Lyn’s MODL 5304 page

         I choose to write my final paper on Flaubert’s Sentimental Education because I enjoyed reading it, as I did Les Trois Contes.  But I have found it extremely difficult and have really struggled trying to write about it.  My interpretation has changed with each time that I read it, or even sections of it.  I read it a certain way and felt that I could argue it reasonably well, and then I would realize I could discount it as ‘reasonably well’.  So I would discard and start over.  I have found the same thing with the articles I choose.  The ideas were presented well and the argument logical, but I read them with some ambiguity.   I think Flaubert intentionally wrote the text open to several interpretations, even spelling out more than one reason as a response.  For example in the final scene with Mme Arnoux and Frédéric, he rejects her assumed proposition for either incest or degrading the ideal.  The narrator suggests both of them and both story lines are present throughout the text.  Even the final scene and the final exclamation that is supposed to reveal the lesson of the education, when Frédéric and Deslauriers conclude that the best they have been was as youth going together to the locate prostitutes.  Whether they are referring to a brotherhood male friendship theme or an innocence of the emotional and physical contact with women therefore preserving the unity of ideal and real woman, or a lost desires theme is up for grabs.  Further, whatever is chosen is called into question by Deslauriers in the last sentence.  His agreement is in the from of a question, not in the English version I have, but in the folio French edition, “Oui, peut-être bien?  Maybe so? that was the best we were.  This makes this novel enjoyable to read, but I hope never to write about him again. 
          My thesis is that there are two critiques in the novel, the Paris bourgeoisie and female relationships.  Both of these critiques, economics and love, are mirages, and both are morphed into a single sentiment towards Mrs. Arnoux.  The education of Fred is distinguishing illusion from reality in these two aspects of his life, the Paris bourgeoisie and his own economic status and the polemic categorization of the females in this life.  I think the opening and closing scenes tell the story.  The boat scene where they all meet indicate Frédéric’s desire to be have Mr. Arnoux’s place in society, between the art world and financial and social success, and this is the basis of his obsession with the Arnoux’s, not romantic attachment to Mrs. Arnoux, at least initially. I could be wrong, but this is how I read the novel and I’m sticking with it…

           I was intrigued by the language in this text and learned from Dr. Seminet the importance of language in the boom novels.   One of Shaw’s characteristics of the new novel is “Linguistic inventiveness as a dominant feature and central to the interrogation of reality, language becoming the protagonist, with a decrease of character and plot”. (p.363 of Shaw article) The Cubs did this splendidly.  The language was definitely inventive, but also the language was more important, or at least as important, as the plot. 
           There are many distinguishing characteristics that stood out.  Throughout the text we see very long sentences, such as the 2^nd paragraph on p.43, starting with “From…” ending with “how?” at the end of the paragraph. There are lots of commas and explanation points, and few periods, creating many voices in one sentence. There is one voice, then a comma, then another voice in response, and it continues.

            The medley of voices is infused with multiple tenses in the same sentence.  Along with that we find sentences that run together, “The boys looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, Lalo laughed, Fina what’s wrong with them, why the horse laughs, tell us, Choto blushed, because that’s why…” (p.22) “But he no way, waste of time, our parties bored him, old before his time, he didn’t go because he had better ones where I enjoy myself more.” (p.21)

            In the preface, Vargas Llosa says that he wrote with the intention of creating a  text to be sung, not read.    But there is also a lot of play in the language, which started to drive me crazy.  “…what horse laughs, she don’t play dumb…”. (p.22) The style of the text leads us to read this as She [said] “don’t play dumb”, since that is the way he cited them speaking.  But it could also be read “she don’t [or doesn’t] play dumb” which changes the sentence.  I felt that the author wanted the reader to insert punctuation, subtlety changing meaning.  He wanted an active reader, engaged in interpreting punctuation, grammar, and therefore meaning.

Not only did the narrator language stand out, but also the language of the Cuéllar.  His stuttering could have represented his isolation and disassociation, mirrored in the confusion of the language of the text.

        The plural voices in one sentence created a sense of collectiveness of thought, a feeling of group conversation and thoughts.  Everyone’s thoughts are thrown together creating a group presence, of everyone talking together.  This linguistic style translated into energy for me.  I felt the energy, liveliness, animation of the boys running to the soccer field, running into town, or piled into a car driving, learning to dance, and standing around shooting the breeze.  

The image on page 5 is France and the Catholic Church united together in destroying this island.  The stanza begins with the corruption and sodomies of the host and sacrificing priest, following by a list of offenses.  The offenses flow right into degenerative vocabulary describing La Martinique,  “scrofulous buboes”, “forced feeding of very strange microbes”, “sanies of ancient sores”, and “unforeseeable fermentations of putrescible species”.  It’s an image of rotting away, death, a slow degenerative death.   The night is motionless, the stars dead, the balafon caved in, the music stopped.  He denounces efforts to associate themselves with France.  “And our foolish and crazy stunts to revive the golden splashing of privileged moments, the umbilical cord restored to its ephemeral splendor…”.  This has gotten them nowhere.  The results of the host and sacrificing priest’s “prejudice and stupidity, the prostitutions, the hypocrisies, the lubricities, the treasons, the lies…” are that they are poverty stricken, sick and dying, scenes played out for us throughout the text.  It’s time for a different method, time to reject and separate themselves from the host and sacrificing priest.  My favorite line on the poem is “put up with me, I won’t put up with you”. (p.23)

In the first sentence, he tells the cop to beat it, a cop being an image for imperialism.  After reminding them of the degradation by the masters, imperialists Europeans, whites, Césaire exalts his race, the nobility of working the earth, work without greed or desire for control. He wants them recognize their uniqueness, to celebrate their blackness, their ancestors and roots, their island, their colonialism. 

This poem was so difficult for me that I did not really enjoy it, but at the same time I was captivated by the power and beauty of its language.