Indiana and Madame Bovary: Intertextual Echoes

A close look at scenes of seduction in George Sand's Indiana (1832) and Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) reveals a number of intriguing textual echoes. There is no evidence to indicate that Flaubert had read Indiana by the time he finished Madame Bovary, and for that matter the two heroines themselves are quite different in fundamental respects. Nevertheless, for the reader familiar with both works, one novel may well appear to "haunt" the other, to use the evocative term of Matei Calinescu, at certain key moments. (JTB)