Chesse as your Weapon

Felicite is the character that Flaubert uses to narrate his story of this poor servant’s life. She is a very timid person that only takes care of her job without getting into her mistresses’ business and she is recognized and envied for her work ethic.
However, reading the book, the reader gets the impression that Flaubert doesn’t even like this girl, since she lacks character and a strong personality. We can deduce this from the style that he uses to refer to her and how he rushes listing her description without giving her much importance. In the first chapter Flaubert writes, “She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). To describe this girl, Gustave lists all her daily routine, in a fast and simple way. With this he is making emphasis in the monotony in her life, and how insignificant her work is, but yet she puts all her effort to it. Also, he adds a “rosary” when she falls asleep, to demonstrate that this girl only bares her life thanks to the religion she is faithfully following, and it is the only thing that she feels comfortable sleeping and resting with.
For this unlikeness towards the servant, I was impressed to see why the author added a scene were Felicite is a hero in her life. Gustave, mentions the family’s trip to the country, were the kids, Virginia and Paul mess with a bull and how “Felicite continued to back before the bull,
blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.” (A Simple Soul. Gustave Flaubert). In this scene Felicite saved the life of the family she worked for. However, it is an outbreak since Gustave made an emphasis to this moment, by inverting an entire paragraph. Nevertheless, the turning point that supports the idea that Felicite is a girl that lost a great part of her soul, is that she wasn’t happy about saving this three life’s. Felicite, only smiled but didn’t really care, because she is torturing herself every single moment and no longer lets herself feel joy or be proud of herself.

Felicite is a very insipid girl, and yet the author is able to use her, and make a strong statement about the monotony and miserable life’s of many. With the use of his style, he can pull of the statement, even though he is using a very common and simple character. Also, with his use of words we can deduce many hidden ideas that make the reader understand Flaubert.