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PAR TIS A N R'EVlEW
sciousness. Natural shocks occur quite differently. The ordering hand
of the writer is present here, deliberately summing up the confusion of
the psychological situation in the direction toward which it tends of
itself-the direction of "aversion to Charles Bovary." This ordering of
the psychological situation does not, to be sure, derive its standards
from without, but from the material of the situation itself. It is the
type of ordering which must be employed if the situation itself is to
be translated into speech without admixture.
In a comparison of this type of presentation with those of
Stendhal and Balzac, it
is
to be observed by way of introduction that
here too the two distinguishing characteristics of modern realism are
to be found; here too real everyday occurrences in a low social
stratum, the provincial petty bourgeoisie, are taken very seriously (we
shall discuss the particular character of this seriousness later); here
too everyday occurrences are accurately and profoundly set in a
definite period of contemporary history (the period of the
bour~eois
monarchy)-less obviously than in Stendhal or Balzac, but unmis–
takably. In these two basic attributes the three writers are at one, in
contradistinction to all earlier realism; but Flaubert's attitude toward
his
subject is entirely different. In Stendhal and Balzac we frequently
and indeed almost constantly hear what the writer thinks of his char–
acters and events; sometimes Balzac accompanies his narrative with a
running commentary-emotional or ironic or ethical or historical or
economic. We also very frequently hear what the characters them–
selves think and feel, and
j
often in such a manner that, in the pas–
sage concerned, the writer identifies himself with the character. Both
these things are almost wholly absent from Flaubert's work. His
opinion of his characters and events remains unspoken; and when the
characters express themselves it is never in such a manner that the
writer identifies himself with their opinion, or with the intent of
making the reader identify himself with it. We hear the writer speak;
but he expresses no opinion and makes no comment. His role is
limited to choosing the events and translating them into language;
and this is done
in
the conviction that every event, if one is able to
express it purely and completely, interprets itself and the persons in–
volved in it far better and more completely than any opinion or
judgment appended to it could do. Upon this conviction-that is,
upon a profound faith in the truth of language responsibly, candidly
