Tasty Writing

Free indirect style is the way you make a character as yourself and writing about it while narrating the story. Flaubert does that. There is a bit of irony and hyperbole in the story, obviously adding more to the tastiness of it. I get to see Felicite’s soul and thoughts without noticing that it is her feelings and thoughts that are being described. For example, “She hung her head. He then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was wrong for him to make fun of her.” (Simple Soul) So far there has been almost no quotation for Felicite, not when she is talking or thinking something. Felicite “hung her head” is describing a feeling, an action hat comes with a feeling without saying the specific emotion. Or for example, “He always came at dinner-time and brought an ugly poodle with him, whose paws soiled their furniture.” The adjective “ugly” for the dog is only because he made the furniture dirty, and Felicite doesn’t like that. This sentence could be written like this, “He always came a dinner-time and brought the ugly poodle that Felicite hated because he soiled their furniture.” But there is no need for the “Felicite hated because”, it is induced with the negative adjective and the second part of the sentence.

There is this paragraph which stood out to me, goes like this:

“When Virginia’s turn came, Felicite leaned forward to watch her, and through that imagination which springs from true affection, she at once became the child, whose face and dress became hers, whose heart beat in her bosom, and when Virginia opened her mouth and closed her lids, she did likewise and came very near fainting.”

It’s a sentence with 7 commas. Makes it as a race, like the heart beat, and the excitement mixed with anxiety. If read out loud it is tiring, as if “near fainting”. The description is perfect, the emotion, one can perfectly picture the little Felicite at the edge of the bench, and yet Flaubert doesn’t talk about the thoughts or feelings much, he simply narrates what is happening, as if it were himself.