Her world, that is
to say, would belong to the treatment of the story; none of it, not
her husband, not the life of the market-town, would be a part of the
author's postulate, the groundwork of his fable; it would be possible
to imagine a different setting, better, it might be, than that which
Flaubert has chosen. All this--_if_ the subject of the book is nothing
but the portrait of such a woman.
But of course it is not so; one glance at our remembrance of the book
is enough to show it. Emma's world could not be other than it is, she
could not be shifted into richer and larger conditions, without
destroying the whole point and purpose of Flaubert's novel. She by
herself is not the subject of his book. What he proposes to exhibit is
the history of a woman like her in just such a world as hers, a
foolish woman in narrow circumstances; so that the provincial scene,
acting upon her, making her what she becomes, is as essential as she
is herself. Not a portrait, therefore, not a study of character for
its own sake, but something in the nature of a drama, where the two
chief players are a woman on one side and her whole environment on the
other--that is Madame Bovary. There is a conflict, a trial of
strength, and a doubtful issue. Emma is not much of a force, no doubt;
her impulses are wild, her emotions are thin and poor, she has no
power of passion with which to fight the world.
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