A Simple Heart (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Gustave Flaubert
- First Published: 1877
- Type of Plot: Psychological
- Time of Work: The nineteenth century
- Setting: The French province of Normandy, in and around Pont-l’Eveque, Trouville, and Honfleur
- Principal Characters: Félicité Barette, Mme Aubain, Paul Aubain, Virginie Aubain, Victor Leroux
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Short fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, Love or romance, Courage, Betrayal, Christianity, Death or dying, Faith, Servants
- Locales: Normandy, France
The Story
“A Simple Heart” embraces in only a few pages the story of an entire life, that of a woman born into the most unfortunate and narrowest of circumstances, a woman who lives within the narrowest frame of reference. The story is divided into five distinct sections. The first gives an overview of the Aubain household and the daily routine of Félicité Barette. For fifty years, the surrounding world sees her as a possession of Mme Aubain, a paragon of domestics: frugal, hardworking, unchanging. She seems an automaton, a wooden woman. The human being behind the mask is...
[The entire page is 1787 words long]
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