Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1820-1880) was under the microscope virtually from the day of its completion in April of 1856. The editor of the Revue de Paris decided to edit and remove several passages of the novel in fear of offending the conservative Second Empire (1852-1870) of France. Flaubert stood his ground and the novel was eventually published (sans offending passages) in several installments. As anticipated by the editor, in 1857 the government banned the novel and Flaubert faced an obscenity trial at which he was charged with offending public morality. Flaubert’s counsel argued against the charges of “outrage aux bonnes moeurs” by stating that by exposing vice, the author was promoting virtue. The charges were dropped on the ground that the offending passages were few in number compared with the extent of the whole work. Madame Bovary was subsequently published in two volumes in April of 1857.

That was not the end of the banning of Madame Bovary. It was banned in Italy in 1864 then again in the United States in 1954 by the National Organization of Decent Literature.

In Madame Bovary, Flaubert captures the tragic delusions and disappointments of a provincial housewife, Emma Bovary. It is a psychological study of her quest for fulfillment through love and money. Flaubert captures with meticulous precision the passion, boredom, and frustration of Emma and the hypocrisy of bourgeois living in 19th century France. He would often spend days, weeks or months intent on finding the le mot juste (the exact word). Every word is to the point and not one word is wasted. Flaubert himself wrote that human language is “like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity.” Flaubert wrote depictions of Emma’s affairs with her two lovers and it was these graphic depictions that landed him the obscenity trial in 1857.

His ability to record every action, thought, and detail of Emma’s life with complete objectivity made him one of the supreme masters of the realistic novel. Flaubert’s style was never sentimental and always controlled. Flaubert is credited with inventing the style indirect libre. (free reported speech)—anything the author describes in the external environment of the characters can relate to the internal lives of the character. The best example of this may be the depiction of Rudolphe making love to Emma in Chapter Nine. The trees above and even the sky respond to the passion and ecstasy of felt by Emma.

The influence of Madame Bovary cannot be overestimated. The novel marks a turning pint in the history of the novel. The realism and objectivity of Madame Bovary bridges the gap between Romanticism and the modern novel. Flaubert influenced the next generation of French novelists, including Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, and Guy de Maupassant. Afterward, his influence spread to Marcel Proust and Irish writer James Joyce.

Amy Arden is the Dusty Shelf editor.