Flaubert au-delà de l’histoire littéraire. Genèse d’Un coeur simple et contre-modèle de servante à vie

Abstract

The character of Félicité, presented by Gustave Flaubert in A Simple Soul [Un coeur simple], a tale published in 1877, is considered here in historical perspective in order to better understand her work in domestic service, permanent celibacy and overall sad story. The first section traces the genesis of this work, as shown in the writer’s correspondence and his family background. The second part is devoted to his method, as he proclaimed it. The last section argues that F´elicit´e was a very ordinary victim who had fallen, as many other female servants, into the trap of lifelong service which had crushed her destiny. In the European past, a woman who stayed for life in the same family as maid-of-all-work and remained unmarried was far from being a rare case or counter-model. Actually, servants were considered unproductive by economists and therefore found themselves excluded by Marxism from the class struggle. The original piece of literature under study was more a short story than a fairy tale, and since it intended and succeeded to be true, it did not meet the readers’ expected enthusiasm.