“WE” IN MADAME BOVARY (COMMENT).

“WE” IN MADAME BOVARY (COMMENT). I am tremendously honored that Jonathan Raban, a writer I admire, has commented twice on my posts, including a disagreement with this post. Raban disagreed with my saying that “Flaubert, the author, had an unfair advantage over his characters. First you throw the fish in the barrel, and then you shoot them.” Raban commented: “…a smart(ish) remark until you see how clearly Flaubert understood that he was one of the fish.” Although I had noted in my post that Raban said in his essay that “…[Flaubert] does not see his characters as despicable”, I want to add an outline of one powerful argument in Raban’s essay supporting his view that Flaubert included himself in the society he was writing about. (He was relying on the text of the book, putting to one side the famous report that Flaubert said, “…Madame Bovary, c’est moi….”) Raban showed how Flaubert chooses to use the word “we” at critical points in a book which for the most part adheres to an “objective” and “impersonal” view of the characters. The first word of the book is “we”, and Raban says that by using the word, “Flaubert claims the whole terrain of MADAME BOVARY as his own native ground.” Raban also analyzes the apparently much-quoted passage which comments on the cliches with which Emma expresses her feelings for her lover. Flaubert says (in the Lydia Davis translation): “…human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to….” Raban points out that this is another of the rare uses of “we.” Raban says that “this is the moment in the novel when the author steps forward, removes his mask, and announces that he and she are one in their struggle to make music on the cracked kettle, and so are we.” I accept this argument, which leads me to ponder why I have reacted to the book as an attack on the characters.