Emma by Twilight: Flawed Perception in Madame Bovary

Since the publication of Madame Bovary, Flaubert's descriptions have never ceased attracting the attention of the critics, who for the most part have unfortunately restricted themselves to noting the pictorial or Parnassian qualities of various passages. This tendency has obtained especially with respect to Flaubert's use of light. In Madame Bovary Flaubert consistently specifies the lighting of his scenes, in accord with Maupassant's concept of illusion of reality, i.e. a vision or impression that the reader will interpret to be real, and which represents the reality experienced by a character or characters in the novel. More interesting is Flaubert's clear tendency to place Emma in scenes where the light is dim, shadowy or attenuated. His predilection for such crepuscular settings, even to the point of overlooking certain improbabilities in the action, suggests that they are indicative of Emma's character. On one level of analysis the crepuscular scenes are in accord with Emma's romantic temperament, on another level they and other symbolic devices, such as the blind beggar, underscore Emma's basic flaw: her moral and spiritual blindness. (EFG)