"A Simple Heart", or Un Coeur simple in French, is a story about a servant girl named Felicit�. After her one and only love Th�odore purportedly marries a well-to-do woman to avoid conscription, Felicit� quits the farm where she works and heads for Pont-l'�v�que, where she picks up work in a widow's house as a servant. She is very loyal, and easily lends her affections to the two children of her mistress, Mme Aubain. She gives entirely to others; although many take advantage of her, she is unaffected. She has ...
Read More
"A Simple Heart", or Un Coeur simple in French, is a story about a servant girl named Felicit�. After her one and only love Th�odore purportedly marries a well-to-do woman to avoid conscription, Felicit� quits the farm where she works and heads for Pont-l'�v�que, where she picks up work in a widow's house as a servant. She is very loyal, and easily lends her affections to the two children of her mistress, Mme Aubain. She gives entirely to others; although many take advantage of her, she is unaffected. She has no husband, no children, and no property, and is reliant on her mistress to keep her; she is uneducated; her death is virtually unnoticed. Despite her life being seemingly pointless, she has within her the power to love, which she does even when she does not receive it in return. She also carries within her a yearning, a majestic quasi-religious sensibility which finds its apotheosis in the deification, as she dies, of her pet parrot who floats above her deathbed masquerading as the Holy Ghost. She lives a simple, unexamined life. Flaubert's challenge was to create the main protagonist as someone very different from the satirical characters appearing in his previous novels such as Madame Bovary. (wikipedia.org)
Read Less
Add this copy of Three Tales to cart. $13.03, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2022 by Bibliotech Press.
Add this copy of Three Tales to cart. $30.96, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Bibliotech Press.
Add this copy of Three Tales to cart. $60.34, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Bibliotech Press.
A book of 3 short stories, written late in Flaubert's life. The 1st story "A Simple Heart" is his most personal story; the protagonist is based on his nanny, a simple woman who stuffs her parrot when the talking creature dies. The other two tales are more macabre, sort of in the Gothic tradition. "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator" is about a young hunter with a morbid passion for killing wild beasts, but who then has total change and becomes the Patron Saint of Hospitality. "Herodias" is a convoluted reworking of the tale of Salome and John the Baptist. The Intro and notes by a Flaubert biographer are very illuminating.
