Three Tales (Flaubert)
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Three Tales (French: Trois contes) is a work by Gustave Flaubert that was originally published in French in 1877. It consists of the short stories: "A Simple Heart", "Saint Julian the Hospitalier", and "Hérodias".
"A Simple Heart"
"A Simple Heart", or Un cœur simple in French, is a story about a servant girl named Felicité. After her one and only love Théodore purportedly marries a well-to-do woman to avoid conscription, Felicité quits the farm where she works and heads for Pont-l'Évèque, 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
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.
"The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier"
"The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier", La légende de Saint-Julien l'hospitalier in French, is a story about
Julian joins a band of vagrants, and they eventually grow into a huge army under his control. He makes a name for himself and marries rich, but never hunts. Finally, his wife convinces him to go hunt, and he is haunted by the spirits of all of the animals he has killed. He returns home to surprise his wife and finds a man and a woman in her bed. Unknown to him, his parents had arrived to see him, and his wife had given them her bed. He thinks that it is another man sleeping with his wife and murders them. He recognizes his misdeed and leaves once again.
Having given all of his possessions to his wife, Julian begs for food but is shunned for his deeds. He comes across a deserted river crossing and decides to live a life of servitude. One day, there is a great storm, and a leper wishes to cross. It is rough, but Julian does not give up. Once across, the leper's requests increase. He wishes for food and wine, Julian's bed, and finally the warmth of Julian's body. When Julian gives the man everything without hesitation, the leper is revealed to be Jesus Christ himself, who takes Julian with him to heaven.
"Hérodias"
"Hérodias" is the retelling of the beheading of
Sources of inspiration
- "A Simple Heart" was inspired by several events in Flaubert's own life: he also lived in a farmhouse in rural epilepticseizure in the same way that Félicité does in the story.
- Gustave Flaubert wrote "A Simple Heart" under encouragement from his good friend and author George Sand.
- "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier" was inspired by a large stained-glass window at Rouen Cathedral. Flaubert deliberately made his story markedly different from the story told in glass.
- "Hérodias" is based on the biblical figure of the same name. Flaubert based the section on the dance of Salomé from a bas-relief also at Rouen Cathedral and his own experience watching a young female dancer while in Egypt.
- "A Simple Heart" was the inspiration for Flaubert's Parrot, a literary novel by Julian Barnes.
- "Hérodias" is said to have influenced Oscar Wilde's later Salome (1893) and Jules Massenet's opera Hérodiade (1881);[1] "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier" was the basis for an opera of the same title by Camille Erlanger (1888).
- The story is described at length in Yann Martel's novel Beatrice and Virgil.
References
- ^ Gustave Flaubert: Three Tales: New York: Dover Publications: 2004 (back cover).
External links
- Flaubert's short fiction at Standard Ebooks
- Three Short Works at Project Gutenberg (plain text and HTML)
- Enregistrement audiophonique de La Légende de saint Julien l'Hospitalier. Audio recording of The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitalier. Christian Rist's remarkable narration and voxography performance
- Three Short Works public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Hérodias public domain audiobook at LibriVox (in French)
- La Légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier public domain audiobook at LibriVox (in French)
- Three Short Works at Google Books (scanned book)
- Trois contes at Project Gutenberg (in French)
- (in French) Un Coeur Simple with 1,200+ English annotations at Tailored Texts
- (in French) A Simple Heart, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier and Herodias, Three Tales in audio version