At the end of Madame Bovary, Flaubert leaves Emma's dead body on display, sparing his readers nothing, even the way the rigor mortis makes her stiffened lips separate.
I don't think Flaubert was cold hearted. It's just that his words were more important than his characters.
Words are EVERYTHING for a writer. When it's really happening, the plot is born fully formed from out of the top of the heads of the words.
nk
2 comments:
Yes! That is exactly right. Flaubert was able to flout literary conventions because a literary work is something above and beyond those conventions.
Amen to words.
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