Descriptions in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

Abstract

Although it is a common perception that Flaubert’s Madame Bovary employs a conventional set of procedures in order to balance story-telling and description, not only is the number of descriptions contained in this work surprisingly low but also these descriptions are rather peculiar and have a special function. This paper focuses on Flaubert’s descriptions regarding the cap of the young Bovary, Emma and Bovary’s wedding cake and the town hall of Yonville; all these are the emblems of bad taste, the philistine ideal of happiness and the artificial sublimeness of the public space. These descriptions raise further questions in connection to the narrator’s special point of view, their aims and position as well as the function of these segments. From a textual standpoint, these elements are also paralleled and partially interwoven with a kind of cataloging or listing type of text formation. I contend that they are in fact parodical in quality and that the end effects result in a mockery of the conventions of narration which were about to become established at the time: instead of being conventional, the descriptions of Madame Bovary are ironically counter-conventional.