Simplicity, Punctuation And Characters

As I ventured into Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Soul, I noticed how the author is able to give us a complete description of his plot and characters in a free indirect style, with a unique use of punctuation that reflects the importance of details and close attention. While reading I found myself wandering frequently through Flaubert’s complex sentences, showing me how the reader must be completely immersed in Felicite’s life in order to understand the complexity of it. Flaubert makes monotony and a simple life interesting, through his complex sentences from which you can’t eliminate or modify a word without changing the meaning of the whole. Flaubert states that “every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk.” (Ch. 2) The author chooses to highlight this event that becomes his path to further describe Felicite’s surroundings and the people she lives with. In this passage in Chapter 2, I noticed how Flaubert chooses to change paragraphs in order to give a description of how days went by (“Every Monday morning”, “Every Thursday”) and further describe his characters. This transforms a monotonous tale into a short story full of complexity and vital importance.

Flaubert subtly builds the perception the reader must have about his characters. After saving Madame Flaubert from the angry bull he states that “Felicite took no credit to herself, and probably never knew that she had been heroic” (Ch. 2). Flaubert continues talking about what life after the bull incident had become for Madame Aubain, making this sentence become completely miniscule to the reader, yet quietly building brick by detailed brick the reader’s perception of Felicite. By using this technique, Flaubert impacts an unconscious reader who dives into the next paragraph. By the end of the chapter we have a concrete perception of Felicite’s character, necessary for Flaubert’s ultimate objective of making his character immortal, an impression of what has been up to now a tragic life.

Another aspect of Flaubert’s style is the use of punctuation. As Madame Aubain tries to escape the angry bull Flaubert narrates that “Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.” (Ch. 2) If you try to take out one comma of this sentence (which appears as a whole paragraph in the chapter) it completely changes the meaning of the sentence, and the process Flaubert is showing by forcing the reader to pause in the commas. It makes the sentence a process where the reader must slowly but hastily descend and come out of the ditch Madame Aubain is going into. Flaubert plays with the reader’s need to read what happened to Madame Aubain, makes us pause, thus helping us imagine it instead of swiftly noticing it.