Flaubert's Sentimental Education

Gustave Flaubert, in his novel Sentimental Education, portrays his cynical view of the human condition by emphasizing deceit, vengeance and obsession in the relationships between protagonist Frederic Moreau and Madame Arnoux and Rosanette. Deceit, vengeance and obsession are shown by Flaubert to be interworking parts of the machinery whereby human beings destroy their own and one another's most precious sensibilities by putting their own self-centered desires above every other consideration. The three defects of character can be seen as equally toxic choices which Moreau and the two women select from a banquet of possible poisons. In this case, one man's poison is another man's (or woman's) poison as well. Again, the author's sophisticated cynicism is the glue which holds these dysfunctional characters together in their mutually destructive pursuits. These three bourgeois characters, Moreau and the two women, seek their selfish ends, believing they are pursuing that which will make them feel most alive, when in fact their pursuits leave them completely dehumanized, slaves to their defects. None of the three is capable of the self-awareness and commitment required of a truly human relationship. Instead, they exercise their self-destructiveness out of self-hatred and fear of facing their deeply flawed selves. All of this takes place as foreground to the background of the French Revolution and its own vengeance, deceit and obsession on a grand scale, posed as an event which pre

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rather than that he had the affair in the first place: "I leave him free enough! He had no need to lie!" . . . It was not his misconduct which annoyed her. But she seemed to be wounded in her pride, and she made no secret of her repugnance for this man who had no delicacy, dignity or honor (171; 173). She is self-deceived with respect to her husband's ever changing his deceitful ways. Moreau is just as deceitful, pretending to befriend Madame Arnoux when he wants only to do anything he needs to do to steal her from her philandering, wretched husband: He went on defending Arnoux . . . , with the vaguest excuses he could find, and, while he pitied her, he rejoiced and exulted in his heart of hearts. Out of revenge for a longing for affection, she would seek refuge with him. His hopes, enormously increased, gave added strength to his passion (172). Moreau also pretends to befriend Arnoux, telling the husband his wife will "get over it" (172) (i.e., Arnoux's dalliances with Rosanette), when Moreau hopes with all his heart that she will not get over it and will eventually leave her husband and go to Moreau. Moreau's relationships with Madame Arnoux and Rosanette are complicated and made even more deceitful by the fact of

Category: Literature - F