But _why_ is
she there? The true subject of the novel is not given, as we saw, by a
mere summary of the course which is taken by the story. She may be
there for her own sake, simply, or for the sake of the predicament in
which she stands; she may be presented as a curious scrap of
character, fit to be studied; or Flaubert may have been struck by her
as the instrument, the victim, the occasion, of a particular train of
events. Perhaps she is a creature portrayed because he thinks her
typical and picturesque; perhaps she is a disturbing little force let
loose among the lives that surround her; perhaps, on the other hand,
she is a hapless sufferer in the clash between her aspirations and her
fate. Given Emma and what she is by nature, given her environment and
the facts of her story, there are dozens of different subjects, I dare
say, latent in the case. The woman, the men, all they say and do, the
whole scene behind them--none of it gives any clue to the right manner
of treating them. The one irreducible idea out of which the book, as
Flaubert wrote it, unfolds--this it is that must be sought.
Now if Emma was devised for her own sake, solely because a nature and
a temper like hers seemed to Flaubert an amusing study--if his one aim
was to make the portrait of a woman of that kind--then the rest of the
matter falls into line, we shall know how to regard it.
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