For Jauss (and others), free indirect style places the novel in opposition to the dominant culture, because it forces readers ‘into an alienating uncertainty of judgment . . . turning a predecided question of public morals [the evaluation of adultery] back into an open problem’.58 From this viewpoint, Pinard was right about the stakes of the trial: Flaubert was a threat to the established order. Luckily Pinard lost, and Flaubert won.
The Bourgeois: Between...
