Аннотация: The Paradox Of Gustave Flaubert. A literary note
The Paradox of Gustave Flaubert. A literary note
In the life of Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) you can find the same elements of biography that are present, for example, in the biographies of Dumas père and Maupassant.
A parent family with a reputation.
A certain level of financial security.
Literary inclinations of the future writer in his youth.
Mother's care.
Travel "to the East"...
However, in the biography of Gustave Flaubert there is a certain paradox.
If you follow the traditional stereotypes of thinking, a person, reaching a certain age, creates a family, children are born in the family...
Gustave Flaubert was opposed to marriage and in letters to his mistress expressed active protests against the birth of children from him (and from her). Flaubert wasn't directed to such a views through any events in his own family, or by any examples of his parents.
A paradoxicality of such beliefs to some extent could be explained by the special abilities of a person. For example, Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839-1888) because of his occupation -a long time travels - felt obstacles to marriage. In some types of society, where, for example, long sea voyages were customary, cultural traditions were developed that contributed to the arrangement of personal life by persons whose profession involves a long absence. But in Russia, many professions were relatively new at the time of Przhevalsky, for example, geographer-traveler-researcher-organizer and participant of expeditions-author of books about travel...
Gustave Flaubert, if he did not want to participate in journeys, could to refuse to go on trips connected with a long absence. But such trips were accepted among his friends.
Despite forebodings and omens, he went on a journey "to the East" (1849-1852), agreeing with the arguments of one of his friends.
It was considered right not only to travel, but also during travel to spend time with all sorts of women. Flaubert's misgivings were in some measure justified. In the process travel he discovered syphilis, and he even tried to recall, from whom he contracted.
Curiously, the journey was long, and one of Flaubert's trips to one of the brothels broke down - the priestess of love wished to examine Flaubert first. He had to pretend to be offended and leave the institution under the pretext of resentment.
One of the motives of the decision to go on a trip was the desire to accumulate impressions for a future literary work.
Paradoxically, after traveling "to the East," Flaubert began writing "Madame Bovary". It was the story of a woman who had committed treason, a resident of a provincial France.
Woman's freedom is a separate issue.
The question is not" woman's freedom, " but the focus of a writer's attention.
It would seem that female infidelity is not the main writer's topic for a person who painfully felt the result of "freedom of manners", freedom of morals.
Did the book create an effect of sympathy for the main character? Flaubert received many letters from readers (women) who recognized themselves in the heroine. How did they recognize themselves if they had not committed crimes and not committed suicide? So were placed semantic accents in the book... Logically, if there was an effect of sympathy, there was also an effect of indirect justification of the main character. Formally speaking, there are no good characters in the novel.
There are other themes in the literature, except a female infidelity. For example, military exploits, a flying in a projectile to the Moon, a traveling on the Mississippi, or along another river, in the company of friends and a dog or without friends and / or without a dog, and so on.
However, it is female infidelity (perhaps with the effect of sympathy and indirect justification) that becomes the theme of "Madame Bovary".
Flaubert was a perfectionist. He could to spent months on the preparation of "perfect" texts by a volume of a few dozen pages.
However, 'Madame Bovary' would hardly have been widely known without the prosecution of this book.
Oddly enough (if we take into account the number of creative people of that time who suffered becouse of freedom of morals, one of the lists of victims is given in the book 'Maupassant " by Armand Lanoux), a whole public coalition lined up against prosecutors and in defense of Flaubert's book. Arguments were presented in defense of the freedom of thought and press (apparently, there were no other reasons for protecting freedoms).
The prosecution made 'Madame Bovary' widely known, and Flaubert became one of France's most famous writers. Some of Flaubert's contemporaries (for example, the Goncourt brothers) sometimes looked at Flaubert with bewilderment ...
Perhaps the life and work of Dumas fils were, in a sense, the opposite of Flaubert's creative position.
(In preparing this note, some information elements were used from the book 'Gustave Flaubert' by Henri Troyat).
December 2, 2019 20:59
Translation from Russian into English: December 3, 2019 00:03.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Парадокс Гюстава Флобера. Литературная заметка'.