fear and mistrust
towards others and a belief in the hostility of their acquaintances, thereby remaining fairly disconnected and separated from the world they portrayed. However, the world inevitably affects those who dwell in it no matter how detached they seek to be. The
Goncourt, conscious of this influence, perceived themselves as innocent victims of their environment, as “virtuous” men of letters championing the cause of artistic literary production and unappreciated by their contemporaries. Given their melodramatic approach to life and their victim’s mentality, the brothers unwittingly identified themselves with the innocent heroines of melodrama and abandoned the path of personal agency. As indicated by the fictional lives of Demailly and Madame Gervaisais, innocent victims have no power to defend themselves against the evil forces that oppose them and are overcome without a virtuous hero to rescue them. Appropriating a victim’s mentality might absolve oneself of guilt, but it also means abdicating one’s power to choose. In contrast, a tragic perspective allows for more freedom and individuality, but at the high price of personal responsibility. Adopting a tragic perspective regarding one’s life involves less blame and judgment directed at others and more self-evaluation.
144 When we consider the Goncourt’s critical spirit towards society and their
tendency to pity themselves as evidenced in the Journal, clearly a melodramatic
perspective dictates the way they view others, their lives and literary career. It is in this
context that the rhetoric of martyrdom is particularly revealing. Though they claim to be
victims, martyrdom, as it did for Madame Gervaisais, provides a way of asserting their
will, a convenient back door out of the confining and helpless prison of victimization. In
other words, martyrdom could be understood as an affirmation of victimization with the
goal of empowering themselves and disarming the attacks leveled against them. When
they can no longer remain impervious to the criticism and demands of nineteenth-century
society through spectatorship, martyrdom affords them a space of independence. But, to
be a martyr, one must espouse a cause worthy of suffering and self-sacrifice—in other
words, a religion.
In the same way Charles Demailly is portrayed as entering the world of letters as
one enters into religion, the Goncourt brothers claimed to share this perspective. In their
Journal, they write: “Que si de l’amateur d’art, nous allons à l’artiste, nous trouverons
que l’artiste n’a point de foi, et n’a point de patrie; l’art lui est une foi et une patrie
suffisantes, l’effort vers le beau un suffisant dévouement, un suffisant martyre….”87 The character Lamperière will repeat the same declaration verbatim in the novel Charles
Demailly, thus confirming its importance for the authors. Notice the allusion in this statement to martyrdom as an integral part of the religion of letters. Caramaschi makes the insightful observation that the Goncourt, as members of the second generation of romantics, actually adopt the persona of the romantic character by isolating themselves
87 Goncourt, Charles Demailly 181; Goncourt, Journal 15 April 1857, vol. 1, 250.
145 from the rest of society to devote themselves unreservedly to their religion of letters.88
He remarks that like the romantic characters who fled to monasteries and convents to die to worldly ambition, the Goncourt claimed to abstain from public life in order to serve society as priests of letters.
As a religion, the world of letters requires sacrifices—or perhaps, provides justification for eccentricity and unconventionality. What I am suggesting is that viewing literary production as a religion enabled the writers to transform weakness, criticism, neuroticism, and antisocial behavior into virtues and evidence of their merit as artists.
Claiming to choose martyrdom for the sake of their religion gives an impression of autonomy and strength unlike a complaint of victimization. As it functioned in Madame
Gervaisais, martyrdom can be seen as an attempt to gain control of one’s life in the midst
of pain or despair. Instead of internalizing the criticism directed at their novels, the
Goncourt brothers declared this general hostility to be proof of their unparalleled talent.89
Rather than seeking to find relief from their chronic illnesses, the authors boasted of their sickness and claimed that it enhanced their sensitivity to detail. In fact, as Stéphanie
88 “…le mouvement qui porte l’artiste de la seconde génération romantique à s’isoler, à s’enfermer dans sa tour d’ivoire, répond d’abord à l’insatisfaction orgueilleuse de ces fils de René (…). Ces insatisfaits qui se jetaient jadis dans la religion et mouraient au monde dans un couvent, forment à présent dans la société la classe des déclassés romantiques. Ceux qui n’ont pas su ou voulu donner le change à leur égoïsme, tromper leur moi exigeant à l’aide des illusions ou des credos humanitaires, ont fini vers le milieu du siècle par se faire de l’art une religion” (Caramaschi 50).
89 “…leurs insuccès les confirment dans leur vocation de martyr. La littérature est nécessairement refus et refuge, maladie sacralisante, lieu d’une glorification. (…) …tout échec est retourné en marque glorifiante, toute incompréhension devient preuve d’une virtuelle assomption de l’écrivain qui ne se compromet pas avec les forces d’argent, avec les horizons d’attente du grand public…” (Jean-Louis Cabanès, “L’Esthétique des Goncourt: dissonnances et consonances,” Les Frères Goncourt: art et écriture, ed. Jean- Louis Cabanès (Bordeaux: PU de Bordeaux, 1997) 17).
146 Champeau remarks in her illuminating study “Les Goncourt et la passion de l’artiste”, the
Goncourt imagined their neurosis to be the secret to their originality and sophistication.90
However, as we studied in the character construction of Charles Demailly and
Madame Gervaisais, there is a combination of victimization and choice used to explain the events of their lives. In the same way that neither character is wholly innocent of nor wholly to blame for the suffering he/she experiences, the Goncourt brothers also absolve themselves of some responsibility by alternately accusing fatality and the mediocrity of public opinion for their hardship. A couple of excerpts from the Journal will help to
demonstrate this mixture of rhetoric, as the writers combine references to martyr-like
self-sacrifice with vocabulary of victimization. In this first entry, the Goncourt react to
the rejection of Sœur Philomène by a publishing company:
Nous rentrons et nous trouvons notre manuscrit de PHILOMÈNE, que nous retourne Lévy, avec une lettre de regrets, s’excusant sur le lugubre et l’horreur du sujet. Et nous pensons que si notre œuvre était l’œuvre de tout le monde, une œuvre moutonnière et plate, le roman que chacun fait et que le public a déjà lu, notre volume aurait été accepté d’emblée. Tous les déboires de notre vie littéraire, c’est une longue expiation de ne vouloir faire et de ne faire que de l’art.91
Notice here that, from their perspective, their suffering is the result of a dedication to art
and of an unwillingness to compromise even at the cost of unpopularity. They are
convinced that it is their refusal to produce an “œuvre de tout le monde”, their
unwavering commitment to art that caused this rejection. In this way, they implicitly
claim to be martyrs for the cause of art, thus valorizing their suffering.
90 “Bien loin de chercher à se guérir, il doit entretenir, cultiver sa propre névrose s’il veut créer des œuvres vraiment originales, à la fois raffinées et fiévreuses” (Champeau, Les Frères Goncourt: art et écriture 54).
91 Goncourt, Journal 17 March 1861, vol. 1, 674.
147 In contrast, Edmond’s attitude during the intense suffering before his brother’s
death betrays a belief in malevolent fate conspiring against them:
De quelle expiation sommes-nous donc victimes? Je le demande, quand je remonte cette existence qui n’a plus que quelques heures et qui n’a eu de la vie que l’amertume; qui n’a eu de la littérature et de la recherche laborieuse de la gloire que des insultes, des mépris, des sifflets; qui depuis cinq ans, se débat dans la souffrance quotidienne; qui se termine par cette agonie morale et physique; où partout et tout le temps, je trouve comme la poursuite d’une fatalité assassine…92
The first person plural of the first line shows that Edmond sees himself just as much a
victim of “une fatalité assassine” as his brother. It is interesting to note that, though
Edmond considered Jules’s death to be the direct result of the demands and pressures of
his literary vocation, biographers concur that the true cause of his death was the syphilis
he contracted in 1850.93 Ironically, at the very time when specific choices and behavior
provide a logical explanation for Jules’s deteriorating health, Edmond claims that his
brother was a victim of murderous fate, thus illustrating his favoring of a melodramatic
perspective toward events. This causes me to question how many of the Goncourt
brothers’ claims are self-justifications or ways of maintaining their self-respect amidst the
criticism and rejection they experienced.
In many ways, the Goncourt brothers viewed the world as a melodramatic
spectacle in which they participated as little as possible, preferring rather to analyze and
criticize from a distance. When they found themselves disagreeably affected by their
environment, their melodramatic approach provided them with the temporary solution of
92 Goncourt, Journal 18 June 1870, vol. 2, 255.
93 “…both brothers seemed to overlook the venereal disease and believed that Jules’s deterioration was the result of a total dedication to art itself” (Grant 86). “Damnation de ‘ce qu’on appelle la Providence’ qui veut ‘nous tuer le cerveau’. Edmond insiste car un de Goncourt ne meurt pas de la syphilis” (Caffier, Les Frères Goncourt “un déshabillé de l’âme” (Nancy: PU de Nancy, 1994) 186). “As for Jules, (…) he contracted syphilis in 1850, and it was that which killed him twenty years later, rather than the strain of literary composition as his brother piously alleged” (Baldick 11).
148 victimization by choice. Martyrdom provided a way of escape, one realm of choice
within their constrictive worldview. We have seen the way the Goncourt’s ideological
position had a profound effect on their writing, such that their characters incarnate these
very preoccupations as they struggle unsuccessfully for individuality against the powerful
influence of their environment. Although I have emphasized the way the melodramatic
worldview predominates, there is another sense in which the Goncourt’s writing could be
said to be a new form of tragedy—that is, the tragedy of existence during the nineteenth century. In Benjamin Constant’s essay “Réflexions sur la tragédie”, he in fact suggests the possibility of such a tragedy, which would recount the struggle of the individual as
he/she confronts the various and influential pressures exerted by his/her environment.94
It is significant that Constant, another nineteenth-century writer, envisions this new kind
of tragedy specifically during this period, when the integrity of the individual is most
threatened by the multiplication of codes and institutions. Not surprisingly, Constant
suggests that, in this expression of tragedy, environmental determinism would take the role previously played by fatality in ancient tragedy. From this perspective, Madame
Gervaisais and Charles Demailly are quite tragic, given the central roles played by Rome and the journalistic profession in causing the downfall of the protagonists. A contemporary of the Goncourt brothers, Gustave Flaubert develops this kind of tragedy still further and in a way that exposes the reader’s own confrontation with the same powerful forces working against the characters. This will be the subject of our third and final chapter.
94 Benjamin Constant, “Réflexions sur la tragédie,” Œuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1957) 899-928.
149
CHAPTER 3
FLAUBERT AND THE MODERN TRAGEDY
L’ordre social, l’action de la société sur l’individu dans les diverses phases et aux diverses époques, ce réseau d’institutions et de conventions qui nous enveloppe dès notre naissance et ne se rompt qu’à notre mort, sont des ressorts tragiques qu’il ne faut que savoir manier. Ils sont tout à fait équivalents à la fatalité des anciens; leur poids a tout ce qui était invincible et oppressif dans cette fatalité; les habitudes qui en découlent; l’insolence, la dureté frivole, l’incurie obstinée, ont tout ce que cette fatalité avait de désespérant et de déchirant: si vous représentez avec vérité cet état de choses, l’homme des temps modernes frémira de ne pouvoir s’y soustraire, comme celui des temps anciens frémissait sous la puissance mystérieuse et sombre à laquelle il ne lui était pas permis d’échapper, et notre public sera plus ému de ce combat de l’individu contre l’ordre social qui le dépouille ou qui le garrotte, que d’Œdipe pour- suivi par le Destin, ou d’Oreste par les Furies. (Constant 918-19)
In this excerpt from his essay “Réflexions sur la tragédie”, Benjamin Constant
conceives of a new nineteenth-century version of tragedy that would focus less on the
character and passions of protagonists as in ancient tragedy, and more on their
confrontation with the society in which they live. Constant brings to mind our discussion
in the introductory chapter about the deterministic outlook that characterized nineteenth-
century thought, when he claims that the institutions and conventions of social life shape
and condition the individual to such a degree that their role is comparable to that given to
fate and destiny in ancient tragedy. Constant proposes that, given the pressure exerted by society on the individual in nineteenth-century society, tragedy that featured this struggle between characters and their environment would be far more relevant and penetrating for the nineteenth-century reader than the ancient paradigm that portrayed characters as subject to fate or the gods. In this last chapter, we will consider how Constant's 150 theoretical proposition illuminates crucial aspects of the Flaubertian novel. Rather than
emphasizing the heroic nature of his characters, Flaubert demonstrates the way his very
ordinary protagonists cannot avoid being formed and fashioned by their social setting,
however confident they may be regarding the self-originating quality of their beliefs and
priorities.
We have already identified this sensation of limitation and constraint experienced
in society both in the writings of Maupassant and the Goncourt brothers. In
Maupassant’s novels, we explored the challenges posed to the individual in a culture that reduces difference to sameness and that teaches its members to use deception and manipulation in order to promote their interests even at the cost of compromising personal integrity. In two novels by the Goncourt brothers, we also saw the threat to individuality demonstrated as the protagonists used spectatorship and martyrdom in a vain attempt to defend themselves against the powerful influence wrought by their environment. Even though the novels of both Maupassant and the Goncourt brothers offer a formal or aesthetic solution to this dilemma according to Fredric Jameson’s theory, neither is able to offer a viable solution to the real-life crises of individualism characteristic of the nineteenth century. The narrator of Bel-Ami emphasizes the fact that
Georges Duroy reaches the height of success by the end of the novel only by
relinquishing every trace of personal integrity. The narrator of Une Vie closes the novel
with its heroine ravished of her identity by nothing more extraordinary than the normal functioning of nineteenth-century society. Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais are no less victims of their environment, with Demailly responding to the pressure by insanity and Madame Gervaisais by gradually killing herself.
151 In her theoretical work on tragedy, Susanne Langer argues that one prerequisite
for the tragic genre is “a sense of individuality”:95 “Tragedy can arise and flourish only where people are aware of individual life as an end in itself” (354). Again, recalling the discussion in the introductory chapter, a shift in focus occurred around the turn of the eighteenth century from the group to the individual in an effort to recover the sense of meaning lost with the decline of the “sacred masterplot” (Brooks, Reading for the Plot 6).
I would suggest that this focus on the individual was extreme and that, when combined with the societal pressures that impeded the development of the individual personality, it created a favorable atmosphere for a parodied version of tragedy. In novels of this period, characters believe in the integrity of the self, and yet are shown to be severely determined by their social context. To the characters themselves, their preoccupations seem to be of the greatest magnitude and their disappointments profoundly tragic, and yet, as readers, we have the objectivity to see the unheroic nature of the characters and the ridiculousness of their attitudes and behavior. We will see that in the Flaubertian narrative, while there are elements of tragic plot, the characters are not heroic in the tragic sense. Their self-absorption is so extreme that they have lost all perspective and objectivity regarding themselves and others. 96
95 Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form. A Theory of Art (New York: Scribner’s, 1953) 334. The chapters of particular interest for this study are entitled “Great Dramatic Forms: The Comic Rhythm” and “Great Dramatic Forms: The Tragic Rhythm” (326-66).
96 While many scholars refer to the tragic aspects of Madame Bovary, most agree that Emma’s character is not truly tragic. For example, Erich Auerbach writes in Mimesis. The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1953): “…very often the reader is moved by [Emma’s] fate in a way that appears very like tragic pity. But, a real tragic heroine she is not. The way in which language here lays bare the silliness, immaturity, and disorder of her life, the very wretchedness of that life, in which she remains immersed (…), excludes the idea of true tragedy, and the author and reader can never feel as at one with her as must be the case with the tragic hero; she is always being tried, judged, and, together with the entire world in which she is caught, condemned” (490). 152 According to Constant’s proposal of a new form of tragedy that would have
greater relevance for the nineteenth century than ancient forms, an exemplary hero would
no longer be appropriate, because he/she would not be subject to the pressures of the environment in the same way a more common character would:
…le genre de tragédie dont je m’occupe ici doit, en général, descendre d’un degré et déposer les robes de pourpre et les couronnes d’or. Les rois ne sont plus les héros obligés de notre scène. Au contraire, plus la condition est inférieure, la résistance difficile et dangereuse, les obstacles à vaincre nombreux, plus les efforts et les effets sont tragiques. (Constant 920-21)
Constant explains that a powerless character reveals the mechanism of society working
against him/her more effectively than a character who occupies a position of strength. In
ancient tragedy, nobility gave the hero or heroine the independence and autonomy needed
to showcase the struggle between human passion and virtue, but tragedy that concerns
human beings struggling against the pressures of their environment requires a different
kind of protagonist. In the Poetics, Aristotle opposes the ideal tragic character to the
comic character: “…comedy prefers to represent people who are worse than those who
exist, tragedy people who are better.”97 What Constant suggests and what Flaubert seems
to practice is the construction of characters who are neither better nor worse than the
reader, and who are therefore neither fully tragic nor comic according to Aristotle’s
definition. A more ordinary protagonist allows for a closer identification by the reader
than the exemplary hero of tragedy with whom few can identify. We will see that
Flaubert’s narratives are more relevant to the reader’s experience, as the protagonists
suffer from typical rather than exceptional circumstances and mainly from their own
foolishness and illusions. I believe that, by narrating the way in which society influences
97 Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Richard Janko (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987) 3.
153 and forms the characters without their awareness, Flaubert is attempting to force the
reader to confront his/her illusions of independence and individuality as well as to abolish
his own.
Langer claims that what the tragic character brings to the narrative is “his
potentiality: his mental, moral and even physical powers, his powers to act and suffer”,
thereby showcasing the strength of the individual personality (352).98 Since the
characters of Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale are incapable of self-
knowledge and are shown to be unable to escape their illusions, they are not fully tragic
according to most traditional definitions of the genre. This new type of tragedy exposes the crisis of the individual in society and rather than granting the characters a capacity for
introspection, the narrative invites the reader to engage in the self-evaluation of which the
characters are incapable. Flaubert, like Constant, seems to perceive the need for a new
kind of tragedy in which he exposes the lack of correspondence between the reader’s
dreams and reality, his/her own futile pursuit of ideals and absolutes that cannot be found
in real experience. Although there is still room for debate about the appropriateness of
the term “tragedy” to describe Flaubert’s novels due to the multi-generic nature of the
novelistic form as well as the numerous meanings of the term “tragedy”, it will be
illuminating to examine the novels from the various tragic angles mentioned here with
the goal of gaining insight into the problem of individuality in the nineteenth century.
Although Flaubert carefully conceals his presence in the narration of Madame
Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale, there is reason to believe that he more closely
98 In chapter 2, we discussed a similar idea from Robert Heilman’s work on tragedy. He claims that tragedy presupposes sufficient self-awareness for the characters to engage in inner deliberation and to carry the burden of responsibility for choices (5).
154 identified himself with his protagonists than many of his contemporaries did. Unlike the
Goncourt brothers who attempted to ensure their own individuality and ward off the
threat of feminization through the act of writing, Flaubert, rather than claiming to be
superior to his characters, more readily admitted the tendencies he shared with them.
Gervais sees Emma’s misery as the fictional representation of Flaubert’s own despondency regarding “the gap that must always exist between language and things, the self and the world.”99 It is the human tendency to seek to fill this gap with imaginary
absolutes that Flaubert illustrates through the lives of Frédéric Moreau and Emma
Bovary.100 In the first part of this chapter, we will explore the way the illusions of
individuality and an accurate perception of reality are exposed through the narration and
operate together to assure the failure of each protagonist. In the second part, we will
analyze the tragic aspects of Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale that have
been introduced briefly in these opening remarks as well as those tragic elements that
correspond to or transgress the more traditional requirements of the genre. Aristotle’s
description of the fundamental elements of tragedy as well as his less thorough
presentation of comedy in the Poetics will provide a helpful theoretical basis for detecting
moments in Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale where elements of both these
genres are present. The goal will be to discern which vestiges of ancient tragedy can still
be identified in the Flaubertian novel and to discover which aspects are limited or non-
99 David Gervais, Flaubert and Henry James (London: Macmillan, 1978) 105.
100 Jonathan Culler suggests that the novel is by definition a literary form which developed from a desire to find meaning in life and a belief in the futility of this pursuit: “The novel is an ironic form, born of the discrepancy between meaning and experience, whose source of value lies in the interest of exploring that gap and filling it, while knowing that any claim to have filled it derives from blindness” (Flaubert. The Uses of Uncertainty (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1974) 24).
155 existent due to the ideological disposition of the period during which Flaubert wrote.
With the help of theories on tragedy proposed by Benjamin Constant and Susanne Langer
in combination with Aristotle’s theory on ancient tragedy, we will seek to gain a more complete understanding of the functioning of tragedy in Madame Bovary and
L’Éducation sentimentale. In terms of generic discontinuities, we will examine the
surprising emergence of comedy at some of the most tragic moments of the novels with
the goal of identifying the ideological determinants that cause this specific generic
combination. Ultimately, it is Luigi Pirandell's theoretical work On Humor that will
enable us best to understand this generic hybrid of tragic and comic elements in
Flaubert’s narrative. Pirandello’s definition of the term “humor” offers a useful idiom to
describe the combination of compassion and irony in the narration as well as the self-
deception and incoherence of the human personality demonstrated through character
construction in Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale.
The Illusion of Individuality
The paradox of bourgeois society is that it valorizes individuality while at the same time making true individuality a near impossibility.101 Not only does bourgeois
culture uphold the value of individuality, but it also teaches its members to believe that
their desires originate purely from within and are representative of their uniqueness
instead of being the product of collective values instilled by their social setting. René
Girard and Lucien Goldmann among others have demonstrated that such desires are in
reality inauthentic and mediated. In a world of mediated value, quantity takes precedence
101 Lucien Goldmann claims that there is a “contradiction interne entre l’individualisme comme valeur universelle engendrée par la société bourgeoise et les limitations importantes et pénibles que cette société apportait en réalité elle-même aux possibilités de développement des individus” (49).
156 over quality, and objects and people are appraised according to a value of exchange
rather than one of actual worth. Therefore, possessions are assigned symbolic value, and
once acquired, lack the potential to truly satisfy those who obtain them.102 In the novels
Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale, the narrator shows the characters to be
trapped in this bourgeois system in which they depend not only upon the objects they
possess, but also on socially-determined experiences, behavior, and language, to define
themselves and establish their identity. Although their lack of originality and conformity
to society are made obvious for the reader, Emma and Frédéric themselves are portrayed
as unconscious of being produced by the society of which they are members, while at the
same time, both characters are fully persuaded of the greatness of their souls and are
driven by a desire to transcend the mediocre existence of those around them. In this way,
they serve as prime examples of Girard’s theory, according to which romantic characters
believe in their personal transcendence, when they are actually only imitating others who
appear to have achieved this superior status. In this situation, not only are mere objects
constitutive of personal identity, but by extension, people themselves become reified, as
they are desired not in and for themselves, but merely for the symbolic value they
embody and confer on their possessor. In order to better understand this illusion of
individuality and to see how it contributes to the tragedy and determinism of the novels,
we will now turn to the texts themselves.
102 For example, Goldmann explains, “Dans la vie économique, qui constitue la partie la plus importante de la vie sociale moderne, toute relation authentique avec l’aspect qualitatif des objets et des êtres tend à disparaître, aussi bien des relations entre les hommes et les choses que des relations interhumaines, pour être remplacée par une relation médiatisée et dégradée: la relation avec les valeurs d’échange purement quantitatives” (38).
157 As many scholars have demonstrated, literature is the primary source on which
Emma Bovary draws to develop her ideals.103 An early illustration of the way reading teaches Emma what to desire and thereby creates a false sense of individuality is found in the description of her reaction to her mother’s death:
Quand sa mère mourut, elle pleura beaucoup les premiers jours. Elle se fit faire un tableau funèbre avec les cheveux de la défunte, et, dans une lettre qu’elle envoyait aux Bertaux, toute pleine de réflexions tristes sur la vie, elle demandait qu’on l’ensevelît plus tard dans le même tombeau. (…) Emma fut intérieurement satisfaite de se sentir arrivée du premier coup à ce rare idéal des existences pâles, où ne parviennent jamais les cœurs médiocres. Elle se laissa donc glisser dans les méandres lamartiniens, écouta les harpes sur les lacs, tous les chants de cygnes mourants, toutes les chutes de feuilles, les vierges pures qui montent au ciel, et la voix de l’Éternel discourant dans les vallons. Elle s’en ennuya, n’en voulut point convenir, continua par habitude, ensuite par vanité, et fut enfin surprise de se sentir apaisée, et sans plus de tristesse au cœur que de rides sur son front.104
Emma’s reaction to her mother’s death seems quite unusual for an adolescent. Her response demonstrates the gap which already exists between her reality and the way she experiences it. Instead of experiencing the typical emotions of grief and deep pain that one would expect at such a great loss, Emma sees her circumstances through the prism of romantic literature. Her initial sadness only seems to be a means Emma uses to attain “ce rare idéal des existences pâles” and to prove her superiority over those with “cœurs médiocres”. Plainly, Emma’s recourse to “méandres lamartiniens” provides an escape from feeling real pain. Although this experience of loss convinces Emma that her
103 Paul Bourget identifies the cause of the instability of Flaubert’s characters as being the difference between reality and what they expect reality to be, according to their knowledge of the world provided by literature: “…la disproportion dont ils souffrent provient, toujours et partout, de ce qu’ils se sont façonné une idée par avance sur les sentiments qu’ils éprouveront. (…) C’est donc la pensée qui joue ici le rôle d’élément néfaste, d’acide corrosif, et qui condamne l’homme à un malheur assuré; mais la pensée qui précède l’expérience au lieu de s’y assujetir. La créature humaine, telle que Flaubert l’aperçoit et la montre, s’isole de la réalité par un fonctionnement arbitraire et personnel de son intelligence. Le malheur résulte alors du conflit entre cette réalité inéluctable et cette personne isolée. (…) Que Flaubert s’occupe du monde ancien ou du monde moderne, toujours il attribue à la Littérature, dans la plus large interprétation du terme, c’est-à-dire à la parole ou à la lecture, le principe premier de ce déséquilibre” (“Flaubert”, Essais de psychologie contemporaine (1882; Paris: Gallimard, 1993) 97).
104 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1857; Paris: Bookking Intl., 1993) 50-1.
158 existence is quite extraordinary, her mediated and inauthentic response reveals to the reader that in the process of conforming to a literary ideal, she actually bypasses her
individual experience.
Another example of the way Emma seeks to define her identity through imitation
is her obsession with Paris. Inspired by the luxurious lifestyle she witnesses at the
Vaubyessard ball, Emma desires to enter into the existence of the upper classes she
observes. Looking at the windows of the château, Emma longs to know more about the
lives of the guests: “Elle aurait voulu savoir leurs existences, y pénétrer, s’y confondre”
(65). More than desiring knowledge of them, she literally seeks to merge her life with
theirs, so that she might become just like them in her imagination. Predictably, reading is
the primary means she uses to accomplish this imaginary convergence. Using a map of
Paris and fashion magazines, Emma virtually reconstructs the lives of Parisian socialites:
Elle s’acheta un plan de Paris, et, du bout de son doigt, sur la carte, elle faisait des courses dans la capitale. (…) Elle s’abonna à la Corbeille, journal des femmes, et au Sylphe des salons. Elle dévorait, sans en rien passer, tous les comptes rendus des premières représentations, de courses et de soirées, s’intéressait au début d’une chanteuse, à l’ouverture d’un magasin. Elle savait les modes nouvelles, l’adresse des bons tailleurs, les jours de Bois ou d’Opéra. Elle étudia, dans Eugène Sue, des descriptions d’ameublements; elle lut Balzac et George Sand, y cherchant des assouvissements imaginaires pour ses convoitises personnelles. (69)
The verbs “dévorait” and “étudia” express the intensity and seriousness of Emma’s
efforts to enter into Parisian social life. It is not long before she will imitate as many
aspects of this lifestyle as possible in her dress, language, attitudes, and occupations.
Thus, as Emma tries to be refined and elegant, she is in reality conforming to external
requirements that have no power to truly transform her or the circumstances of her life.
The examples of Emma constructing a false identity through literature and
imitation abound in the novel and have already been the subject of much discussion. 159 What is worthy of further study is the emphasis given in the narrative to Emma’s awareness of her own illusions. Significantly, Emma usually sees her illusions as belonging to her past, and after each new disappointment, she is firmly convinced that her illusions have been thoroughly uprooted and have no more power to deceive her. Several times, we are privy to Emma’s thoughts through free indirect discourse at moments when she is assessing the extent of her disillusionment, and often, these reflections directly precede the soaring of the heroine to an even greater height of illusion. The first time we see this pattern is when Emma reflects on the beginning of her relationship with Charles:
Quand Charles vint aux Bertaux pour la première fois, elle se considérait comme fort désillusionnée, n’ayant plus rien à apprendre, ne devant plus rien sentir. Mais l’anxiété d’un état nouveau, ou peut-être l’irritation causée par la présence de cet homme, avait suffi à lui faire croire qu’elle possédait enfin cette passion merveilleuse qui jusqu’alors s’était tenue comme un grand oiseau au plumage rose planant dans la splendeur des ciels poétiques; —et elle ne pouvait s’imaginer à présent que ce calme où elle vivait fût le bonheur qu’elle avait rêvé. (51)
Notice that Emma already considered herself disillusioned by life at the time of their meeting, but her sense of disillusionment does not prevent her from initially perceiving
Charles as the answer to her yearnings, as a man who could inspire the passion she had been longing to experience. Despite the fact that Emma soon feels bored and disappointed in their relationship and even learns to loathe Charles, initially, she had believed that she loved him. Even this man whom Emma will later come to consider the primary source of her misery had the potential to fuel her illusions of passion. From this example, we can see that Emma’s awareness of the way existence never measures up to her dreams does nothing to prevent new illusions from forming and determining her choices.
Another illustration of this pattern occurs during the performance of Lucie de
Lammermoor, when Emma compares her life to the heroine’s and inwardly 160 acknowledges the lack of correspondence between artistic representations of life and real experience:
Ah! Si, dans la fraîcheur de sa beauté, avant les souillures du mariage et la désillusion de l’adultère, elle avait pu placer sa vie sur quelque grand cœur solide, alors la vertu, la tendresse, les voluptés et le devoir se confondant, jamais elle ne serait descendue d’une félicité si haute. Mais ce bonheur-là, sans doute, était un mensonge imaginé pour le déses- poir de tout désir. Elle connaissant à présent la petitesse des passions que l’art exagérait. (233-34)
One can discern Emma’s reluctance to admit that virtue, tenderness, sensuality, and a sense of duty rarely coexist in the same person, but she does finally conclude that the uniting of these aspects of love can occur perfectly only in artistic representations.
However, as soon as the leading man enters the stage, Emma’s illusions are quickly reactivated. And, similarly to the way she longed to participate in the lives of the guests at Le Vaubyessard, Emma strives to enter into the life of the actor:
Il devait avoir, pensait-elle, un intarissable amour, pour en déverser sur la foule à si larges effluves. Toutes ses velléités de dénigrement s’évanouissaient sous la poésie du rôle qui l’envahissait, et, entraînée vers l’homme par l’illusion du personnage, elle tâcha de se figurer sa vie, cette vie retentissante, extraordinaire, splendide, et qu’elle aurait pu mener cependant, si le hasard l’avait voulu. (234)
Emma is unable to separate the illusion created by the actor playing the role of Edgar
from the real person (Lagardy) and imagines that she has finally found the ideal of her
dreams. The illusion develops still further when Emma suddenly fancies that he is
actually looking at her during his performance:
Mais une folie la saisit: il la regardait, c’est sûr! Elle eut envie de courir dans ses bras pour se réfugier en sa force, comme dans l’incarnation de l’amour même, et de lui dire, de s’écrier: “Enlève-moi, emmène-moi, partons! À toi, à toi! Toutes mes ardeurs et tous mes rêves!” Le rideau se baissa. (235)
This scene provides an extreme example of the tenacity of Emma’s illusions, given the improbability of an actor identifying and addressing one particular woman in the audience. No matter how deep her disappointments or how disillusioned she claims to 161 be, Emma allows her illusions to remain her primary raison d’être and the controlling
force of her life. It is almost comical in this passage the way the narrator cuts off
Emma’s reverie so abruptly with the lowering of the curtain. The fact that Emma believes that an actor could possess all of the qualities attributed to the fictional character he portrays on stage demonstrates the equally inaccurate perceptions on which she must necessarily base her impressions of Charles, Rodolphe, and Léon. As we see from these two examples, knowing that one has illusions does not exempt one from retaining them in the world of Madame Bovary.
Another manifestation of the illusion of her individuality is the fact that Emma’s
opinions and habits are constantly changing according to her circumstances. From
virtuous housewife to femme fatale, from religious fanatic to cross-dresser, Emma is
constantly alternating from one extreme to the next. Apart from the heroine, the behavior
and attitudes of the other characters of Madame Bovary remain relatively consistent
throughout the novel. In L’Éducation sentimentale however, the author illustrates the
illusion of individuality in an even more radical fashion by destabilizing the identity of
almost all of the novel’s characters. The narration accomplishes this in two primary
ways: first, through the constantly changing views, occupations, and residences of the characters and secondly, by the continual shifting and intermingling of the classes.
In his book The Uses of Uncertainty, Jonathan Culler proposes that through
deliberate narrative strategies, Flaubert intentionally disrupts the reader’s ability to
interpret L’Éducation sentimentale. According to Culler, Flaubert’s goal is to undermine
traditional novelistic conventions upon which readers depend to discover meaning in the
text and to use this meaning to make sense of their own lives. Since Flaubert believes
162 that such attempts to construct meaning are futile and even destructive due to the
probability of drawing erroneous conclusions, Culler sees the writing of L’Éducation
sentimentale as an attempt on the author’s part to make definite conclusions impossible,
thus demonstrating for the reader the elusive quality of meaning.105 Although I agree that
Flaubert ultimately seeks to expose various illusions held by the reader, I believe there is
another legitimate explanation for why L’Éducation sentimentale proves so challenging
to interpret. R.J. Sherrington’s analysis claims that a large majority of the novel is
narrated exclusively from the perspective of Frédéric Moreau, and that, as a result, the
reader’s perception of events is limited for the most part to Frédéric’s interpretation.
Therefore, the extreme instability of the narration, Sherrington suggests, is a direct
reflection of the instability of Frédéric’s identity.106
One of the most vivid examples of Frédéric’s changeability is his attitude towards
Madame Arnoux. Considered by many to be the one constant element of Frédéric’s ever- fluctuating character and therefore his one redeeming quality, this passion proves just as transient as the protagonist’s other preoccupations when one examines it more closely and critically. Even at its inception, Frédéric’s passion is not strong enough to sustain
105 “Accustomed to finding novels better organized and more replete with meaningful discriminations than his own world, he will experience some kind of dismay if a novel resists his attempts to discover meaning and organization. And if the processes by which novels invite him to construct meaning are shown to be factitious and distorting, he will gain, as Flaubert might have wished, some sense of the nothingness at the heart of existence” (Culler 86).
106 “While it is generally agreed that this mobility is a trait of Frédéric’s character, it is perhaps not so widely recognized that the whole structure of the novel, and therefore our interpretation of it, is totally dependent upon the fact. Almost every one of Frédéric’s attitudes either contradicts something which he had previously established, or establishes something which is destined to be contradicted later. This statement holds true in every area of Frédéric’s experience: his beliefs about the political events, his artistic and financial ambitions, Louise Roque, Madame Dambreuse, people like Deslauriers or Sénécal, Arnoux and also Mme Arnoux, reveal the same constantly shifting standards” (R.J. Sherrington, Three Novels by Flaubert (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970) 244).
163 itself and must be reignited by several “chance” events. Although Frédéric is enraptured with Madame Arnoux upon first seeing her, it is not long before he forgets her completely. Thanks to “le hasard”, Frédéric must introduce himself to the wealthy
Monsieur Dambreuse upon his arrival in Paris for law school.107 While walking home and regretting his missed opportunity to see Madame Dambreuse, he turns his head to observe the traffic and notices a marble plaque inscribed with the name Jacques Arnoux:
“…un embarras de voitures lui fit tourner la tête; et, de l’autre côté, en face, il lut sur une plaque de marbre: JACQUES ARNOUX. Comment n’avait-il pas songé à elle plus tôt”
(25)? In this passage, the narrator emphasizes the thin threads of causality by using an event as banal as traffic to rekindle Frédéric’s passion. But it will not be long before it fades again. Later, after completing law school and accepting the fact that he no longer has hopes of a sizable inheritance, he wonders at the death of his passion: “…Mme
Arnoux était pour lui comme une morte dont il s’étonnait de ne pas connaître le tombeau, tant cette affection était devenue tranquille et résignée” (114). Again chance intervenes in the next paragraph in which Frédéric learns of the death of his rich uncle and of his large inheritance. Once more, his love for Madame Arnoux is revived and Frédéric rushes to Paris to renew his acquantaince with her. The narration thus “progresses” more as a consequence of fortuitous events than as a result of the intensity of Frédéric’s desire.
Sherrington theorizes that, although the narration is conveyed predominantly from
Frédéric’s perspective, the reader, accustomed to depending on the good faith of the narrator, forgets to question his reliability and is therefore inclined to accept the protagonist’s impressions as factual rather than subjective. Since the narrator rarely
107 Flaubert, L’Éducation sentimentale, préface Pierre Sipriot (1869; Paris: Poche, 1983) 23.
164 emphasizes whose point of view he is representing, the reader is tempted to trust in the
accuracy of his account.108 Therefore, as Frédéric’s point of view constantly changes, the
reader’s efforts to organize narrative clues into a coherent interpretation of characters and
events are frustrated and the reader is liable to be confused and even misled. For
example, as readers, we mainly see Frédéric’s love for Madame Arnoux through his own
eyes and are thus led to believe that it is pure, constant, and noble. But, through an
examination of the narrator’s account of Frédéric’s behavior, we can achieve a more
accurate perspective.
In the beginning of the “Deuxième Partie”, Frédéric rushes back to Paris upon
discovering that he has inherited his uncle’s fortune. After a day-long search, to which
the narrator devotes six pages, Frédéric finally finds the new Arnoux residence and his
beloved Madame Arnoux. However, to his surprise, this reunion does not reawaken the
passion he anticipates:
Frédéric s’était attendu à des spasmes de joie; ―mais les passions s’étiolent quand on les dépayse, et, ne retrouvant plus Madame Arnoux dans le milieu où il l’avait connue, elle lui semblait avoir perdu quelque chose, porter confusément comme une dégradation, enfin n’être pas la même. Le calme de son cœur le stupéfiait. (129-30)
In a rare moment of honesty, Frédéric acknowledges his lack of passionate feelings for
Madame Arnoux, but the narrator blames the setting rather than Frédéric’s inconstancy,
and, in so doing, confirms the superficial criteria upon which Frédéric bases his great
love.
108 Sherrington’s remarks concerning how easily an unwary reader of Flaubert may be misled by the impressions of the characters are extremely insightful. For example, he writes, “Now should the author faithfully record, without external comment, (…) a character’s experience, the reader will inevitably be influenced by the character’s judgment. (…) After a time, this has a cumulative effect on the reader, and even though he realizes intellectually the danger of accepting the character’s impressions as valid, he nevertheless tends to do so” (98-9).
165 This instability is also visible in the “Troisième Partie”, in which Frédéric’s
relationship with Madame Arnoux is almost non-existent. After she misses their rendez-
vous at the end of the “Deuxième Partie”, Frédéric seems to forget about her completely.
During chapters one through four of the “Troisième Partie”, the protagonist makes a
quickly aborted attempt to run for political office, takes Rosanette to Fontainebleau, and
succeeds in making Madame Dambreuse his mistress. He does meet Madame Arnoux
twice during these chapters: once, he encounters her at a Dambreuse soirée and another
time, he pays her a visit. In the first scene, when she does not respond to his twice
repeated “Vous savez que je vous aime”, he thinks to himself, “Eh bien, va te promener!”
(400). When he decides to visit her, he clearly goes to fulfill a kind of duty: “Frédéric
n’osait retourner chez Mme Arnoux. Il lui semblait l’avoir trahie. Mais cette conduite
était bien lâche. Les excuses manquaient. Il faudrait en finir par là! Et, un soir, il se mit en marche” (415). Even though his attitude and behavior would lead the reader to
conclude that his love has begun to fade, suddenly, when he hears that the Arnoux are leaving Paris due to financial problems, he reacts as though she were once again the most
important being on earth to him: “Il fallait douze mille francs, ou bien il ne reverrait plus
Mme Arnoux; et, jusqu’à présent, un espoir invincible lui était resté. Est-ce qu’elle ne
faisait pas comme la substance de son cœur, le fond même de sa vie?” (473). Frédéric
believes that his life revolves around her and that he cannot afford to lose her, even
though in reality she has ceased to be a significant part of his life. These various
passages attest to Frédéric’s self-deception regarding the purity and enduring quality of
his passion, and to the potential for deception on the level of the narration. Since the
narrator does not explicitly underscore for the reader the discrepancy between Frédéric’s
166 behavior toward Madame Arnoux and his belief in the greatness of his passion for her,
the reader is likely to believe Frédéric’s thoughts to be more factual and objective than
they actually are, and so be deceived along with the protagonist.
In the novel, there are very few characters who remain relatively consistent
throughout the narrative in terms of their opinions and occupations. Dussardier is one
such example: he is the only character who stays faithful to his friends and revolutionary
ideals to the point of self-sacrifice. “Commis dans une maison de roulage” and the
poorest of Frédéric’s acquaintances, he insists that his independently wealthy friend accept four thousand francs—Dussardier’s entire savings—to prevent the seizure of
Rosanette’s property (464-66). In contrast to those who merely champion revolutionary ideals and observe the uprisings without risking their lives, Dussardier is killed defending the Republic at the end of the novel (489). Ironically, Dussardier is killed by Sénécal, whose evolution from staunch defender of the people to agent of civil authority is among the most extreme of the novel.
In this way, Sénécal is more typical of the characters in L’Éducation
Sentimentale, such as Monsieur Arnoux, whose list of occupations, residences, mistresses
and shady practices is quite long. When Frédéric and Monsieur Arnoux first meet, he is
the editor of L’Art Industriel and an art dealer. His dishonesty and financial
irresponsibility bring his business to an end, after which he becomes a pottery dealer, and finally a merchant of rosaries and sacred objects: “…pour faire son salut et sa fortune, il
s’était mis dans le commerce des objets religieux” (461). Each successive business
venture reveals the destructive effects of capitalism, as the merchandise decreases further and further in quality. Even as an art dealer, Arnoux sells cheap reproductions with
167 forged signatures of the masters for inflated prices. Despite this, Frédéric’s respect for the man is unwavering:
…le marchand de tableaux, homme de progrès, avait tâché, tout en conservant des allures artistiques, d’étendre ses profits pécuniaires. Il recherchait l’émancipation des arts, le sublime à bon marché. Toutes les industries du luxe parisien subirent son influence, qui fut bonne pour les petites choses, et funeste pour les grandes. Avec sa rage de flatter l’opinion, il détourna de leur voie les artistes habiles, corrompit les forts, épuisa les faibles, et illustra les médiocres…. (…) Frédéric le considérait à la fois comme millionnaire, comme dilettante, comme homme d’action. Bien des choses pourtant l’étonnaient, car le sieur Arnoux était malicieux dans son commerce. (47-8)
One can discern in this description of Arnoux a combination of naive admiration on the part of Frédéric and irony on the part of the narrator, as he emphasizes the threat such a profit-driven endeavor poses to the cause of art. In his next business enterprise, there is only a semblance of art remaining in the commonplace objects displayed in his shop window:
Les plats, les soupières, les assiettes et les cuvettes encombraient le plancher. Contre les murs étaient dressés de larges carreaux de pavage pour salles de bain et cabinets de toilette, avec sujets mythologiques dans le style de la Renaissance, tandis qu’au milieu une double étagère, montant jusqu’au plafond, supportait des vases à contenir la glace, des pots à fleurs, des candélabres, de petites jardinières et de grandes statuettes poly- chromes figurant un nègre ou une bergère pompadour. (130)
Even this business utterly fails and Arnoux is reduced to making “lettres d’enseigne” and
“étiquettes à vin” (228). From the commonplace, Arnoux’s commerce deteriorates yet further to the wholly kitsch, when he resorts to selling religious statuettes:
Au deux coins de la vitrine s’élevaient deux statues en bois, bariolées d’or, de cinabre et d’azur; un saint Jean-Baptiste avec sa peau de mouton, et une sainte Geneviève, des roses dans son tablier et une quenouille sous son bras; puis des groupes en plâtre: une bonne sœur instruisant une petite fille, une mère à genoux près d’une couchette, trois collégiens devant la sainte table. Le plus joli était une manière de chalet figurant l’in- térieur de la crèche avec l’âne, le bœuf et l’Enfant Jésus talé sur de la paille, de la vraie paille. Du haut en bas des étagères, on voyait des médailles à la douzaine, des chapelets de toute espèce, des bénitiers en forme de coquille et les portraits des gloires ecclésias- tiques, parmi lesquelles brillaient Mgr Affre et Notre Saint-Père, tous deux souriant. (461)
The irony is apparent in this passage in such phrases as “le plus joli”, “de la paille, de la vraie paille”, and “tous deux souriant”, with the most remarkable element of the window
168 display being the real straw of the manger. This progression from selling art to worthless objects is representative of the corruption wrought by the gratuitous pursuit of wealth and
made possible through capitalism, not only in terms of its affects on artistic production,
but also its threat to personal integrity. Characters like Monsieur Arnoux, this “homme
de progrès”, are prepared to sacrifice all standards—both artistic and moral—when they see potential for financial profit. In the process of pursuing wealth, characters allow the desire for riches to determine their choices even at the cost of compromising personal values. In this way, Monsieur Arnoux’s character provides yet another illustration of the risk to individuality in bourgeois society.
Arnoux’s failure is not very significant in and of itself, but is revealing in terms of
Frédéric’s perception of the other characters. This is but one example of the extent to which individuality is almost non-existent in the novel, at least among those pursuing wealth and power in society. No matter how despicable Arnoux becomes, Frédéric remains indulgent toward him and defends him on many occasions (50, 260). In this way, the illusion of individuality operates not only on the personal level but also on the interpersonal level. Without good reason, characters trust naively in themselves as well as in others. The examples of this are numerous, so I will limit myself to presenting several of the most obvious. When Frédéric first arrives in Paris to begin law school, he happens upon some revolutionary activity in the street and makes the acquaintance of
Hussonnet, another spectator of the events and a writer for Arnoux’s L’Art Industriel.
During this brief encounter, the narrator provides clues to warn the reader of Hussonnet’s freewheeling character, but Frédéric immediately considers him a good friend: “…cet homme venait de prendre une place démesurée dans sa vie; il paya la note du déjeuner,
169 sans qu’il y eût de la part de l’autre aucune protestation” (39). Clearly, Hussonnet sees
Frédéric as someone of whom he can easily take advantage, but, despite being stood up four times in a row by Hussonnet, Frédéric cannot see past his friend’s elegant appearance: “un jeune homme blond, à la figure avenante, et portant moustache et barbiche comme un raffiné du temps de Louis XIII” (33).
Pellerin is another example of someone Frédéric considers worthy of admiration, but whose identity proves just as hollow as the majority of the other characters. Pellerin, an artist who makes repeated claims to pursue “le beau”, in reality spends most of his time producing counterfeit paintings for Arnoux. Thus, his dishonest practices are in direct contradiction with the artistic ideals he professes:
Pellerin lisait tous les ouvrages d’esthétique pour découvrir la véritable théorie du Beau, convaincu, quand il l’aurait trouvée, de faire des chefs-d’œuvre. Il s’entourait de tous les auxiliaires imaginables, dessins, plâtres, modèles, gravures; et il cherchait, se rongeait; il accusait le temps, ses nerfs, son atelier, sortait dans la rue pour rencontrer l’inspiration, tressaillait de l’avoir saisie, puis abandonnait son œuvre et en rêvait une autre qui devait être plus belle. Ainsi tourmenté par des convoitises de gloire et perdant ses jours en discussions, croyant à mille niaiseries, aux systèmes, aux critiques, à l’importance d’un règlement ou d’une réforme en matière d’art, il n’avait, à cinquante ans, encore produit que des ébauches. (44)
A typical representative of the world of L’Éducation sentimentale, Pellerin’s life consists of aborted attempts and empty claims, compromises and economic prostitution. Despite
Pellerin’s obvious ineptitude, Frédéric is nonetheless impressed when he visits Pellerin in his studio:
Il admira des académies de femmes échevelées, des paysages où les troncs d’arbres tordus par la tempête foisonnaient, et surtout des caprices à la plume, souvenirs de Callot, de Rembrandt ou de Goya, dont il ne connaissait pas les modèles. (…) Les choses autour de lui renforçaient la puissance de sa parole: on voyait une tête de mort sur un prie-Dieu, des yatagans, une robe de moine; Frédéric l’endossa. (45)
170 Frédéric sees an appearance of an artist’s studio and accepts the evidence at face value, so much so that he feels inspired to become an artist himself and requests that Pellerin provide the necessary guidance and instruction (61).
A more general illustration of the way Frédéric bases his admiration for the people he meets solely on appearances and status rather than upon value judgments occurs in the descriptions of the soirées he frequents at the hôtel Dambreuse:
Il y rencontra le grand M.A., l’illustre B., le profond C., l’éloquent Z., l’immense Y., les vieux ténors du centre gauche, les paladins de la droite, les burgraves du juste milieu, les éternels bonhommes de la comédie. Il fut stupéfait par leur exécrable langage, leurs petitesses, leurs rancunes, leur mauvaise foi, ―tous ces gens qui avaient voté la Constitution s’évertuant à la démolir…. (424)
Through the initials and haphazard epithets used to describe the guests, the narrator emphasizes their lack of individuality. Even though Frédéric is completely conscious of the lack of true conviction among the Dambreuse’s guests, he takes pleasure in their society: “Le verbiage politique et la bonne chère engourdissaient sa moralité. Si médiocres que lui parussent ces personnages, il était fier de les connaître et intérieurement souhaitaient la considération bourgeoise” (425). In this circle, respect is earned, not through personal integrity, but by knowing the right people, maintaining the proper appearance, and adhering to the most popular ideas. Frédéric cares little about the true nature of these politically-minded bourgeois and prizes only the social advancement made possible by his association with them. Social situations like this one corroborate the theories of Goldman discussed in the beginning of the chapter, as they demonstrate the process of reification, whereby people possess symbolic rather than true value, such that individuality cannot survive. The characters have no meaning for one another apart from their strategic usefulness in the ascent to the top of the social hierarchy.
171 Frédéric believes in the integrity of his acquaintances just as much as he wants to
believe in his own good character and seeks to promote the illusion of his own person.
What is aptly demonstrated in the novel is that the illusion of individuality is universal
and is effectively maintained through wealth no matter how unstable and incompetent the
characters. Frédéric’s high view of himself is established early in the narrative in his
musings about the certainty of his future happiness: “Il trouvait que le bonheur mérité
par l’excellence de son âme tardait à venir” (4). This thought reveals Frédéric’s passive
attitude toward life and his belief in his natural superiority, making action and diligence
unnecessary for establishing his identity. Not only does Frédéric believe in himself, but
this conviction is enough to convince his acquaintances of his worth.
The effectiveness of the illusion surrounding Frédéric is most evident in his
successes with women. As we observed in the character Bel-Ami, when Frédéric’s
behavior and language is the most deceptive, the admiration of women is strongest. For
example, after Frédéric has just succeeded in securing the affection of Madame
Dambreuse, he returns to Rosanette:
La Maréchale poussa un cri de joie en le revoyant. Elle l’attendait depuis cinq heures. Il donna pour excuse une démarche indispensable dans l’intérêt de Deslauriers. Sa figure avait un air de triomphe, une auréole, dont Rosanette fut éblouie. ―C’est peut-être à cause de ton habit noir qui te va bien; mais je ne t’ai jamais trouvé si beau! Comme tu es beau! Dans un transport de sa tendresse, elle se jura intérieurement de ne plus appartenir à d’autres, quoi qu’il advint, quand elle devrait crever de misère! Ses jolis yeux humides pétillaient d’une passion tellement puissante, que Frédéric l’attira sur ses genoux, et il se dit: “Quelle canaille je fais!” en s’applaudissant de sa perversité. (432-33)
It is precisely when Frédéric is most unfaithful and manipulative that Rosanette’s attraction and devotion to him is at its height. Rosanette is thoroughly convinced of
172 Frédéric’s superiority to other men, because, at this moment, Frédéric is most persuaded
of his personal merit.
One particular soirée at the hôtel Dambreuse provides a good example of
Frédéric’s success with women. At one point of the evening, Frédéric is speaking with
Madame Dambreuse. While he is enjoying her attention, Madame Arnoux and Louise
Roque are seated across from them and choose Frédéric as the topic of their conversation.
Louise’s infatuation with Frédéric is so obvious that Madame Dambreuse notices it and
teases him about it. Frédéric’s success is made complete when he manages to attract the
attention of all the women present:
…il respirait largement; il se sentait dans son vrai milieu, presque dans son domaine, comme si tout cela, y compris l’hôtel Dambreuse, lui avait appartenu. Les dames formaient un demi-cercle en l’écoutant; et, afin de briller, il se prononça pour le rétab- lissement du divorce…. Elles se récrièrent; d’autres chuchotaient; il y avait de petits éclats de voix dans l’ombre…. C’était comme un caquetage de poules en gaieté; et il développait sa théorie, avec cet aplomb que la conscience du succès procure. (407)
Clearly, the female guests are enamored with Frédéric and it would seem that the first
lines provide the cause for their infatuation: in this moment, the protagonist is
fantasizing that he is not merely a guest, but the proprietor of the hôtel Dambreuse and
the host of the evening. It is this illusion that helps Frédéric gain confidence and arrest
the attention of his female audience. Then, to maintain their interest, he strategically
chooses divorce as the topic of his discourse and gives the impression of advocating feminist ideas. Therefore, his female audience admires him less for who he actually is
than for the illusion he creates for himself and those around him.
173 This soirée also demonstrates the intermixing of the classes, because finally, the
various characters of the novel are united in the same social setting.109 Initially in the
novel, even Frédéric is an outsider with respect to the Dambreuse and their social circle.
But, in this scene, not only does Frédéric shine, but Monsieur and Madame Arnoux,
Hussonnet, Pellerin, Monsieur Roque and his daughter Louise, are all present for the first time in the novel with the upper-class guests. Although Dussardier and Rosanette, as representative of the lower classes, are missing, even they enter into the conversation.
The moment at which this intermingling will be even more extensive is at the sale of
Madame Arnoux’s belongings, when Rosanette and Madame Dambreuse have their first
face-to-face encounter:
Madame Dambreuse l’avait reconnue; et, pendant une minute, elles se considèrent de haut en bas, scrupuleusement, afin de découvrir le défaut, la tare, ―l’une enviant peut-être la jeunesse de l’autre, et celle-ci dépitée par l’extrême bon ton, la simplicité aristocratique de sa rivale. Enfin, Madame Dambreuse détourna la tête, avec un sourire d’une insolence inexprimable. (484)
In this scene, there is a meeting of three different classes—the petite bourgeoisie, the
haute bourgeoisie, and the demi-monde—represented by Madame Arnoux, Madame
Dambreuse, and Rosanette respectively. Social promiscuity is made palpable in this
scene as Madame Arnoux’s belongings are made available and distributed to people of all
classes. Financial ruin translates into loss of social standing and financial means into an
ability to appropriate the vacated position of the déclassés.
109 Alan Raitt studies this mixing of the classes in his chapter “La Décomposition des personnages” in Flaubert la dimension du texte, ed. P.M. Wetherill (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1982) 157-74. For example, he writes, “…dans le monde de L’Éducation sentimentale les lignes de démarcation entre les classes sont extraordinairement imprécises” (162) and “Même si on admet que le brassage des classes aux alentours de 1848 est un fait historique, il faut convenir que l’absence de traits de classe clairement identifiés contribue singulièrement à ce flou où baignent les personnages du roman” (163).
174 In both L’Éducation sentimentale and Madame Bovary, the characters seek to
establish their individuality through conformity to an external norm and allow their values and desires to be dictated to them by society. In each case, the protagonists and many of the secondary characters believe their desires to be authentic when, in reality, their true longings remain unknown and inaccessible. This lack of awareness of the power of their environment to shape them leaves Emma and Frédéric vulnerable to its influence, just like Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais.
The Inaccuracy of Perceptions
A second determining factor present in Madame Bovary and L’Éducation
sentimentale is the characters’ confidence in the reliability of their own perceptions.
Related to the illusion of individuality, this confidence in one’s ability to correctly
interpret events and assess people leads to inaccurate conclusions and foolish decisions.
According to Sherrington, these novels demonstrate that, “Like most mortals, [Flaubert’s
characters] believe they are looking at reality (both material and spiritual) whenever they
are looking at their personal version of it” (340). As was suggested in the last section,
Flaubert uses the instability of characters to undermine the reader’s interpretation of the
text and to cause him/her to question the possibility of drawing definite conclusions.
Now, we will see the danger of trusting in one’s own discernment illustrated in the novels
through the examples of Emma and Frédéric.
However inaccurate the characters’ perception of reality may be, the characters
never stop to question their interpretation. In Madame Bovary, the blindness of both
175 Emma and Charles to the true state of things prevents them from avoiding disaster.110
They are both intent on believing what they want to believe rather than on seeing people and circumstances for what they are. In Emma’s case, the best illustration of her blindness to reality is found in her view of Rodolphe. Carla Peterson suggests that Emma reads Rodolphe inaccurately because she bases her estimation on external features that blind her to the person he is.111 Early in her marriage to Charles, Emma tries to determine what is preventing her from experiencing the passion she anticipated and concludes that romantic love can flourish only in certain locations and only with a man dressed a certain way:
Il lui semblait que certains lieux sur la terre devaient produire du bonheur, comme une plante particulière au sol et qui pousse mal tout autre part. Que ne pouvait-elle s’accouder sur le balcon des chalets suisses ou enfermer sa tristesse dans un cottage écossais, avec un mari vêtu d’un habit de velours noir à longues basques, et qui porte des bottes molles, un chapeau pointu et des manchettes! (52)
Emma’s romantic fantasy appears ridiculous to the reader, but like the example of her fascination with Paris, her focus on appearance is not entirely foreign to the reader’s experience. Once again, Flaubert uses the foolishness of his character to expose the reader’s own delusions.
110 Auerbach has observed this tendency in Emma and Charles: “…privately, each of them has a silly, false world, which cannot be reconciled with the reality of his situation, and so they both miss the possibilities life offers them. What is true of these two, applies to almost all the other characters in the novel; each of the many mediocre people who act in it has his own world of mediocre and silly stupidity, a world of illusions, habits, instincts, and slogans; each is alone, none can understand another, or help another to insight…” (489).
111 “…Emma misreads life—herself and others—just as she has misread literature. She ‘reads’ Rodolphe ‘disintegratively’ and ‘literally,’ focusing on details of dress (his riding clothes, for example), of physique (his black hair curling over his forehead), of language (the disconnected romantic clichés he glibly spouts) rather than on his whole self, and she accepts these surface signs as Rodolphe’s true self rather than looking to the cruder reality that lies beyond them” (Carla L. Peterson, “The Heroine as Reader in the Nineteenth- Century Novel: Emma Bovary and Maggie Tulliver,” Comparative Literature Studies 17 (1980): 177).
176 Emma’s belief that velvet is the ultimate proof of elegance in a man makes her
particularly vulnerable to Rodolphe’s seduction. The reader has only to consider Emma’s first impression of Rodolphe to predict that she will become his mistress: “Emma était accoudée à sa fenêtre (…) lorsqu’elle aperçut un monsieur vêtu d’une redingote de velours vert. Il était ganté de gants jaunes, quoiqu’il fût chaussé de fortes guêtres…”
(139). Significantly, the only details that stand out to Emma are Rodolphe’s clothes.
Again, when he arrives to take Emma horseback riding, the first thing Emma notices is
Rodolphe’s attire: “Rodolphe avait mis de longues bottes molles, se disant que sans doute elle n’en avait jamais vu de pareilles; en effet, Emma fut charmée de sa tournure, lorsqu’il apparut sur le palier avec son grand habit de velours et sa culotte de tricot blanc”
(168). Not only is Emma impressed with the velvet riding habit, but the “bottes molles” help Rodolphe to correspond even further to Emma’s ideal fantasy quoted above. Emma evaluates Rodolphe and the other men of her acquaintance almost exclusively on the basis of appearance and language rather than on inner qualities. Later, when she and
Léon become lovers, she requests that he dress and shave his beard a certain way in order to satisfy her fantasy: “Elle voulût qu’il se vêtit tout en noir et se laissât pousser une pointe au menton, pour ressembler aux portraits de Louis XIII” (284).
One exception to Emma’s reliance on appearance to assess someone’s value is at the Vaubyessard ball, where she admires the duc de Laverdière. In this case, the fact that he is a nobleman and reputed to have an illustrious past is enough to blind her to the spectacle of decadence the old man represents:
…au haut bout de la table, seul parmi toutes ces femmes, courbé sur son assiette remplie, et la serviette nouée dans le dos comme un enfant, un vieillard mangeait, laissant tomber de sa bouche des gouttes de sauce. Il avait les yeux éraillés et portait une petite queue enroulée d’un ruban noir. C’était le beau-père du marquis, le vieux 177 duc de Laverdière…. (…) Un domestique, derrière sa chaise, lui nommait tout haut, dans l’oreille, les plats qu’il désignait du doigt et bégayant; et sans cesse les yeux d’Emma revenaient d’eux-mêmes sur ce vieil homme à lèvres pendantes, comme sur quelque chose d’extraordinaire et d’auguste. Il avait vécu à la Cour et couché dans le lit des reines! (60)
In this passage, the narrator stresses the reality of the duke’s deterioration by placing him at a table of women and emphasizing his childlike helplessness and dependence on the servant. The narrator demonstrates the sharp contrast that exists between this reality and
Emma’s perception of it by following his repulsive portrait of the duke with a description of Emma’s enthrallment.
Though Charles and Emma have few similarities, this tendency to approach people and circumstances with preconceived notions is one characteristic they share.
Charles is so intent upon protecting the illusion of his happiness that he refuses to see
Emma for who she is. The discrepancy between the way Charles and Emma view their relationship is apparent from the very beginning of their marriage. Two excerpts from the passages recounting their initial impressions will help to illustrate first Charles’s perspective and then Emma’s:112
Il était donc heureux et sans souci de rien au monde. Un repas en tête-à-tête, une promenade le soir sur la grande route, un geste de sa main sur ses bandeaux, la vue de son chapeau de paille accroché à l’espagnolette d’une fenêtre, et bien d’autres choses encore où Charles n’avait jamais soupçonné de plaisir, composaient maintenant la continuité de son bonheur. (45)
Avant qu’elle se mariât, elle avait cru avoir de l’amour; mais le bonheur qui aurait dû résulter de cet amour n’étant pas venu, il fallait qu’elle se fût trompée, songea-t-elle. (46)
112 The following two passages illustrate the contrast between the two perspectives further. The first describes Charles’s perfect contentment being married to Emma: “…à présent, il possédait pour la vie cette jolie femme qu’il adorait. L’univers, pour lui, n’excédait pas le tour soyeux de son jupon…” (46). The second reveals the contrast between Emma’s expectations of what a husband should be and Charles’s failure to live up to them: “Un homme, au contraire, ne devait-il pas tout connaître, exceller en des activités multiples, vous initier aux énergies de la passion, aux raffinements de la vie, à tous les mystères? Mais il n’enseignait rien, celui-là, ne savait rien, ne souhaitait rien. Il la croyait heureuse; et elle lui en voulait de ce calme si bien assis, de cette pesanteur sereine, du bonheur même qu’elle lui donnait” (53).
178
At the height of her passion for Léon, Emma redoubles her efforts to play the part of a
virtuous wife: “Elle était pour son mari plus charmante que jamais, lui faisait des crèmes
à la pistache et jouait des valses après dîner. Il se trouvait donc le plus fortuné des
mortels, et Emma vivait sans inquiétude….” (277) Despite the overwhelming evidence
against her trustworthiness, Charles almost never questions her. Even after her death,
when confronted with proof upon proof of her infidelity, he continues to justify her in his
mind. When Charles comes across the letter from Rodolphe that Emma had dropped in
the attic, he reasons,
―Ils se sont peut-être aimés platoniquement, se dit-il. D’ailleurs, Charles n’était pas de ceux qui descendent au fond des choses; il recula devant les preuves, et sa jalousie incertaine se perdit dans l’immensité de son chagrin. (345)
Charles might avoid examining the evidence, but the narrator is not so kind as to allow
Charles the luxury of his illusions and forces him to confront the truth about Emma’s
adultery:
Charles n’avait pas encore ouvert le compartiment secret d’un bureau de palissandre dont Emma se servait habituellement. Un jour, enfin, il s’assit devant, tourna la clef et poussa le ressort. Toutes les lettres de Léon s’y trouvaient. Plus de doute, cette fois! Il dévora jusqu’à la dernière, fouilla dans tous les coins, tous les meubles, tous les tiroirs, derrière les murs, sanglotant, hurlant, éperdu, fou. Il découvrit une boîte, la défonça d’un coup de pied. Le portrait de Rodolphe lui sauta en plein visage, au milieu des billets doux bouleversés. (349-50)
Even at this point, with enough reasons to despise Emma, Rodolphe, and Léon, Charles reacts to his discoveries by accusing fate. After assuring Rodolphe that he does not harbor any ill feelings towards him, he exclaims, “―C’est la faute de la fatalité!” One of
the few characters of the novel who does not possess many illusions, Rodolphe perceives
Charles’s reluctance to face the truth about Emma and her lack of love for him:
“Rodolphe, qui avait conduit cette fatalité, le trouva bien débonnaire pour un homme
179 dans sa situation, comique même, et un peu vil” (351). Even though Rodolphe often refers to fate, he merely uses it rhetorically to manipulate people and situations to his advantage. It is interesting to note that, in his parting letter to Emma, Rodolphe had told her to blame fatality for their meeting. Here, it is Charles who follows Rodolphe’s advice after reading the same letter. Charles, like Emma, searches for explanations that corroborate his idealistic perspective rather than forming conclusions based on actual facts. In this way, the narrator illustrates the high potential for error in human reason due to the fact that hidden desires unknowingly inform perceptions. The consequences of this reliance on one’s personal view of reality in Madame Bovary are that Charles never
learns to meet Emma’s needs, because he is unwilling to face her disappointment in him,
and Emma is unable to see the potential in Charles to do so. Due to the strength of their
illusions, both characters remain trapped in their private, solitary worlds without ever
engaging in real communication.
In L’Éducation sentimentale, since the narration is predominantly from Frédéric’s
perspective, we will analyze mainly his inaccurate perceptions and their consequences.
What is comical in this novel is that, given the universal nature of the problem of
misinterpretation, Frédéric’s faux pas never seem to have damaging effects on his social
standing. Characters are shown to be so egocentric and emotionally isolated from one another that they barely notice those around them apart from the potential benefit or threat they represent. At one particular soirée at the hôtel Dambreuse, Frédéric is convinced that he has been a complete failure socially. The narrator gives the reader access to his private thoughts, thus revealing the illogical and erroneous conclusions
Frédéric makes regarding the way the Dambreuse and the other guests view him. First,
180 when Madame Dambreuse asks Frédéric if he wants to buy a carriage, he automatically
thinks she is alluding to his relationship to Rosanette: “Elle le croyait l’amant de
Rosanette; l’allusion était claire. Il sembla même à Frédéric que toutes les dames le
regardaient de loin, en chuchotant. Pour mieux voir ce qu’elles pensaient, il se rapprocha
d’elles…” (277). Frédéric’s self-centeredness is so extreme that he imagines all the
ladies are whispering about him and his confidence in his ability to read their thoughts so
great that he thinks he only needs to approach them to “see” their thoughts clearly. The
next exchange provides a second example of the inaccuracy of Frédéric’s perceptions.
Madame Dambreuse inquires about Monsieur and Madame Arnoux’s financial situation and Frédéric reads into her question yet another allusion to a mistress:
―En effet, vous êtes venu, un matin… pour… une maison, je crois? Oui, une maison appartenant à sa femme. (Cela signifiait: “C’est votre maîtresse.”) Il rougit jusqu’aux oreilles; et M. Dambreuse, qui arrivait au même moment, ajouta: ―Vous paraissiez même vous intéresser beaucoup à eux. Ces derniers mots achevèrent de décontenancer Frédéric. (277-78)
Throughout this scene, unlike the majority of the novel, the narrator provides some clues
to help the reader distinguish between Frédéric’s impressions and the actual thoughts of
his interlocutors. Just after the passage quoted above, the narrator informs us that
Monsieur Dambreuse is attempting to give Frédéric counsel concerning his dealings with the Arnoux, but Frédéric is too embarrassed to discern his real motivation. As the soirée continues, Frédéric becomes increasingly uncomfortable and, in his frustration, unleashes a diatribe against all the forms of governmental authority represented by the Dambreuse’s guests. Certain that he has made himself the target of everyone’s mockery and ill will,
Frédéric finally takes leave of the hosts:
Enfin, il jugea convenable de se retirer; et, comme il s’en allait, M. Dambreuse lui dit, faisant allusion à la place de secrétaire: 181 ―Rien n’est terminé encore! Mais dépêchez-vous! Et Mme Dambreuse: ―A bientôt, n’est-ce pas? Frédéric jugea leur adieu une dernière moquerie. Il était déterminé à ne jamais revenir dans cette maison, à ne plus fréquenter tous ces gens-là. Il croyait les avoir blessés, ne sachant pas quel large fonds d’indifférence le monde possède! Ces femmes surtout l’indignaient. Pas une qui l’eût soutenu, même du regard. Il leur en voulait de ne pas les avoir émues. (280)
The narrator demonstrates in this scene Frédéric’s inability to escape his subjective
impressions enough to see that those around him are just as trapped by their egocentric
perspectives as he is. Frédéric’s primary error according to the narrator is to believe that
the other characters genuinely care about his existence and opinions. The narrator
assures us that they do not and that, like most of Frédéric’s acquaintances, Monsieur
Dambreuse is looking only for a way to use Frédéric.
Feeling threatened by the revolutionary activity and the fall of the monarchy,
Monsieur Dambreuse remembers Frédéric’s bold language and looks to him as a person
of influence. Monsieur Dambreuse visits Frédéric and encourages him to run for election
to the National Assembly, in the hope of securing protection for himself. So, the illusion
comes full circle, for, far from putting off Monsieur Dambreuse as Frédéric suspected, his
offensive remarks actually served to convince Monsieur Dambreuse of his political clout.
Erich Auerbach’s insight about Madame Bovary that all of the characters exist alone in a
“silly, false world” of private illusions applies just as well to L’Éducation sentimentale as to Flaubert’s first novel. However, somehow these illusions prove less destructive in the latter novel, perhaps because they are more similar in kind. The sharp contrast between
Emma’s and Charles’s illusions make it impossible for them to ever correspond the way
Frédéric’s and Monsieur Dambreuse’s illusions do. In their case, Frédéric’s worldly
182 ambitions make him useful to Monsieur Dambreuse and the wealthy bourgeois’s suggestion that he run for political office is flattering to the aspiring Frédéric.
In his relationships with women, Frédéric is just as naive as he is in the political
arena. In a similar way, his inability to see situations as they really are is rarely detrimental to his interests. One example of his naivety occurs with Madame Arnoux.
Believing Monsieur Arnoux to be on a business trip in Germany, Frédéric goes to pay
Madame Arnoux a visit. In response to his insistent ringing and knocking, a disheveled
and disgruntled Arnoux finally comes to the door. At the same time the narration makes
it extremely apparent to the reader that Arnoux is entertaining a female visitor by the two
glasses of champagne and Arnoux’s manner, it stresses Frédéric’s total obliviousness to
the multiple clues. Once again, the protagonist is so self-absorbed and distracted by his
obsession with Madame Arnoux that he is blind to Monsieur Arnoux’s predicament.
When Frédéric knocks over a woman’s parasol and breaks its handle, he immediately
assumes that it belongs to Madame Arnoux:
…Frédéric marchait de droite et de gauche, dans la salle. En heurtant le pied d’une chaise, il fit tomber une ombrelle posée dessus; le manche d’ivoire se brisa. ―Mon Dieu! s’écria-t-il, comme je suis chagrin d’avoir brisé l’ombrelle de Mme Arnoux! A ce mot, le marchand releva la tête, et eut un singulier sourire. (75)
The narrator provides the reader with enough information to imagine the thoughts behind
Monsieur Arnoux’s “singulier sourire” and to discern Frédéric’s dullness. What will be more surprising to the reader is that Frédéric will never discover the truth and, in his ignorance, will unknowingly provide evidence to Madame Arnoux of her husband’s infidelity. At the celebration of her feast day, Frédéric decides to replace the broken parasol with a new one and when he presents it to her, he tells her he is simply repaying a
183 debt. When she reacts confusedly to this statement, Monsieur quickly interrupts them and reproaches Frédéric for his stupidity. Frédéric’s poor discernment becomes even more blatant and somewhat comical when Monsieur Arnoux wraps a bouquet of roses in a love letter from Mademoiselle Vatnaz (delivered by Frédéric) and offers them to his wife. Frédéric gallantly picks them up off the floor after Madame Arnoux has discovered the letter and thrown them down and Frédéric will never have the perspicacity to make sense of her negative reaction or her sadness. Nevertheless, Frédéric’s lack of tact only serves to further his interests with Madame Arnoux, since her discovery serves as a catalyst in their relationship. Upon discovering her husband’s unfaithfulness, Madame
Arnoux begins to look to Frédéric’s companionship for comfort.
A last example that will help to illustrate the inaccuracy of perceptions is Madame
Arnoux’s final visit to see Frédéric. Her attitude during this meeting reveals to what extent her illusions about his love for her were just as powerful as his. Even though her hair has turned completely gray and Frédéric has to kneel down to avoid seeing her so that he can conjure up his old passion, she believes every word he says: “Elle acceptait avec ravissement ces adorations pour la femme qu’elle n’était plus. Frédéric, se grisant par ses paroles, arrivait à croire ce qu’il disait” (494). Their illusions are as strong as their desire to maintain them. Despite Madame Arnoux’s knowledge of Rosanette and
Louise Roque, she still trusts in the purity of Frédéric’s love for her. When Frédéric is considering whether or not to accept Madame Arnoux’s implicit offer of herself, his thoughts alternate between disgust and sheer sexual desire rather than the noble and self- sacrificing thoughts Madame Arnoux imagines him to have:
Frédéric soupçonna Mme Arnoux d’être venue pour s’offrir; et il était repris par une convoitise plus forte que jamais, furieuse, enragée. Cependant, il sentait quelque 184 chose d’inexprimable, une répulsion, et comme l’effroi d’un inceste. Une autre crainte l’arrêta, celle d’en avoir dégoût plus tard. D’ailleurs, quel embarras ce serait! ― et tout à la fois par prudence et pour ne pas dégrader son idéal, il tourna sur ses talons et se mit à faire une cigarette. Elle le contemplait, tout émerveillée. ―Comme vous êtes délicat! Il n’y a que vous! Il n’y a que vous! (495)
Wanting to preserve her ideal picture of Frédéric, Madame Arnoux prefers to not
question her perceptions concerning him.
This tendency to misread people and circumstances according to one’s personal
preferences that we see illustrated in the lives of Emma, Charles, Frédéric, and many
secondary characters is indicative of a belief in the integrity of the self and in the
reliability of one’s perceptions. Emma clings to her faith that she will be able to find
satisfaction for her longings if only she can find the ideal man under the perfect
circumstances. Little does Emma suspect to what degree she has appropriated her dreams
from literary models and that she cannot hope to fulfill them in real experience. Firmly
convinced of “l’excellence de son âme”, Frédéric waits passively for life to favor him
without engaging in meaningful action and therefore lives an aimless and ineffective
life.113
Tragedy, Comedy, or Humor?
According to Benjamin Constant’s theory on nineteenth-century tragedy, as we
have seen, it is the pressure exerted by society that overcomes individuals without their
awareness, causing them to conform and threatening their ability to maintain their individuality. If so, one could examine the tragic aspects of Madame Bovary and
L’Éducation sentimentale in terms of how the characters demonstrate their illusion of
113 Frédéric’s passive attitude toward life due to his false sense of superiority is nowhere more evident than in the following statement made in the opening scene of the novel: “Il trouvait que le bonheur mérité par l’excellence de son âme tardait à venir” (4).
185 individuality despite the impossibility of attaining it in nineteenth-century society. In
Emma’s case, this contradiction manifests itself in her love for literature and in her
attempts to appropriate the identity and fictional destinies of the novels’ heroines. For
Frédéric, his unfounded confidence in his individuality shows itself mainly in the false
identity he constructs for himself through his passion for Madame Arnoux. The
protagonist persuades himself that he has found the reason for his existence when he
meets Madame Arnoux, but is blind to the fact that he uses his passion for Madame
Arnoux to exempt himself from effectual action. But, before considering Constant’s
perspective on tragedy further, we will first situate the novels with respect to some of the
more traditional characteristics of the genre.
In order to evaluate Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale in terms of
their formal tragic aspects, we will be referring to several fundamental elements of
tragedy and comedy as proposed by Aristotle in his Poetics. Though Aristotle does not include as thorough a description for comedy in the Poetics as he does for tragedy, he
often contrasts the tragic elements he discusses with those that characterize the comic
genre. Thus, these contrasts will help us to discern where comedy appears and tragedy
breaks down in each novel.114 Susanne Langer’s insights into the two genres will also
inform our study. She advocates an approach to generic analysis that allows for the
intermixing of tragic and comic elements: “…the two forms are perfectly capable of
various combinations, incorporating elements of one in the other. The matrix of the work
is always either tragic or comic; but within its frame the two often interplay” (334). As
114 David Gervais confirms the validity of this approach throughout his study on the tragic aspects of Madame Bovary: “There is good reason to use the words comedy and tragedy almost interchangeably in speaking of Flaubert” (44).
186 we study the novels in the light of traditional generic requirements, we will find that,
although both novels include both tragic and comic aspects, they also transgress and
transcend the requirements of both tragedy and comedy, thus producing an entirely
different hybrid genre, which we will attempt to name and describe at the conclusion of
this chapter. Since a comprehensive analysis of the tragic and comic elements of
Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale would be beyond the scope of this study, we will limit ourselves here to studying those aspects that will further contribute to our understanding of the question of individuality in nineteenth-century novels, namely to a discussion of plot and characters. First, we will consider the elements of tragic plot as proposed by Aristotle: peripeteia, anagnorisis, and pathos.115 Our goal will be to
discern the presence of traditional tragedy in Madame Bovary and L’Éducation
sentimentale as well as the points at which the tragic genre disappears and gives precedence to comedy. In L’Éducation sentimentale in particular, there seem to be only glimpses of tragic potential. On the other hand, although there are many comical moments, these “laughable actions” are usually painful and destructive, thus making the
comedy in the novel serious rather than lighthearted. We will find that, unlike the
moments of comic relief characteristic of many tragic plays, the type of comedy present
in Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale actually contributes to the tragedy rather than attenuating its effects. We will also examine the characters to determine their tragic potential, by considering whether Flaubert’s characters are portrayed as inferior to ourselves, which is characteristic of comic characters, or better than we are, which is
115 I have chosen to use the Greek names because of the limited ability of the English equivalents to convey the full meaning of these concepts. However, to avoid confusion, Richard Janko translates peripeteia as “reversal”, anagnorisis as “recognition”, and pathos as “suffering”.
187 characteristic of tragic characters (Aristotle 3, 53). Recalling Heilman’s distinction
between melodramatic and tragic characters from the last chapter, we will consider
whether the characters represent moral categories or are multifaceted with both good and
bad coexisting within them. Finally, with the help of Luigi Pirandello’s insightful work
entitled On Humor, we will connect this intermixing of tragic and comic effects to the
approach of a humoristic writer.
In Aristotelian theory, the highest form of tragedy is possible, not when characters
are treated unjustly or suffer from catastrophic circumstances over which they have no
control, but when characters suffer as a result of their own doing.116 It is in this sense that
Flaubert’s novels are most tragic, as it is the characters themselves who sabotage their
own happiness. As we already observed, Emma and Frédéric’s illusions of individuality
and of accurately perceiving reality blind them to truth and determine their choices. It is
Emma’s belief in the conceivability of her dreams and her trust in appearances that
deceive her regarding the men in her life, and it is Frédéric’s faith in his inherent
superiority that prevents him from pursuing and attaining concrete goals. Using the descriptive terms of traditional tragedy, we could conclude that the illusion of selfhood functions as the hamartia or Tragic Error common to both novels. It is their trust in their
own perceptions that keeps both Emma and Frédéric from altering their course and
avoiding ultimate failure.
116 “…the deepest tragedy is not when men are struck down by the blow of chance or fate (…); nor yet when they are destroyed by their enemies (…); but when their destruction is the work of those that wish them well, or of their own unwitting hands. For it is the perpetual tragic irony of theTragedy of Life that again and again men do thus laboriously contrive their own annihilation, or kill the thing they love” (F.L. Lucas, Tragedy (London: Hogarth, 1957) 112).
188 It will be helpful for our analysis to introduce the three major components of the traditional tragic plot, as they are described in the Poetics. Aristotle defines the term peripeteia as “a change of actions to their opposite” and anagnorisis to be “a change from ignorance to knowledge” (14) and considers these two elements of plot to be tragedy’s most important aspects: “…the most important things with which a tragedy enthralls [us] are parts of plot: reversals (peripeteia) and recognitions (anagnorisis)” (9).
As Lucas puts it, “The peripeteia, in short, is the working in blindness to one’s own defeat: the anagnorisis is the realization of the truth, the opening of the eyes, the sudden lightning-flash in the darkness” (113-14). In other words, peripeteia occurs when a character unexpectedly brings about the opposite result he/she was attempting to cause and anagnorisis happens when the character is finally able to see other people and circumstances for what they are. What I find significant is that both novels include many examples of peripeteia but few examples of anagnorisis. In other words, Emma and
Frédéric tend to inhibit their own happiness and success by the very means they use to obtain it; and, although there are moments of revelation, neither character gains lasting or transformative insight into themselves or their lives as a result of their suffering. Pathos or suffering is the third component of the tragic plot according to Aristotle: “Suffering is a destructive or painful action, e.g. deaths in full view, agonies, woundings, etc.” (15).
While the pathos in each novel is often rooted in illusions and in an unwillingness to confront reality, emotional and even physical suffering are abundant in both works.
Though it is usually the result of “laughable actions”, the pain that results is genuine, thus producing a residual tragic feeling after many of the comical moments. Rather than
189 analyzing the element of pathos separately, we will simply draw attention to its
appearance throughout our discussion of plot and characters.
In the narration of Madame Bovary, it is quite clear that Emma’s extramarital affairs do not satisfy her desires. Each time she convinces herself that a certain experience will fulfill her longings, she soon discovers that she is still as miserable as she was before obtaining it. For example, during her passionate affair with Rodolphe, it is not long before she senses that their love is diminishing and their relationship is becoming as passionless as marriage: “…leur grand amour, où elle vivait plongée, parut se diminuer sous elle, comme l’eau d’un fleuve qui s’absorberait dans son lit, et elle aperçut la vase. Elle n’y voulait pas croire…” (181). Obtaining what she desires actually exposes the insatiable nature of Emma’s longings, as she realizes that nothing satisfies her permanently. However, she is unable or rather unwilling to allow her thoughts to reach this ultimate conclusion. She knows she is miserable and tries to discover the cause, but refuses to look within herself: “Mais qui donc la rendait si malheureuse? Où
était la catastrophe extraordinaire qui l’avait bouleversée? Et elle releva la tête, regardant autour d’elle, comme pour chercher la cause de ce qui la faisait souffrir” (183). Reluctant to believe that the reality of life will never measure up to her expectations of what life should be, she continues hoping and permitting new illusions to form and determine her choices. Like Emma’s disillusionment in the affair with Rodolphe, her relationship with
Léon gradually becomes just as monotonous and disappointing: “Elle était aussi dégoûtée de lui qu’il était fatigué d’elle. Emma retrouvait dans l’adultère toutes les platitudes du mariage” (296).
190 So, why does Emma cling to her illusions so desperately despite the fact that each
new lover confirms their unrealizability? It is because Emma’s survival depends on her
illusions. Emma will eventually reach the point of desiring death as the ultimate escape
from reality, but before reaching this extreme, she depends on her imagination to help her
avoid facing the reality of her circumstances. This becomes apparent in her relationship with Léon, when she exhausts herself in attempts to fabricate illusions in order to keep
her passion alive. Her interest in Léon himself has long since died, but she still relies on her relationship with him to inspire the illusions that sustain her. In a revealing passage, we witness Emma’s imagination deployed to its full capacity, as she writes letters to
Léon while pretending he is the lover of her dreams:
Mais, en écrivant, elle percevait un autre homme, un fantôme fait de ses plus ardents souvenirs, de ses lectures les plus belles, de ses convoitises les plus fortes; et il devenait à la fin si véritable, et accessible, qu’elle en palpitait émerveillée, sans pouvoir néanmoins le nettement imaginer, tant il se perdait, comme un dieu, sous l’abondance de ses attributs. Il habitait la contrée bleuâtre où les échelles de soie se balancent à des balcons, sous le souffle des fleurs, dans la clarté de la lune. Elle le sentait près d’elle, il allait venir et l’en- lèverait tout entière dans un baiser. Ensuite elle retombait à plat, brisée; car ces élans d’amour vague la fatiguaient plus que de grandes débauches. Elle éprouvait maintenant une courbature incessante et universelle. (…) Elle aurait voulu ne plus vivre, ou continuellement dormir. (297)
Emma is disillusioned enough by this point to know that no human lover can actualize
and sustain her fantasies; therefore, she finds recourse in this imaginary one. Her
imaginary love life serves as a step toward a desire for death, as evidenced by the last
lines of the passage. The energy she must expend to sustain these fantasies far exceeds
that required by her actual love affairs, so that the end result of her reverie is exhaustion
and a desire for eternal sleep or death. A passage that directly precedes her suicide
confirms that death has become the only remaining option for Emma: “Tout et elle-
même lui étaient insupportables. Elle aurait voulu, s’échappant comme un oiseau, aller
191 se rajeunir quelque part, bien loin, dans les espaces immaculés” (298). Since Emma has found that permanent escape is not possible either through actual love affairs or imaginary ones, she resorts to suicide in a last desperate effort to hold on to her illusions.
When Emma requests a mirror on her deathbed, this long gaze at her reflection and the tears she sheds might indicate that she is finally confronting reality instead of attempting to evade it: “…elle demanda son miroir, et elle resta penchée dessus quelque temps; jusqu’au moment où de grosses larmes lui découlèrent des yeux” (329). The significance of this scene is more apparent when compared to Emma’s earlier reaction to her mirror image at the start of her affair with Rodolphe:
…en s’apercevant dans la glace, elle s’étonna de son visage. Jamais elle n’avait eu les yeux si grands, si noirs, d’une telle profondeur. Quelque chose de subtil épandu sur sa personne la transfigurait. (…) Alors, elle se rappela les héroïnes des livres qu’elle avait lus, et la légion lyrique de ces femmes adultères se mit à chanter dans sa mémoire avec des voix de sœurs qui la charmaient. Elle devenait elle-même comme une partie véritable de sa jeunesse, en se considérant dans ce type d’amoureuse qu’elle avait tant envié. (173)
In this earlier scene, Emma believes that she really has become one of the romantic heroines of the novels she had read. Her love affair with Rodolphe was transfiguring her in her own sight, so that her mirror image was the direct reflection of her fantasy: she had become a seductive and alluring woman with deep, dark eyes. In this scene, the narration focuses exclusively on describing the reflection Emma sees, because it is only Emma’s vision that matters to her. She is isolated in the world of her imagination in this first mirror scene, whereas in the later one, the narrator does not need to inform the reader of what Emma sees, because she is finally forced to see herself as everyone else does: dying and miserable. However, this moment of partial anagnorisis is only possible because Emma knows she is about to die and finally escape the tragedy of her existence.
192 “The essence of tragedy”, Nietzsche has said, “is not simple disillusion, but alternate illusion and disillusion” (qtd. in Lucas 70). This provides a helpful summary of the tragic nature of Emma’s experience, since, as we discussed earlier, Emma is alternately aware of her illusions and blinded by them. The peripeteia occurs each time
Emma chooses to allow her illusions to gain the upper hand once again, and rather than ensuring the fulfillment of her longings, her love affairs actually make her more and more miserable, until she finally resorts to suicide. The protagonist has moments of partial anagnorisis, but her enlightenment is never total. David Gervais asserts that Emma dies retaining all of her illusions, thereby undermining her potential to be a tragic character.117
According to my reading of Emma’s death, though she does not die in a state of complete
enlightenment, she does experience the death of her illusions. I believe there is evidence
for this in the mirror scene as well as in the final appearance of the blind beggar, the
tragic figure par excellence.118 When Emma hears him singing outside her window, her
awareness of who it is and her hideous laugh could perhaps indicate that, on a symbolic
level, her eyes have finally opened to her personal blindness: “―L’aveugle! s’écria-t-
elle. Et Emma se mit à rire, d’un rire atroce, frénétique, désespéré…” (330). The nature
of Emma’s laughter is difficult to characterize, but I would like to propose two possible
117 “If, in Emma Bovary’s end, we witness only the final bankruptcy of her spirit, a death suffered, like her life, in blindness and delusion, then, however tragic her world appears to be, she herself cannot be a tragic character” (Gervais 90).
118 I believe Emma’s gaze in the mirror and the song of the blind beggar are examples of what David Baguley describes in his study on naturalism. He suggests that moments of recognition such as this one, when protagonists are confronted with the truth about themselves through other characters or their own reflection, reveal the influence of classical tragedy in novels of this period: “Il y a souvent dans ces trames maudites, au plus fort même de la dégéneration (…), comme pour être conforme au modèle classique, une scène de reconnaissance dans laquelle le personnage ‘tragique’ est mis en présence de l’affreuse image de son moi dégradé” (Le Naturalisme et ses genres (Paris: Nathan, 1995) 85).
193 explanations for it: perhaps, the frenetic laughter indicates that the recognition of her
illusions has driven the protagonist to sheer madness, or it could represent a moment of
mirror identification with the blind beggar, who was described as a laughing idiot in
earlier descriptions.119 When she hears him singing and then imagines that she sees his
hideous face “qui se dressait dans les ténèbres éternelles” (330), the narrator might be
indicating that, on a spiritual level, Emma is recognizing her own blindness and moral
depravity. In either case, in addition to representing a moment of partial anagnorisis, I
believe that Emma’s frenzied laughter translates an experience of pathos as she comes
face to face with her illusions and with death itself. However, despite the despair she
expresses, her awareness of blindness does not result in self-knowledge. Flaubert is
illustrating again that human beings can at best know that they are blind and deluded, but
remain incapable of seeing themselves and their circumstances objectively.
Throughout the narration of Emma’s tragic experience, Charles lives his own
personal tragedy. Although we will not describe his experience at length, clearly the
peripeteia in his case occur at each of his attempts to please Emma and to meet her needs.
It is his very efforts to love Emma and to demonstrate his worth to her that produce the
opposite result: the couple’s move to Yonville results in Emma’s acquaintance with
Léon, Charles’s encouragement of Emma to go horseback riding with Rodolphe leads to
their affair, Charles’s failed attempt to earn Emma’s approval by operating on
Hippolyte’s foot causes Emma to despise him even more, and Charles’s desire to entertain Emma at the Rouen opera leads to Emma’s affair with Léon. No matter how
abundant the evidence, Charles avoids facing the truth about Emma’s unfaithfulness as
119 “Pour vous parler, il se renversait la tête avec un rire idiot…” (275).
194 long as possible. The moment of anagnorisis, when Charles discovers all of Emma’s
love letters, directly precedes his death, because, like Emma, he cannot survive without
his illusions regarding her. The pathos is especially intense in the description of Charles
sobbing while walking in his garden in the days following his discovery: “Quelquefois
(…) un curieux se haussait pardessus la haie du jardin, et apercevait avec ébahissement
cet homme à barbe longue, couvert d’habits sordides, farouche, et qui pleurait tout haut
en marchant” (350).
The case of L’Éducation sentimentale is even more extreme than that of Madame
Bovary in that, despite moments of peripeteia, there are only opportunities for
anagnorisis, but no true moments of recognition. One of the most obvious examples of
peripeteia in L’Éducation sentimentale occurs in the furnished apartment carefully
prepared for Madame Arnoux. Frédéric goes to great lengths to patiently lure Madame
Arnoux to this rendez-vous, but her son’s sickness prevents her from meeting him. In the
end, it is Rosanette who ends up taking Madame Arnoux’ place and Frédéric privately
mourns the death of his dream. The narration describes Frédéric’s sadness from
Rosanette’s perspective: “Vers une heure, elle fut réveillée par des roulements lointains;
et elle le vit qui sanglotait, la tête enfoncée dans l’oreiller” (331). Even though there is
something tragic about this situation from Frédéric’s perspective, he eventually recovers
emotionally and acquires a couple of mistresses to compensate for his disappointment.
In terms of anagnorisis, Frédéric never has to face a full exposure of his illusions,
because, however much a failure he is in life, he never experiences disastrous consequences for his mediocrity. As I proposed earlier, Frédéric not only convinces
himself of his superiority, but succeeds in persuading those around him to such an extent
195 that they in turn confirm him in the deluded view he has of himself. His inherited fortune absolves him of the responsibility to make something of himself both literally and figuratively. He has no need of working for a living or of establishing his individuality through a career, since wealth provides him with a socially acceptable, though entirely false and empty identity. The tragedy in Frédéric’s case, as representative of nineteenth- century society in general, is that the acquisition of wealth as proof of personal success is
the very pursuit that inhibits characters from effectual action and purposeful living.
To provide a point of comparison with Madame Bovary, the narration of
L’Éducation sentimentale also includes a mirror scene that epitomizes Frédéric’s deluded
view of himself and his life. It occurs just after he has dined with the Arnoux for the first
time, and Madame Arnoux had offered Frédéric her hand as he was leaving. Even
though she shook hands with all of the guests, Frédéric foolishly considers it a personal
sign of her affection for him and feels suddenly transformed by his passion and filled
with ambition for his future career:
Une faculté extraordinaire, dont il ne savait pas l’objet, lui était venue. Il se demanda, sérieusement, s’il serait un grand peintre ou un grand poète; — et il se décida pour la peinture, car les exigences de ce métier le rapprocheraient de Mme Arnoux. Il avait donc trouvé sa vocation! Le but de son existence était clair maintenant, et l’avenir infaillible. (…) Son visage s’offrait à lui dans la glace. Il se trouva beau, et resta une minute à se regarder. (59)
Like Emma in the first mirror scene, Frédéric exists in an imaginary world and his mirror
image confirms for him the deluded image he has of himself. By looking in the mirror,
he can continue to believe himself to be just as handsome and ambitious as he wishes.
Throughout the novel, we witness the truth of Sherrington’s insight that, “In
Frédéric’s character self-delusion takes precedence over all else, and at times there is an
196 almost desperate air about his efforts to hide himself from himself” (274). Though the narration provides him with opportunities to gain a more accurate picture of himself,
Frédéric uses these situations to solidify his false identity. For example, walking along
the streets of Paris, “…il se sentait tout écœuré par la bassesse des figures, la niaiserie des propos, la satisfaction imbécile transpirant sur les fronts en sueur! Cependant, la conscience de mieux valoir que ces hommes atténuait la fatigue de les regarder” (77).
Rather than perceiving his resemblance to those around him, he uses his observations of others to justify his feeling of superiority.
When reflecting back on his life after years of purposeless wandering, he still believes that he once had ambition. One of the most revealing of Frédéric’s thoughts occurs in this passage: “Ses ambitions d’esprit avaient également diminué. Des années passèrent; et il supportait le désoeuvrement de son intelligence et l’inertie de son cœur”
(491). This assessment demonstrates how deceived Frédéric is about his life, given his belief that he had enough ambition for it to decrease over time. The truth that he never saw any project to completion after graduating from law school never occurs to him.
Comparable to Emma’s final gaze in the mirror before her death, Frédéric also has one last opportunity to face the truth about himself and his illusions, when Madame
Arnoux comes to visit him in the penultimate chapter. When Madame Arnoux removes her hat and the lamplight exposes her gray hair, Frédéric is confronted with indisputable evidence regarding the humanity of his idol. Rather than acknowledge the truth of her humanness, he still tries to preserve his illusion by kneeling down to avoid the sight of her hair:
Quand ils rentrèrent, Mme Arnoux ôta son chapeau. La lampe, posée sur une console, éclaira ses cheveux blancs. Ce fut comme un heurt en pleine poitrine. 197 Pour lui cacher cette déception, il se posa par terre à ses genoux, et, prenant ses mains, se mit à lui dire des tendresses. (494)
Maintaining Madame Arnoux’s illusion regarding the constancy of his passion is
essential to conserving his own; therefore he feels compelled to hide his disappointment
from her. Gervais points out that Madame Arnoux’s gray hair forces Frédéric to see what
he never wanted to see: that she is and always was just as human as everyone else.120
However undeniable this fact, Frédéric exhibits the same avoidance behavior in this
scene as he has during the entire novel. In this scene, it is as though the narration were
offering Frédéric one final opportunity for anagnorisis, but the protagonist forfeits this
chance to see the circumstances of his life as they really are.
Culler argues that the most tragic aspect of the novel is that Frédéric never benefits or grows from the failures of his life. In fact, Frédéric’s identity is so firmly rooted in his illusions that he never has the necessary insight to see that his life has been a failure. According to Culler, Frédéric’s experience offers no lesson to the reader either.121 This view is difficult to reconcile with the traditional definition of tragedy,
since by definition, a representation of tragic experience should guide the reader to a
place of greater enlightenment.122 Though tragedy often ends with the destruction of the
120 “The deepest irony about her white hair when she visits him in the penultimate chapter is that it sets the seal on her humanity. He is forced to see what he has always wanted to avoid seeing: that she is not a beautiful memory but, like everyone, a subject of time which, in destroying her ideality, makes her human” (Gervais 210).
121 “Not only have Frédéric and Deslauriers learned nothing in this Bildungsroman, but the reader can learn little from their example, and that is perhaps the most profound tragedy: that egregious failure brings no compensatory understanding” (Culler 149).
122 According to Dorothea Krook’s study on tragedy, the protagonists themselves do not have to attain knowledge for their experiences to be tragic, as long as there is knowledge to be gained by the audience, or in this case, the reader: “…what matters in tragedy is not that the tragic hero, the vessel of the tragic suffering, shall receive the knowledge issuing from the suffering, but that we, the readers or audience, shall receive it. And if this view is correct, it follows that even when the knowledge takes the form of self- 198 hero or heroine, this destruction should lead to a “clarification of being” (Gervais 99).
Through Emma, who dies only with the sense that she has been blinded by her illusions but has been unable to uproot them, and Frédéric, who is too deluded and complacent to face his mediocrity and live a meaningful life, Flaubert is implicitly questioning the
possibility of living in reality, making sense of one’s life, and coming to a place of true
understanding. We could see the inclusion of tragic elements in the plot with a lack of
compensatory understanding as the aesthetic solution provided by the narratives.
In addition to the elements of tragic plot, there is some tragic potential in the characters as well. Aristotle proposes that tragic characters should be like ourselves, because only characters that resemble us have the potential to elicit the tragic emotions of pity and terror. Therefore, since people rarely consider themselves to be evil, thoroughly evil characters do not invite readers to identify with them and therefore cannot be tragic
(100).123 When we consider the characters of Madame Bovary and L’Éducation
sentimentale from this perspective, we can discern some tragic potential in them, for none
of the characters, no matter how despicable, is thoroughly bad. For example, the narrator
portrays the characters in L’Éducation sentimentale as profoundly human, even though
their actions are often contemptible. Examples could be given regarding each character,
but here, I will limit myself to a brief example for Madame Dambreuse and Rosanette
knowledge, it is not because it illuminates the self of the tragic hero that it is tragic, but because, in and through the representative self of the tragic hero, it illuminates for us some fundamental aspect of man’s nature or the human condition. This quote is taken from Krook’s Elements of Tragedy (New Haven: Yale UP, 1969) 13.
123 This recalls our comparison of tragedy to melodrama in the last chapter, in which we emphasized that one requirement of tragedy is that characters must exhibit free will and a capacity to choose good or evil, and that, by extension, they must possess the potential for both good and evil behavior within themselves rather than representing a particular moral category (Heilman 15).
199 respectively. However self-interested Madame Dambreuse’s love for Frédéric might be,
the narrator shows her in a moment of weakness when she discovers that Frédéric
deceived her about his motive for borrowing twelve thousand francs from her:
Mme Dambreuse (…) pleurait, couchée sur son lit, à plat ventre, la tête dans ses mains. Olympe Regimbart, étant venue le soir lui essayer sa première robe de couleur, avait conté la visite de Frédéric, et même qu’il tenait tout prêts douze mille francs destinés à M. Arnoux. Ainsi cet argent, son argent à elle, était pour empêcher le départ de l’autre, pour se conserver une maîtresse! Elle eut d’abord un accès de rage; et elle avait résolu de le chasser comme un laquais. Des larmes abondantes la calmèrent. Il valait mieux tout renfermer, ne rien dire. (478)
In this passage, we see Madame Dambreuse, the wealthy Parisian socialite featured by
the fashion magazines, sobbing on her bed, because she knows that she is not the only
woman in Frédéric’s life and that he probably does not really love her. Despite the
impression of coldness and insincerity the reader experiences elsewhere in the
descriptions of Madame Dambreuse, one cannot help but see her humanness and
vulnerability in this passage.
When we first encounter Rosanette, as with most characters, we see her from
Frédéric’s perspective. Thus, our impression of her is that she is a lighthearted, flirtatious
courtesan who is always shifting from one lover to another and usually maintaining
several at once. However, when during the Fontainebleau episode, she tells Frédéric that
her mother sold her into prostitution when she was fifteen-years old, the reader begins to see Rosanette from a completely new point of view (383-85). We learn of her dream to
someday marry and become respectable in the eyes of the world (457), so that when
Frédéric falsely accuses Rosanette of purposefully wronging the Arnoux and irrevocably
ends their relationship, his harsh words devastate her:
200 On ne meurt pas pour les trahisons d’une femme de ton espèce. Quand elles deviennent trop monstrueuses, on s’en écarte; ce serait se dégrader que de les punir! Elle se tordait les bras. ―Mon Dieu, qu’est-ce donc qui l’a changé? ―Pas d’autres que toi-même! ―Et tout cela pour Mme Arnoux!… s’écria Rosanette en pleurant. Il reprit froidement: ―Je n’ai jamais aimé qu’elle! (481)
Suddenly, Frédéric reveals his true opinion of her and his belief that she will never be
anything but “une fille de rien” and certainly not worthy of his love like Madame
Arnoux, “la femme la plus sainte, la plus charmante et la meilleure” (480). What makes
Rosanette’s personal tragedy all the more heartbreaking is that Frédéric’s rebuke comes
just after the death of their newborn son, who gave Rosanette hope that her dream of
marrying Frédéric and becoming a respectable bourgeoise might come true. The narrator
makes it clear in this scene and in others that Rosanette sincerely loves Frédéric and
desires to be his wife despite her disreputable lifestyle. As with the other characters, one
cannot help but feel sympathetic toward her and it is certainly difficult to despise her
given her humanness and the circumstances that led her into prostitution. So, while the
characters of these novels are far from exemplary according to the requirements of
ancient tragedy, their humanness and complexity invite a closer identification with the
reader than the one-dimensional characters typical of non-tragic genres.
In Madame Bovary, we already observed some tragic potential in Charles and
Emma, when we studied their experiences of pathos, peripeteia, and anagnorisis. While
the secondary characters could not be considered tragic, even the very worst characters
are portrayed as ordinary rather than evil in the melodramatic sense. For example,
despite the fact that Rodolphe is manipulative, deceptive, and calculating, he is at least
honest with himself and does not completely hide his bad character from Emma. During
201 their conversation at the “Comices Agricoles”, he admits to Emma that he has a bad
reputation to which she replies, “―Oh! Vous vous calomniez” and he assures her again,
“Non, non, elle [ma réputation] est exécrable, je vous jure” (154). Though it is true that
Rodolphe takes advantage of Emma’s naivety, he does nothing to Emma to which she does not freely consent. For example, when Emma refuses his sexual advances on his first attempt, although he is clearly annoyed, he pulls back and waits for the next opportunity. This time, though she makes a feeble attempt to resist him verbally, she obviously consents physically:
―J’ai tort, j’ai tort, disait-elle. Je suis folle de vous entendre. ―Pourquoi?… Emma! Emma! ―Oh! Rodolphe!… fit lentement la jeune femme en se penchant sur son épaule. Le drap de sa robe s’accrochait au velours de l’habit. Elle renversa son cou blanc, qui se gonflait d’un soupir; et, défaillante, tout en pleurs, avec un long frémissement et se cachant la figure, elle s’abandonna. (171)
And given Emma’s unrealistic romantic fantasy of running away with Rodolphe, it is not
the least surprising to the reader that he breaks his promise to carry out her plan. Their
relationship ends, not because he is so bad, but because Emma’s dreams have become
excessive and impossible to fulfill. When Emma turns to Rodolphe for financial help at
the end of the novel, the narrator makes it a point to inform us that Rodolphe would have
given her the money if he had it (316).
Homais, another contender for worst character in Madame Bovary, is likewise not
an evil character in the melodramatic sense. Although the pharmacist practices medicine illegally and tries to bribe the government into awarding him the croix de la légion
d’honneur, Homais’ offenses are not intentionally destructive and he is admired by the
inhabitants of Yonville as a knowledgeable and morally upright family man. At the same
time, his egocentrism is so dominant that it is impossible for the reader to take him
202 seriously. Ruled entirely by self-interest in every aspect of his behavior, Homais’
character provides the reader with a caricature of human self-centeredness, thereby
producing a comical effect.
Although we can see from these examples that the characters from Madame
Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale have some potential to move the reader to pity or
terror because they are not portrayed as one-dimensionally evil, they are in other ways
closer to comic than to tragic characters.124 As we have already seen, tragic characters must be like ourselves, but also better than we are. From these examples, we can conclude that, although the characters are like us, they are certainly not portrayed as superior to the reader. One significant way in which they are more comic than tragic
according to Langer’s theory is that the characters remain essentially the same throughout
the entire narration. Langer opposes the two types of characters in terms of the amount
of change that occurs in them: “Because the comic rhythm is that of vital continuity, the
protagonists do not change in the course of the play, as they normally do in tragedy. In the latter there is development, in the former developments” (335). Since the protagonists of Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale are unwilling to recognize
their illusions and unable to live beyond them, they undergo no development or
maturation.
According to the Poetics, “Comedy represents characters who are inferior to
ourselves, i.e. worse than we are: therefore comic characters are those who are somehow
in error in soul or body” (53). An additional requirement for a character to be comic is
that his/her defect should not prove painful or destructive for the other characters, since,
124 David Gervais explains that Flaubert “prefers to put comic characters into tragic situations” (97-8).
203 unlike tragedy, comedy should avoid what is painful.125 What we observe in both
Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale is that, although the characters and their
behavior may often seem laughable, they remain capable of inflicting pain on the other
characters. Despite Emma’s irrationality and outrageous behavior, she still causes
Charles deep hurt. As comical as Homais’ insensitivity is, it still serves to intensify the
reader’s sense of Charles’s grief. Similarly, although Frédéric’s relationship with his
mistresses is often comical, his behavior makes Madame Dambreuse and Rosanette feel
pain. Given the tendency of characters to seem comical but to cause pain and the fact
that they are not portrayed as superior or inferior to the reader, they do not appear to belong fully to either category, seeming to reside somewhere in the middle of the tragic-
comic continuum. This is true of the events of the narrative as well, which we will
observe in several textual examples.
The most jarring example of comedy being integrated into tragedy in Madame
Bovary occurs surrounding the events of Emma’s suicide. In contrast to Charles’s deep
grief and distress at his powerlessness to prevent his wife’s death, Homais is described as
being even more cheerful than usual. Thrilled to associate with the famous Messieurs
Canivet and Larivière summoned to treat Emma, Homais rejoices at the opportunity to
have the two respected doctors over for lunch. Attempting to impress them with his
knowledge and vocabulary, Monsieur Homais’ self-absorption is never greater:
Homais s’épanouissait dans son orgueil d’amphitryon et l’affligeante idée de Bovary contribuait vaguement à son plaisir, par un retour égoïste qu’il faisait sur lui-même.
125 “Just as the function of tragedy is to arouse pity and terror through the representation of pitiable and terrifying actions, which come about through an error that is painful or destructive in some way, so too the function of comedy is to arouse pleasure and laughter through the representation of laughable actions, which also come about through an error, though not a painful or destructive one” (Aristotle 52).
204 Puis la présence du Docteur le transportait. Il étalait son érudition, il citait pêle-mêle les cantharides, l’upas, le man-cenillier, la vipère… (326)
While Emma is dying and Charles is beside himself with grief next door, the narrator tells
us that Homais is inwardly pleased rather than distressed about the Bovary’s misfortune.
The narration of Homais’ behavior is amusing, because, though he acts contemptibly, one cannot help recognizing the universal selfishness of human nature illustrated by his character.
The narrator continues to exhibit Homais’ amazing insensitivity when, during a discussion with Charles about Emma’s funeral arrangements, Homais waters Charles’s geraniums and gives him horticultural advice:
Homais, par contenance, prit une carafe sur l’étagère pour arroser les géraniums. —Ah! Merci, dit Charles, vous êtes bon! Et il n’acheva par, suffoquant sous une abondance de souvenirs que ce geste du pharmacien lui rappelait. Alors, pour le distraire, Homais jugea convenable de causer un peu horticulture; les plantes avaient besoin d’humidité. Charles baissa la tête en signe d’approbation. (331)
Similar to the characters of L’Éducation sentimentale, Homais is portrayed as being so
trapped in his self-centered world that he is incapable of two-way communication. He
appears to filter out any information that has no direct relevance to his personal
advancement. Again, the comedy of this exchange derives from the extreme
inappropriateness of Homais’ behavior in contrast to the self-satisfaction of Homais, who
could not be more assured of his own perfect tact and uprightness. As amusing as
Homais is, his blindness serves as yet another warning of the universality of self-
deception and as an implicit caution to the reader regarding his/her own blind spots. The
last example of Homais’ self-interest in this scene occurs when he comes to watch over
Emma’s body and arrives at the Bovary home “apportant avec lui trois volumes, et un
205 portefeuille, afin de prendre des notes” (332). Even an event as sobering as guarding a
corpse Homais turns into an opportunity to benefit himself by increasing his knowledge.
Earlier, I suggested that the comical moments actually serve to intensify rather
than alleviate the tragic atmosphere in the novels. In the case of Madame Bovary,
Homais’ comical behavior provides a good illustration of this, as his character reveals just how blind and foolish someone can be while remaining completely oblivious to the fact. Moreover, his insensitivity magnifies the experience of Charles’s despair and isolation for the reader. Although Charles is surrounded by friends and neighbors, he is alone emotionally since no one truly understands or cares about his pain. 126
What is perhaps more disturbing than either Charles’s grief or Emma’s suicide is
Homais’ success at the end of Madame Bovary, because, in his success, he finds the
confirmation of all the false beliefs he holds. Like Frédéric, he is never forced to
question his methods or his self-centeredness, because they enable to him to obtain all he
desires. Through the character of Homais, Flaubert illustrates the corruption of bourgeois
society that favors egocentrism, self-promotion, and hypocrisy. In Homais’ campaign to
be awarded the croix de la Légion d’Honneur, he is willing to go to any length, no matter
how dishonest: “Il rendit secrètement à M. le prefet de grands services dans les élections.
Il se vendit enfin, il se prostitua. Il adressa même au souverain une pétition où il le suppliait de lui faire justice; il l’appelait notre bon roi et le comparait à Henri IV” (349).
The fact that the closing lines of the novel are dedicated to Homais’ ultimate victory in every pursuit including the croix d’honneur reveals the importance of this theme of the
126 Gervais makes a similar observation about the comical moments of Madame Bovary occurring when callousness is being exposed: “As in the prize-giving at the Comices Agricoles or Charles’ last meeting with Rodolphe, heartlessness is the butt of Flaubert’s most devastating comedy” (66).
206 promotion of corruption in bourgeois society and of Homais as the character who best
represents it in the novel: “Il fait une clientèle d’enfer; l’autorité le ménage et l’opinion
publique le protège. Il vient de recevoir la croix d’honneur” (352).
In L’Éducation sentimentale, there are also some examples of comic and tragic
responses being provoked within the same scene. One such example occurs when
Frédéric is walking around the city observing the revolutionary activity as though it were
a spectator sport. Several short excerpts from this passage will help to illustrate the
unusual combination of emotions elicited in the description of events:
[Le garde national] chargeait son arme et tirait, tout en conversant avec Frédéric, aussi tranquille au milieu de l’émeute qu’un horticulteur dans son jardin. (337)
Frédéric, pris entre deux masses profondes, ne bougeait pas, fasciné d’ailleurs et s’amusant extrêmement. Les blessés qui tombaient, les morts étendus n’avaient pas l’air de vrais blessés, de vrais morts. Il lui semblait assister à un spectacle. (337)
La fusillade devenait plus pressée. Les marchands de vin étaient ouverts; on allait de temps à autre y fumer une pipe, boire une chope, puis on retournait se battre. Un chien perdu hurlait. Cela faisait rire. (338)
The first and last excerpts demonstrate that the indifference displayed by Frédéric is not
exceptional, but representative of a general emotional detachment. The festive
atmosphere of the bar and the nonchalance of the guard, who, while conversing with
Frédéric, shoots at people as though he were merely hunting in his backyard, create a
shocking contrast to the seriousness and morbidity of the scene. They remind the reader
that, though our perspective of events is limited to that of Frédéric’s, the protagonist is
but a representative of a society full of Frédérics.127 There is a strong resemblance
between Frédéric’s attitude in these descriptions and Homais’ attitude in connection to
127 Sherrington points this out as well: “The fact is that they are not two stories but one, told on two different planes. Frédéric as a member of society—a society composed almost exclusively of Frédérics—is the center of the other” (314).
207 the events of Emma’s death. Despite the fact that Frédéric is surrounded by people who
are suffering, he reacts with complete indifference and even amusement. In the same
way Homais takes advantage of Emma’s death to further his own interests, Frédéric is much more focused on the enjoyment procured for him by the riots than on entering into the experience and the emotions of the situation. Frédéric’s detachment in this scene is disturbing, as it demonstrates how extremely egocentric the protagonist is. Accidentally
stepping on the hand of a dead soldier seems as inconsequential to him as stepping on
refuse lying in the street: “Frédéric sentit sous son pied quelque chose de mou; c’était la main d’un sergent en capote grise, couché la face dans le ruisseau” (338). In other parts of the novel, the narration includes numerous accounts of Frédéric crying over various disappointments that affect him directly, but the spectacle of death in this scene entertains him instead of arousing his pity. Frédéric lives in an isolated universe, in which his illusions are far more significant to him than actual events. For example, just prior to this scene, we witness Frédéric sobbing, because he has just spent the night with Rosanette rather than Madame Arnoux as he had hoped; whereas in this scene of true pain and loss,
he thoroughly enjoys himself (331).
A second example in L’Éducation sentimentale of an event including both tragic and comic aspects occurs at the death of Rosanette and Frédéric’s newborn son. Like the above example, the comical element only magnifies the tragic effect, because it serves to underscore human coldness. Rosanette, the only character who mourns the baby’s death, initially wants to embalm him. Frédéric suggests having his portrait done instead and invites Pellerin to do the painting. Frédéric’s total lack of emotion and Pellerin’s
208 reluctance to do the portrait of such an ugly baby make Rosanette’s despondency even
more pitiable. When Pellerin arrives, he exclaims,
—Pauvre petit ange! Ah! Mon Dieu, quel malheur! Mais, peu à peu (l’artiste en lui l’emportant), il déclara qu’on ne pouvait rien faire avec ces yeux bistrés, cette face livide, que c’était une véritable nature morte, qu’il faudrait beaucoup de talent; et il murmurait: —Oh! Pas commode, pas commode! —Pourvu que ce soit ressemblant, objecta Rosanette! —Eh! Je me moque de la ressemblance! A bas le Réalisme! C’est l’esprit qu’on peint! Laissez-moi! Je vais tâcher de me figurer ce que ça devait être. Il réfléchit, le front dans la main gauche, le coude dans la droite; puis, tout à coup: —Ah! Une idée! Un pastel! Avec des demi-teintes colorées, passées presque à plat, on peut obtenir un beau modelé, sur les bords seulement. (469)
Although an excerpt cannot convey the conflicting emotions of the entire scene, this
passage illustrates the contrast between Pellerin’s feigned compassion and his stupid preoccupation with meaningless artistic concerns and Rosanette’s sorrow. As in the other scenes, Pellerin and Frédéric are so imprisoned by their own subjectivity that they are unable to enter into Rosanette’s grief. Choked with tears, Rosanette leaves the room, and
Frédéric and Pellerin immediately change the subject, forgetting both Rosanette and the baby.
Before moving on to our discussion about humor, I would like to make some concluding remarks regarding the tragic and comic elements in each novel. If we were to try to determine whether tragedy or comedy predominates in either work, Susanne
Langer’s theory on the genres offers another useful distinguishing factor to consider: the denouement. She argues that, in the denouement of a tragic work, there is a sense of finality and permanency, but that, in a comic denouement, there is a feeling of “vital continuity”, a sense that life will go on:
There is no permanent defeat and permanent human triumph except in tragedy; for nature must go on if life goes on, and the world that presents all obstacles also supplies the zest of life. In comedy, therefore, there is a general trivialization of the human battle. Its dangers are not real disasters, but embarrassments and loss of face. That is why comedy 209 is “light” compared to tragedy, which exhibits an exactly opposite tendency to general exaggeration of issues and personalities. (349)
The contrast between Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale is quite evident from this perspective. An atmosphere of utter defeat pervades the ending of Madame
Bovary, as we witness the death first of Emma, then of Charles, and are told about the bleak future of Berthe sent to work in a cotton mill. At the same time, though there is a sense of finality, the finality is not the culmination of a process of growth and maturation as it should be in tragedy:
The tragic rhythm, which is the pattern of life that grows, flourishes, and declines, is abstracted by being transferred from that natural activity to the sphere of a characteristically human action, where it is exemplified in mental and emotional growth, maturation, and the final relinquishment of power. In that relinquishment lies the hero’s true “heroism” —the vision of life as accomplished, that is, life in its entirety, the sense of fulfillment that lifts him above defeat. (Langer 356)
It is at this point that tragedy breaks down in Madame Bovary, for, as we mentioned earlier, the failure to recognize illusions for what they are prevents growth and maturation. Emma’s final act is selfishness in its purest form. Her “relinquishment” through suicide was the only affliction that Charles could not survive. If Emma’s death creates a sense of tragic finality, it is supremely anti-heroic insofar as she “sacrifices” only for her own interests rather than for a cause beyond herself. In contrast to the conclusiveness of Madame Bovary, the concluding chapters of L’Éducation sentimentale clearly correspond to Langer’s definition of a comic denouement in their total lack of finality: “…the comic denouement, not marking an absolute close, needs only to restore a balance” (357). In Frédéric and Deslauriers’ final conversation, there is an unmistakable lightness about life, a feeling that life will continue as it always has, and “a general trivialization of the human battle” (Langer 349). Despite moments of pathos and
210 opportunities for anagnorisis, comedy predominates by the end of L’Éducation
sentimentale.
According to Flaubert’s correspondence and other novels, there is evidence to
suggest that the author never considered himself superior to his characters. Paul Bourget
suggests that Flaubert’s psychological insight was only possible because of his own
experience of the disparity between dreams and reality, between human effort and inevitable failure:
…infatigablement et magnifiquement, ce que Flaubert a raconté, c’est le nihilisme d’âmes pareilles à la sienne, toutes déséquilibrées et disproportionnées. Mais, à travers son destin il a vu le destin de beaucoup d’existences contemporaines, ―et cela seul donne à ce romantique torturé une place de grand psychologue. C’est à travers son destin que Flaubert a vu le destin des autres existences, ―et, en effet, la cause du malheur de tous ses personnages est, comme chez lui, une disproportion. (…) C’est à ses yeux une loi constante que l’effort humain aboutisse à un avortement, d’abord parce que les circonstances extérieures sont contraires au rêve, ensuite parce que la faveur même des circonstances n’empêcherait pas l’âme de se dévorer en plein assouvissement de sa chimère. (93)
Although Flaubert may have despised his characters, his identification with them added a
measure of compassion to their portrayal. In his analysis of Madame Bovary, Gervais
argues that it is precisely the mixed impression of compassion and irony that makes the reader’s experience so unusual: “A strangely fused tension of opposite emotions is at the source of the book’s unique capacity to provoke and move its readers in the same breath”
(58).
The Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello found the notion of romantic irony to be inadequate for describing his view of art, to the extent that it implied a superiority and detachment on the part of the artist. Pirandello’s personal experience of artistic
production led him to develop a theory on humor, which he saw as the outcome of the
fusion of tragic and comic elements in the same work of literature. The humorist,
211 according to Pirandello’s theory, finds inspiration in his own experience of human blindness and deception, thus achieving a more emotionally charged and penetrating effect through his writing.128 The parallels between Pirandello’s treatise on humor and
Flaubert’s literary production are remarkable and encourage a closer look at Pirandello’s theory in view of the potential insight his work might offer into the Flaubertian novel. As a way of concluding our study of Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale, we will therefore highlight the most significant points of convergence between Pirandello’s work and those aspects of the two novels considered in this chapter.
First of all, Pirandello claims that a humorist problematizes the illusion of personal identity in a way distinct from the comic writer or the satirist:
Let us begin with the construction that illusion builds for each of us, that is, the construction that each of us makes of himself through the work of illusion. Do we see ourselves in our true and genuine reality, as we really are, or rather as what we should like to be? By means of a spontaneous internal device, a product of secret tendencies and unconscious imitation, do we not in good faith believe ourselves to be different from what we essentially are? And we think, act, and live according to this fictitious, and yet sincere, interpretation of ourselves. Now reflection, indeed, can reveal this illusory construction to the comic writer and to the satirist as well as to the humorist. But the comic writer will merely laugh, begin content to deflate this metaphor of ourselves created by spontaneous illusion; the satirist will feel disdain towards it; the humorist does neither: through the ridiculousness of the discovery, he will see the serious and painful side; he will disassemble the construction, but not solely to laugh at it; and, instead of feeling disdain, he will rather, in his laughter, feel compassion. (132)
The humorist’s depiction of the problem of illusion as described in this passage corresponds to the complex effect the reader experiences in the narration of the
128 For background information on Luigi Pirandello, see the translators’ “Introduction” to his essay On Humor, trans. Antonio Illiano and Daniel P. Testa (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1960) vii-xiii. One particular passage from this introduction provides a helpful distinction between romantic irony and Pirandello’s view on humor: “Pirandello’s limitation of romantic irony vis-à-vis humor seems to imply that, as long as the ironist holds to a position of superiority and distance between himself as creator and the world of his characters, he denies himself the experience of penetrating to the deepest levels of his being; in short, he fails to transcend his role as artist. The humorist, instead, drawing from a more inward source of experience, discovers that he too, like his projections, is ‘human’, that is, easily deceived and blinded by suprahuman forces and passions; he cannot help, if he is honest, but infuse a more emotional content, a greater psychic energy, into his literary creation” (xi).
212 Flaubertian novel. We not only see the silly, ridiculous side of Emma, Charles, Frédéric,
Rosanette, etc., but we also are made to feel their pain and to identify ourselves with the characters and their weaknesses. As readers, we cannot laugh at them, assured of our own superiority, without a disturbing awareness of our personal susceptibility to blindness and delusion.
As we discussed concerning Emma and Frédéric, the illusion of individuality is maintained not only externally, but internally as well. The characters’ belief in the spontaneous and self-originating quality of their desires—for example, Emma’s love for
Rodolphe and Frédéric’s passion for Madame Arnoux—demonstrates the extent to which the characters deceive themselves just as much as they deceive those around them concerning who they really are:
…we lie psychologically just as we lie socially. And, since conscious life extends only to the surface of our psychic being, lying to ourselves is a result of social lying. The soul that reflects upon itself is a solitary soul, but this inner solitude is never so great that the suggestions from collective life, with its typical dissimulations and transfigurative devices, do not penetrate the consciousness. (Pirandello 134)
Pirandello explains that, no matter how isolated individuals believe themselves to be, they are mistaken to think they remain uninfluenced by their environment.
According to Pirandello, one last illusion the humorist seeks to expose is the coherence of human identity. The playwright enumerates the various aspects of the human personality that struggle and clash within the same person, such that faith in a oneness of the soul is absurd:
…the various tendencies that mark the personality lead us seriously to think that the individual soul is not one. How can we claim that it is one, in fact, if passion and reason, instinct and will, tendencies and ideals constitute as many separate and mobile systems functioning in such a way that the individual—living now one of them, now another, and now some compromise between two or more psychic tendencies—appears as if he really has within himself several different and even opposed souls, several different and conflicting personalities? Pascal observed that there is no man who differs from another man more than he differs, with the passing of time, from himself. (136) 213
Here again, the correlation between Pirandello’s theory and our observation of the way
Flaubert exposes the changeability of the human personality, especially through the characters of L’Éducation sentimentale, is evident. For example, we noted the way
Sénécal evolved from an impassioned advocate for the rights of the people in the beginning of the novel to a heartless agent of civil authority by novel’s end.
The essay goes on to explain that although the epic writer or dramatist may show the way various conflicting tendencies operate within the same character, his ultimate goal is to combine these different aspects into a coherent whole. However, the humorist, in Pirandello’s view, seeks rather to “decompose” his characters:
…an epic or dramatic poet may represent a hero of his in whom opposite and contrasting elements are shown in conflict, but he will compose a character from these elements and will want to represent him as consistent in every action. Well, the humorist does just the opposite: he will decompose the character into his elements and while the epic or dramatic poet takes pains to picture him as coherent in every action, the humorist enjoys representing him in his incongruities. (143)
This tendency is characteristic of Flaubert’s depiction of the characters in L’Éducation sentimentale, in which, as we already noted, the variation in occupations, residences, mistresses, and political opinions is so great that it is quite impossible to gain a coherent picture of the majority of characters. Unlike most nineteenth-century novelists, Flaubert demonstrates the evolution of characters and society over time, rather than recounting events with a static historical backdrop and stable character identities.
In this way, Flaubert paints a more realistic picture of life in the nineteenth century than most of his contemporaries. Clearly, Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale are not tragic according to Aristotelian theory given the anti-heroic and even comic nature of the characters, as well as the limited ability of these ordinary characters to experience true tragic anagnorisis. The tragic requirement of a sense of individuality, 214 as proposed by Langer, is present in these novels; however, it is but a false sense of self
founded on fantasies and inaccurate perceptions. If we can discuss the tragic aspects of
Flaubert’s novels, it is less in Aristotelian terms and more in the terms proposed by
Benjamin Constant, who envisioned tragedy in the nineteenth century to be the
representation of the confrontation between characters and society:
Lorsque l’homme, faible, aveugle, sans intelligence pour se guider, sans armes pour se défendre, est, à son insu et sans son aveu, jeté dans ce labyrinthe qu’on nomme le monde, ce monde l’entoure d’un ensemble de circonstances, de lois, d’institutions, de relations publiques et privées. Cet ensemble lui impose un joug qu’il ignore, qu’il n’a pas consenti, qui pèse sur lui comme un poids préexistant, et contre lequel, quand il apprend à le connaître, et qu’il sent le fardeau, il ne lui est donné de combattre qu’avec une inégalité marquée et de grands dangers. Il est évident que cette action de la société est ce qu’il y a de plus important dans la vie humaine. C’est de là que tout part; c’est là que tout aboutit; c’est à ce préalable, inconsenti, inconnu, qu’il faut se soumettre, sous peine d’être brisé. (910)
We have seen that Flaubert exposes the powerful influence of society in his narratives—
through his portrayal of Emma’s attempts to model her life after the romantic heroines of
her novels and of Frédéric’s belief that wealth, reputation, and fruitless passions are the
measures of success—however, Flaubert’s characters never seem to reach the point of
identifying or combating this societal force as Constant envisions. Frédéric does not
“apprend à le connaître”, nor does Emma. The universally-held value of individuality in
a social structure that precludes its actualization leads to a world of illusion, in which
characters live in the isolated and imaginary universe they have created in their minds.
Flaubert goes beyond tragedy insofar as the disillusionment that occurs in these novels,
when reality fails to measure up to the characters’ expectations, does not lead to a
clarification of being. Emma dies with a sense that her illusions have destroyed her, but
without gaining a clearer picture of reality. At the end of L’Éducation sentimentale,
Frédéric is clearly no more enlightened about himself or the meaning of his life than he
215 was at the beginning of the novel. This lack of understanding is indicative of Flaubert’s own skepticism regarding the possibility of finding meaning in the world. According to
Luigi Pirandello’s theory, Flaubert is a humorist whose own experience informs his novelistic creation and leads him to challenge the reader concerning his/her own blindness.
216
CONCLUSION
During the nineteenth century, deterministic theories that used heredity and
environment to explain the formation of the individual were developed and had a
profound influence on society at large. Maurice Larkin provides the following summary
of the determinist view in his book Man and Society in Nineteenth-Century Realism:
Most determinists saw the individual as having a specific identity, and recognized that he made active choices between alternative courses of action. Yet, in conceding this, they stressed that his identity and predilections were themselves the product of inherited characteristics, upbringing and surrounding pressures, past and present. Moreover the choices open to him were likewise dependent on circumstances that lay beyond his power to control. The chooser might be ‘free’ to follow his own inclinations, but funda- mentally his inclinations were not of his own choosing. (175-76)
According to this description, although individuals may experience a sense of freedom
when making choices, their desire to make certain choices does not in fact originate
purely within them. In the nineteenth century, in addition to this deterministic mindset, there was also a high value placed on individuality, and in the realm of literary
production, this expressed itself in the pursuit of artistic originality. Not only were
writers aware of deterministic theories and the various societal pressures that formed
them, they were also tempted to allow society to dictate their writing standards in order to
compete in the capitalistic economy. The result of all of these conflicting goals and
pressures was a social contradiction that manifested itself in novelistic production in the
second half of the nineteenth century. Using Fredric Jameson’s work as a theoretical
framework, we identified the manifestation of this tension in novels by Maupassant, the
217 Goncourt brothers, and Flaubert in the construction of both the narrative and the
characters. By detecting vestiges of conventional genres within the novelistic form, we
were able to determine how these genres were combined and transformed to produce a new generic message in the literary text. In addition to generic analysis, we studied the
problematic pursuit of individuality in the lives of the protagonists as further evidence of
anxiety being worked through in the novels, an anxiety generated by the social climate of individualism. We observed that in each novel under consideration, the protagonists
believe in their individuality and remain unaware of the profound impact of their
environment on the formation of their identities. They believe that they are isolated and
relatively autonomous, while the narration reveals the extent to which they are mere
products of their surroundings. According to René Girard’s theory on mediated desire,
nineteenth-century characters unknowingly acquire values that are dictated to them by
external models rather than basing their identities on an internal value system (14-24).
To conclude our study, we will review the discoveries made in each chapter, which
address the questions raised in the introduction.
In the case of Maupassant, his abundant literary production would seem to
indicate that he used writing to accumulate wealth, as opposed to Flaubert and the
Goncourt brothers, who claimed to write exclusively for the sake of art. The conflict
between the desire for originality and the temptation to use repetition of themes and
imitation to generate more novels and nouvelles manifests itself at the level of his
characters and narration.
Georges Duroy of Bel-Ami uses repetition and imitation successfully to promote
himself in Parisian society. We examined the way Duroy easily masters the principles of
218 social advancement in his position as editor of the gossip column of La Vie Française.
Thus, with the help of his skill at playing and acting, he steadily rises to the top of the
social ladder, from his initial position as a poor office worker to a prominent one as a
wealthy and influential force in the Parisian social world. Though his outward victory is
complete, the narrator emphasizes that Duroy’s success is only possible at the cost of sacrificing all personal identity. As Trevor Harris suggests, Bel-Ami functions as a
Saussurian sign in the text, as he empties himself of sincerity and authenticity to better
assume the meaningless ideals of bourgeois society—namely wealth, power, and a proper
appearance. Despite Duroy’s loss of individuality, the protagonist clings to the belief that
his success is proof of his transcendence rather than evidence of his lack of personal
integrity.
In Une Vie, through the heroine Jeanne Delamare, Maupassant also raises the issue of personal identity in nineteenth-century society. Jeanne’s identity is strong in the
beginning of the novel, but deteriorates as her expectations are disappointed one after the
other, and her experience of life corresponds less and less to her inner desires. This novel demonstrates the lack of compatibility between Jeanne’s sincerity and the world of degraded values.
We found that vestiges of epic, the genre founded upon the convergence of interiority and external reality, appear in each novel at moments when the protagonists are “at home” in their respective worlds. For Duroy, this occurs at the end of the novel, during his wedding ceremony to Suzanne Walter, and for Jeanne, this happens in the beginning of the novel, when Jeanne enjoys a harmonious relationship with the natural world and trusts in the benevolent guidance of Providence. The inclusion of epic
219 elements serves to underscore the way each protagonist believes in the epic significance of his/her life, even while the narrator exposes the loss of individuality in each character through his/her contact with the conventional world. Une Vie is a novel of
disillusionment, as defined by Lukàcs, since the heroine responds to the lack of
correlation between her dreams and reality by isolating herself and becoming completely
passive. Bel-Ami is a novel of abstract idealism to the extent that Duroy appropriates the
meaningless ideals of society and chooses to pursue social success through a series of
actions at the cost of severing all ties with his inner self. We observed the way this inclusion of epic elements within the novel created an aesthetic solution as a response to the impossibility of realizing individuality in nineteenth-century society. Epic could only
appear in Une Vie before Jeanne is destroyed by the deception and inauthenticity of the
Nouveau Régime, and only makes an appearance in Bel-Ami as a mock form of the
genre. The Parisian social world of the novel believes that Duroy has found meaning in
his life and has achieved his destiny, but the reader knows that he sacrificed all interiority
to this end, and thus, is not truly an epic hero.
In the life and works of the Goncourt brothers, the threat experienced at the level
of personal identity is also evident in both their biographical writings and their novels. In their literary production, this manifests itself primarily through the powerfully deterministic environment depicted in their fiction. In Charles Demailly and Madame
Gervaisais, the protagonists are shown to have quite stable identities in the beginning of
the narratives, but as these impressionable characters live in society and closely observe those around them, they show signs of being profoundly influenced and transformed through this contact. In this chapter, I established a parallel between the authors and their
220 characters, since the brothers exhibit anxiety at the possibility of being similarly affected
by their environment through their spectatorship, specifically through a process of
feminization. In terms of genre, we studied the intermingling of tragic and melodramatic
elements in Charles Demailly and Madame Gervaisais. We observed the way that, in the
end, neither genre predominates, because the suffering of the protagonists is inconsistent
with a melodramatic worldview and absurd from a tragic point of view. Although the
influence of melodrama is evident in many ways, we found that the melodramatic
universe is redefined according to the ideological approach of the authors.
In Charles Demailly, the protagonist is a successful writer who is at first able to
maintain enough detachment from his journalistic colleagues so as to feel relatively
autonomous and free of societal influence. However, when Charles compromises his
literary commitment to celibacy and marries the actress Marthe, he is no longer able to
remain impervious to the influence of bourgeois society. In the novel, Marthe actually
functions as the embodiment of the ideals of bourgeois consumerism that pose a severe
threat to authentic artistic literary production. Although Charles attempts to protect
himself from her influence through a careful investigation into her character, this very
process of analysis is what gradually leads to his insanity by the end of the novel.
In terms of the melodramatic elements present in Charles Demailly, we concluded that the narrator transforms the traditional melodramatic universe, such that a literary
hero replaces the innocent heroine of melodrama, the bourgeois wife takes the role of
traître, and authentic literary production becomes the virtue at risk in the novel. Despite
the abundance of melodramatic effects (i.e. gesture, one-dimensional characters,
victimization), the “moral” order is not restored at the end of the novel in keeping with
221 the traditional requirement of the genre. In other words, the “evil” of bourgeois
consumerism triumphs, while the literary hero and the virtue of artistic literary
production are not successfully defended. I suggested this ending to be an imaginary
resolution in response to the Goncourt’s struggle to remain faithful to their literary ideals
in bourgeois society.
The novel Madame Gervaisais recounts the religious conversion of an intellectual
woman, whose impressionability, like that of Demailly, makes her particularly vulnerable to the religious climate of Rome, where she lives for the duration of the novel. Like
Demailly, she trusts in her ability to remain detached from the objects she analyzes, but is unknowingly transformed through the practice of spectatorship. Confession serves as a good illustration of the change wrought in the protagonist, as the narrator first describes
Madame Gervaisais’ amazement at the desperate attitude of the women who regularly confess their sins to the priests hidden within the confessional. However, soon, it is
Madame Gervaisais herself who returns to church several times per week for two-hour long confessions, thus demonstrating the evolution from spectator to actor that occurs in the protagonist. Madame Gervaisais voluntarily abandons her former identity by surrendering her reliance on the powers of her intellect in order to better devote herself to spiritual pursuits.
As in Charles Demailly, it is melodrama that predominates over tragedy in the
generic constitution of Madame Gervaisais. However, this process of surrender in which
the protagonist engages involves elements of tragedy that are intertwined with the
melodramatic aspects. The narrative recounts a high degree of inner turmoil, particularly
as Madame Gervaisais struggles to forsake her emotional attachment to her son, Pierre-
222 Charles. In this process, the protagonist demonstrates an inner dividedness characteristic
of a tragic character rather than the inner wholeness of a melodramatic character.
However, aside from the central figure, the secondary characters exhibit melodramatic
tendencies. For example, Pierre-Charles functions as the incarnation of innocence, and is
therefore chosen by the narrator to reveal the extent of his mother’s religious fanaticism,
as he suffers its greatest impact. Were we to define the melodramatic universe of
Madame Gervaisais as we did for Charles Demailly, intellectual reason would constitute virtue and religious belief its greatest threat, with Rome itself in the role of traître as the personification of evil. The phenomenon of a location taking on human qualities demonstrates the underlying belief in environmental determinism as the primary influence involved in shaping individuals according to much nineteenth-century thought.
Again, like Charles Demailly, melodrama breaks down at the end of the novel, since the
protagonist dies, thus demonstrating the irreversibility of the transformation wrought in
her. The virtue of reason never triumphs over religious belief and so order is never
restored. The ending cannot be considered tragic either, because the heroine’s death is
completely meaningless and results in no clarification of being for the characters or the
reader.
Within the environmental deterministic world of the novels, there is a realm of
personal agency afforded to each protagonist. In Charles’s case, this freedom manifests
itself in his initial choice to devote himself to artistic literary production as a sacred
calling. Although he is sometimes portrayed as a victim in his choice to marry Marthe,
the narration also indicates his awareness of the potential dangers of marriage and of its
threat to literary production. While at the end of the novel, insanity divests Charles of all
223 reasoning ability, he is portrayed throughout most of the novel as a gifted writer and a
keen spectator of the people and events surrounding him. Madame Gervaisais, for her part, is also depicted as gifted and intelligent, and capable of gaining penetrating insight
into everything she observes. Like Demailly, the protagonist is shown to voluntarily
choose her suffering. After her conversion to Catholicism, Madame Gervaisais carefully
selects her confessors and invents her own forms of penitence against the wishes of her
spiritual directors. In the Goncourt chapter, I established a parallel between this “martyr-
complex” observable in the lives of the protagonists and the rhetoric of martyrdom
expressed in the Goncourt brothers’ Journal. I see the valorization of martyrdom that
occurs in both the Journal and the novels as evidence of a desire to maintain a sense of
individuality amidst the strong pressures of society.
In the third and final chapter, we considered the threat to individuality as it manifests itself in Flaubert’s literary production. In the novels Madame Bovary and
L’Éducation sentimentale, we saw that an illusion of individuality leads the characters to
believe in the strength of their personal identities and to trust in the accuracy of their perceptions. Despite the obstacles bourgeois society poses to the development of the individual, it guides its members to the erroneous conclusion that individuality is attainable through wealth and imitation.
In Madame Bovary, the protagonist seeks to actualize her individuality through an
imitation of literary and social models. We saw in the example of mourning her mother’s
death that, as she imitates literary heroines in her grieving process, she short-circuits her own authentic emotional response. Through the practice of imitation, Emma actually loses rather than develops her individuality. Just as she believes in the strength and self-
224 originating quality of her personal identity, she also trusts in her ability to evaluate the
identity of others. Basing her judgment of others upon the external criteria she uses to
define herself (i.e. clothes, possessions, manner), Emma perceives Rodolphe as the ideal
man of her dreams and comes to see Charles as completely worthless. Since no man can
fulfill the requirements of her ideal in the long-term, every successive lover disappoints
her and reveals her illusions for what they are. Although Emma experiences
disillusionment, her disillusionment does not prevent her from allowing new illusions to
develop and determine her perceptions. Since Emma depends on her illusions to endure
the meaninglessness of her life yet cannot function in society while maintaining them,
death becomes the only remaining escape from the incompatibility of her desires and
reality. Like Une Vie, Madame Bovary includes aspects of the novel of disillusionment
as defined by Lukàcs:
…une réalité purement intérieure plus ou moins achevée et riche en contenus qui entre en concurrence avec celle du dehors, possède en propre une vie riche et mouve- mentée, se tient, dans sa confiance spontanée en elle-même, pour la seule vraie réalité, pour l’essence même du monde, et dont l’échec dans la tentative de rendre effective cette adéquation constitue l’objet même du récit. (3: 109)
Emma exhibits the confidence described here in perceiving her reality to be the only
reality and is unable to survive in a world that challenges this belief.
The character Frédéric Moreau of L’Éducation sentimentale displays a similar
belief in his personal transcendence, and the narration reveals the trust he places in
himself and his perceptions to be just as unfounded as Emma’s. To illustrate the
discrepancy between Frédéric’s view of himself and reality, the narration portrays
Frédéric’s identity as constantly variable. Even the one supposedly consistent aspect of
Frédéric’s character, his great passion for Madame Arnoux, proves to be changeable and
225 unreliable upon close examination. R.J. Sherrington explains that, as readers, we are
inclined to accept the protagonist’s perspective as factual rather than subjective; whereas,
in L’Éducation sentimentale, Frédéric’s view of events is not reliable and can therefore
be misleading.
In addition to Frédéric’s false belief in the integrity of his selfhood, the novel
demonstrates that not only do Frédéric and other characters believe in their personal
identities, they are also inclined to trust in the individuality of the other characters. Thus,
there is an illusion that occurs on both the personal and interpersonal levels in
L’Éducation sentimentale. Moreover, characters are portrayed as being so preoccupied
with their own interests and desire for prominence that they are quite unaware of and
detached from each other in matters that do not directly concern them. The novel thus
demonstrates the isolation of individual members of society and the lack of two-way
communication that occurs. In the words of Erich Auerbach, characters are imprisoned
in their “silly, false worlds” in which private illusions are accorded greater importance
than reality (489).
In terms of generic influences, Madame Bovary and L’Éducation sentimentale both include aspects of traditional tragedy. The hamartia or Tragic Error shared by the protagonists could be considered this false belief in selfhood that prevents them from questioning themselves and their perceptions. This belief leads Emma to seek fulfillment in empty fantasies and convinces Frédéric that the greatness of his soul exempts him from the need to engage in purposeful action. With the help of the tragic terms peripeteia and anagnorisis, and pathos, we observed that while both novels contain moments of pathos or suffering and peripeteia—that is, “a change of actions to their opposite”—there are
226 few experiences of anagnorisis—“a change of ignorance to knowledge” (Aristotle 14).
Emma, at best, knows that she depends on false illusions to survive, but is unwilling to
confront reality. Frédéric remains passive and unaware of his empty identity throughout
the entire novel, because his independent wealth grants him a false sense of
accomplishment that makes facing his illusions unnecessary.
In this third chapter, we concluded that the tragedy in Madame Bovary and
L’Éducation sentimentale is of a different kind than ancient tragedy, as it stages the
confrontation of individuals with the society in which they live and foregrounds the tension that results from the various pressures society exerts on its members. Moreover,
the tragedy in these novels distinguishes itself from ancient forms through the inclusion of comical moments within the most tragic events of the narrative. Rather than alleviating the tragic atmosphere, these moments actually serve to intensify it. Since the comedy derives from the extreme detachment displayed by those whom the tragic events do not directly affect, it results in a greater sense of isolation for those who are suffering, like Charles in Madame Bovary and Rosanette in L’Éducation sentimentale for example.
The behavior of Homais and Frédéric is so inappropriate and insensitive in these scenes
that the dissonance produces a comical effect in the narration. In many ways, even if the
characters experience the events of their lives as tragic, the characters themselves do not
appear tragic to us because of their immaturity and self-absorption. In fact, according to
Aristotle’s conditions, Flaubert’s characters are not fully tragic or comic, because they
are portrayed as ordinary rather than exemplary or inferior.
Luigi Pirandello’s theory on humor provided an insightful perspective into
Flaubert’s literary production. According to Pirandello, a humorist combines tragic and
227 comic elements in his works, because his/her close identification with the characters
results in a more emotionally-charged atmosphere. He claims that, unlike a romantic
ironist, the humorist does not consider himself above his/her characters, but subject to the
very same pressures and experiences.
There is a significant parallel to be drawn between Pirandello’s theory on humor
and Lukàcs’ view of the nineteenth-century novelist. Lukàcs claims that understanding
the lack of correspondence between one’s inner and outer reality does not exempt the
author from experiencing this same disharmony:
…le caractère étranger et hostile que le monde intérieur et le monde extérieur présentent l’un pour l’autre est non point aboli, mais seulement reconnu comme nécessaire; le sujet qui le reconnaît comme tel n’est pas moins empirique, moins captif du monde et moins restreint à l’intériorité que ceux qui sont devenus ses objets. Pareille situation enlève à l’ironie cette supériorité froide et abstraite qui réduirait la forme objective à une forme subjective—celle de la satire—et la totalité à un simple aspect, car elle contraint le sujet qui contemple et qui crée de s’appliquer à lui-même sa propre connaissance de monde, de se prendre lui-même, tout aussi bien que ses créatures, pour libre objet d’une libre ironie…. (3: 69-70)
From Lukàcs’s perspective, the author should not regard his characters with an irony that
is cold and condescending but must apply the same irony to him/herself as a captive of
the same world divested of immanent meaning. Flaubert is such a novelist, as he
identifies himself with the plight of his protagonists and invites the reader to do the same.
In summary, while each novelist and literary production considered in these
chapters exhibits unique issues and characteristics, an analysis of these works reveals
some significant commonalities that provide insight into the specific tensions experienced during the second half of the nineteenth century. The widely-accepted belief in determinism and the temptation felt by producers of literature to write for the consumer instead of writing purely for the sake of art had a profound effect on narration and character construction, as well as upon the identity of writers themselves. Deterministic 228 theories were applied to the development of characters, such that characters were shown
to be products of society rather than fully autonomous beings. In the character
construction of Jeanne Delamare, Georges Duroy, Charles Demailly, Madame
Gervaisais, Emma Bovary, and Frédéric Moreau, we observed that despite the way the environment of each character shapes desires and determines choices, the narrator emphasizes in each case that none of these characters is conscious of the extent to which his/her desires and inclinations are being formed through contact with his/her environment. The novels all demonstrate that the characters believe in their individuality and unique destiny at some point in the narration, no matter how obvious the marks of societal influence appear to the reader.
The portrayal of determined characters is an indication of the struggle writers
themselves experienced during this period, as they sought to distinguish themselves from
predecessors and contemporaries in their writing and to avoid conforming to
homogenizing literary standards. Maupassant appears to have succumbed to the
temptation of writing for financial profit more than the Goncourt brothers and Flaubert,
who remained slightly more detached from monetary concerns. However, the Goncourt
brothers do betray a fear of feminization in their fictional and biographical writing that
involves an anxiety of writing for public consumption.
All of the authors in question reveal themselves to have emerged from the field of
production through the elements of traditional genres that appear in their novels.
Moreover, the breakdown of these genres underlines the ideological disposition of
nineteenth-century society, in which the search for individual meaning is ongoing rather
than pre-established, as it was in traditional tragedy, melodrama, and epic. We have seen
229 that, at best, these novels portray anti-heroes like Emma or mock epic characters like
Georges Duroy. The inclusion of epic moments, with their disintegration in Une Vie and their counterfeit quality in Bel-Ami, helps to illustrate the lack of convergence between
inner ideals and outer reality in nineteenth-century society and therefore the difficulty of
authenticity and the challenge posed to individuality in a world of mediated desires. The
melodrama of the Goncourtian novel is bereft of its power to re-establish the moral order
of artistic literary production, which is demonstrated by the loss of Charles Demailly’s
insanity by the end of the novel, thereby indicating that the threat to originality is real and
unresolved. The tragic nature of Madame Gervaisais’ struggle between spiritual and
maternal fealties gives way to her complete surrender to the influence of her
environment, as the melodramatic villain of Rome wins the moral victory over the virtue
of reason, thus representing the fear of feminization and conformity felt by the writers.
In Madame Bovary, although there is a tragic quality to Emma’s death and Charles’s grief, the lack of compensatory understanding produced by their suffering, as well as the comical indifference of most of the characters to one another all represent the extreme
isolation, self-absorption, and self-deception of members of nineteenth-century society.
The breakdown of tragedy suggests that there is a valorization of individuality without a
corresponding prospect of meaning and purpose in life. And finally, in L’Éducation
sentimentale, the predominance of comedy suggests more than the lack of self- understanding, but the lack of desire for it and a general complacency about life. In my analysis, I limited myself to a discussion of the epic elements in Maupassant’s novels, to tragedy and melodrama in those of the Goncourt brothers, and to tragedy and comedy in the novels of Flaubert; however, this is only a first step in discovering how traditional
230 genres carry ideological messages even as they are integrated and reappropriated into the novel and how studying these mixed messages can provide greater insight into novelistic
production and life in the nineteenth century.
231
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