Flaubert was one of the most important French novelists of the nineteenth century, and has long been considered "the epitome of realism" and the "originator of naturalism". It is worth noting, however, that Flaubert himself rejected both the terms "realism" and "naturalism."
Flaubert once wrote to Georges San: "I hate what is fashionable to call realism, even if they regard me as an authority on realism." He also made a bitter satire on Zola, the master of "naturalism", in a letter to Turgenev: he thought he had discovered "naturalism"; as for poetry and style as two eternal factors, he did not even mention it!
It is also worth noting that the three founders of modernist literature all believe that Flaubert's novels were very enlightening to them. Kafka once said that Flaubert was "related by blood" to himself; Proust once said that "Flaubert freed the change of the times from attachment to anecdotes and dregs"; Joyce echoed Flaubert's idea of "the author withdraws from the novel" with "the artist has lost his existence".
Flaubert
Why did Flaubert refuse to be named "realism" and "naturalism"? Why did his novels inspire the three founders of modernist literature? Xiao Xin believes that the answer to these two questions is actually the same, that is, Flaubert's novel has a modernity that transcends the times. The following is to take Flaubert's famous work "Madame Bovary" as an example, starting from the three aspects of creative consciousness, narrative techniques and psychological description, to analyze the modernity of Flaubert's novels.
"Madame Bovary" is based on real events and tells the story of Emma before and after she became Madame Bovary. Born into a wealthy peasant family, Emma has had many unrealistic romantic fantasies since she was a teenager, cheating twice after marrying Mr. Bovary (Charles) because she was dissatisfied with her mediocre life, and finally committing suicide by poisoning herself because of her tragic abandonment and high debts.
The structure of this novel is very simple, telling only some mediocre life stories, and the overall plot even looks a little broken, but the author's creative consciousness is very complex and very avant-garde. On the one hand, Flaubert is practicing the creative concept of "the author withdraws from the novel", and on the other hand, he cannot help but remind the reader that "Madame Bovary is me".
Cover of the Madame Bovary book
1. The objectification effect of "the author withdraws from the novel"
Flaubert said of Madame Bovary that the artist should be like God in his work, omnipresent and everywhere. In his letter to Georges San, Flaubert said something similar: Did God express His opinion? Flaubert means that although the author has created the work, the author should not let the reader feel the existence of the author, that is to say, the author should not whitewash reality, nor should he directly express feelings and express opinions in the work. Later critics referred to this concept of creation as "the author withdraws from the novel."
Madame Bovary depicts many morally corrupt and bad-quality people, but Flaubert shows almost no emotion. For example, in chapter 2 verse 12, when Rodolphe decides to abandon Emma, Flaubert shows his mental activity and actual actions without any judgment:
My God! No, no, you can only blame fate for the arrangement (letter content)! The word fate is used correctly, it always works. He said to himself (mental activity). yes! If you are a flirtatious woman... Serious consequences (letter content) were not thought of at all. "She might think I was reluctant ... (Mental activity)"
When Levon abandoned Emma, Flaubert's account was equally sober, merely stating the facts objectively. Compared with the works of his predecessors, Balzac, we can feel Flaubert's objectification more clearly. For example, in the "Death of the Father" in "The Tall Old Man", Balzac failed to control the subjective consciousness of the author, and successively lamented the "death of the father's love" through the mouths of several novel characters. The sound of these evaluations is so neat that it is entirely a manifestation of the author's subjective consciousness. In contrast to Flaubert, he undoubtedly better restrained the subjective manifestation of the author's consciousness.
Balzac
2. The contradiction behind "Madame Bovary is me"
Flaubert also famously said of Madame Bovary: Madame Bovary is me. This sentence and "the author withdraws from the novel" together will seem very contradictory, because God does not think that any one of the many sentient beings can represent himself.
In addition, a very intriguing question arises: why is Emma, a corrupt and vain and depraved woman, actually Flaubert herself? At the same time, we also have to ask, is Emma just a depraved woman of bad character and vain?
We know that after Madame Bovary's death, Charles accepted the advice of the pharmacist, Mr. Hao Mei, and carved a line of Latin on the tombstone. Some domestic translations translate this sentence as "Do not trample on a virtuous wife", some translations translate it as "Do not disturb the beauty", and some translations directly retain the original Latin text.
Emma illustrations
Beauty corresponds to Emma, and virtuous wife corresponds to Madame Bovary, and although the meanings of the two are different, they are both praise for the dead, or both are ironic. If we think this is merely irony, the phrase "Madame Bovary is me" would be very difficult to understand, after all, Madame Bovary is not a confessional work.
We should note that although Emma is a flawed woman, she is the only person in the whole novel who is not willing to settle for mediocre reality and dares to pursue ideals. Flaubert himself was equally tired of the mediocrity and ugliness of reality, and his unvarnished presentation of everything was itself a form of rebellion. In other words, both Flaubert and Emma were in the eternal contradiction between reality and ideal, except that Flaubert was more sensible and pessimistic than Emma. Thus Flaubert added a few flies to the romantic scene in which Emma pursued, and carved a word of both irony and praise on Emma's tombstone.
Emma film image
This complex creative consciousness is at the heart of twentieth-century modernist literature. Joyce and Proust's work focused on countering mediocrity with mediocrity, while Kafka's work focused on paradoxical metaphors. Flaubert, Joyce, Proust, and Kafka were all seeking what Roland Barthes called "impossible literature," which is at the heart of literary modernity.
Narratologist Genet divides three narrative perspectives from the "focus mode": zero focus or no focus, internal focus, and outer focus. The formulas for the three narrative perspectives are: narrator > character, narrator = character, narrator < character. That is to say, focusing is actually a restriction on the narrator, zero focus is no limit, and internal focus and outer focus are limited to a certain extent. "Madame Bovary" not only has a very rich perspective switch, but also forms a spatial narrative on the basis of the perspective switch.
1. Switch of perspectives in Madame Bovary
The narrator at the beginning of "Madame Bovary" is "we", and the narrator's perspective is equal to the characters, corresponding to the internal focus narrative perspective. After the principal finishes speaking, the narrator immediately changes from "us" in the story to "someone" outside the story, at this time the narrator's perspective is greater than the characters, corresponding to a zero-focus narrative perspective. Since then, the narrative perspective of the novel has been switching between zero focus and inner focus until "we" disappear. It is also worth noting that the perspective of "we" is a group perspective, which is itself between zero focus and internal focus.
After "we" exit, the perspective of the novel is mainly a zero-focus perspective, but it also inserts an internal focus perspective from time to time on important occasions. Zero focus is what we often call "God's perspective," which refers to the narrator telling the story objectively outside the story like God, such as "in the home of a dye shopkeeper his mother knew, his mother found him a room on the fifth floor."
In addition to the "God perspective", Flaubert also uses internal focus in conjunction with the narrative process. For example, when Charles and Emma go to the Marquis's house in Vobisa, when Emma is dressed up and ready to dance, the narrative perspective suddenly focuses on Charles: her black eyes are even darker and brighter, and the hair that is separated in the middle is close to the two sideburns...
Emma in the mirror
In connection with the huge impact this dance had on Emma, it is not difficult to understand why Flaubert suddenly focused his narrative perspective on Charles. At this time, Emma is walking towards temptation in the most beautiful posture, but Charles only sees Emma's external beauty, and does not realize the horror of temptation. This kind of indifference, which is actively presented by the characters themselves, is undoubtedly more shocking than the indifference in the "god's perspective".
A similar inner focus perspective appears many times in the novel, such as emma looking at Shire after marriage, such as Rodolph looking at Shire and Emma, and emma looking at Levin. The use of these internal focus perspectives not only demonstrates Flaubert's superb narrative skills, but also enhances the inner rhythm and shocking power of the story.
2. Spatial narrative in Madame Bovary
In the seventh verse of the second volume of Madame Bovary, Flaubert uses the perspective switch to the extreme, producing the effect of a spatial narrative. The so-called spatialized narrative effect is to break the limitation of time and make a series of events appear in a space instantaneously. Because the narrative of the novel is originally subordinate to the principle of time, the two events described by the novelist will be divided into order. The famous literary critic Lessing once said: Poetry (literature) is the art of time, and painting is the art of space.
Lessing
But when Flaubert narrated the famous story of the "Peasant Promotion Association", he showed not the art of time, but the art of space. Flaubert divided the "Agricultural Promotion Council" scene into three layers, the upper layer is Madame Bovary and Rodolfo, the middle layer is the speaker Liu Wen, and the lower floor is the audience. The narrative perspective of the novel constantly switches between these three layers, and finally the narrative time is eliminated, achieving an effect of instantaneously presenting different stories:
By this time Rodolfo and Madame Bovary had come to the conference room on the second floor... He picked up a few pages of the speech, checked the numbers, leaned in front of him, and made a speech..." I had to move back a little. Rodolph said. Why? Emma asked. At this time, the senator raised his voice... The audience listened intently, with their mouths wide open...
Flaubert either switched directly from one scene to another, or used "this time" to create a sense of simultaneity, ultimately creating the feeling that many things were happening in one space at the same time. In the 20th-century stream-of-consciousness novels, this spatialized narrative is inherited and developed. For example, in Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" and Joyce's "Ulysses", there are many instantaneous scenes. Spatialization is also a typical feature of modernist novels.
Woolf
"Madame Bovary" can be said to be a perfect psychological novel, the development of the plot prompts the psychological changes of Madame Bovary, and the psychological changes of Madame Bovary provide narrative impetus for the development of the plot. The education and novels received by the monastery caused Emma to have the psychology of pursuing romance, and the psychology of pursuing romance prompted Emma to act indulgent, and the act of indulgence deepened her vanity psychology of pursuing romance, which in turn made her bear a terrible debt, and finally Emma finally died, which also announced the death of her flesh.
Through the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that Flaubert is very similar to Tolstoy, who is known as the "master of the dialectics of the mind". It is also worth noting that flaubert, in addition to showing the inner truth of the characters, is also consciously excavating the subconscious of the characters, which is close to Dostoevsky, who "depicts the full depth of the human heart" (these two great writers themselves suffered from brain diseases and had many extraordinary painful experiences).
Dostoevsky
The first wonderful subliminal depiction of Madame Bovary appears in the second verse of the first volume, when Charles, on his way to the Manor of Berto, unconsciously falls into a state of confusion, and the novel reads:
His recent feelings and memories of the past were mixed together in a daze, and he seemed to have become two people, both husbands who had just been lying on the bed, and college students who had worn them from the operating room in the past, and the warm fragrance of the ointment and the clarity of the dew mixed together; he seemed to hear the iron ring of the bed curtain sliding on the top pole, and his wife was sleeping soundly...
"College student" represents the distant past, and "wife is sleeping soundly" represents the feeling of recentity, both of which actually indicate that Charles is a monotonous and boring person. Because the depths of his consciousness are buried only the two serious and old-fashioned self-images of the husband and the doctor, without a hint of romance or wit or mischievousness. This also foreshadows the misfortune of Emma's married life.
Shire film and television image
The subconscious depiction of Emma in the novel is more in-depth and comprehensive, and can be roughly divided into two categories. The first is presented through Emma's fantasies, such as in the twelfth verse of the second volume, when Emma is abandoned by Rodolph and falls ill, and at the most critical time, Emma sees some very sacred scenes:
She seemed to feel that the flesh was light and fluttering, and the soul was rising and flying towards God, like the green smoke emitted when the incense was burned... She lowered her head, and in a trance she heard the harp sound of the angels in heaven, and she seemed to see, in the clear sky...
These scenes appear because Emma's romantic heart is dead and she hopes to be liberated; on the other hand, because Emma was educated in the monastery in her early years, and has left some sacred marks in the depths of her consciousness. In addition, Emma's side is indeed preparing for a "sacrament".
The second type of subconscious depiction of Emma is manifested through unconscious behavior, that is, even Emma herself does not know why she says and acts that way. For example, in the fifth verse of the second volume, Emma pushes her daughter away, causing Berthe's face to be scratched. Emma immediately "regrets not being able to curse herself", not realizing that she really "hates" Belt.
It is not difficult to see that Flaubert's excavation of the subconscious has reached the point of extreme self-consciousness, although the "subconscious" theory in psychology will not be proposed until decades later. In the 20th century, stream-of-consciousness novelists such as Proust, Joyce and Woolf, they almost completely abandoned the objective side and shifted from "outside" to "inside", focusing on showing the psychology of the characters and excavating the subconscious.
Write at the end:
Interpreting Madame Bovary from the perspective of avant-garde narrative and modernity is not intended to deny the great practical significance of this work, nor does it want to negate the social and historical criticism of the way of interpretation, but only to point out some of the creative characteristics of this work that transcend the times.