![]() The challenge arises precisely because, while the hat is described in fine, ‘realist’ detail and each detail is plausible, put together the details add up to a whole that is a monument to implausibility, if not actually materially impossible.įor some perverse spirits that is of course sufficient reason to try. While they may both be ‘unrepresentable’, unlike the wedding cake Charles’s hat has inspired many attempts at representation. ![]() This allows him to undermine the notion that language straightforwardly portrays real-world objects, without any need for explicit commentary by the narrator, simply by juxtaposing incompatible things so that they undermine each other. ![]() Nabokov, who called this Flaubert’s ‘layercake’, ‘counterpoint’ or ‘contrapuntal’ technique, drew Charles’s hat in the margins of the notes he used for his lectures on Madame Bovary.īringing multiple, clashing elements together in a surreal vertical arrangement – temple, castle, lake and cherub on the one hand fur cap, padded hat and bonnet on the other – Flaubert deploys one of his favourite literary techniques: juxtaposition. Like the cake, it is made up of bands or layers that don’t work together. It is part fur, part velvet part flat-topped cap, part cotton nightcap it has a visor and a tassel. Each part is plausible and even mundane, but put together they add up to a ridiculous, extravagant, and perhaps impossible object. In good ‘Realist’ style he gives us a detailed description of the physical qualities of the hat. Instead, he is making fun of contemporary theories of Realism which saw language as having a transparent relationship to the real world. Here the target of Flaubert’s humour is not Romantic aspirations or visual clichés. This hat is now rather notorious – much more so than the cake.Īs with the wedding cake, Flaubert’s description of Charles’s hat combines contrasting, incompatible layers. Nevertheless, Flaubert’s satirical description of the cake has a lot in common with his description of the hat Charles Bovary wore as a schoolboy, right at the beginning of the novel. It might seem odd to compare an elaborate tiered wedding cake (or pièce montée) to a hat. Blog 4: The Wedding Cake, Charles Bovary’s Hat, and the Impossible Object ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |