The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion
Sentimental Education
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Sentimental Education Week 8: Part 3 Chapters 4 and 5
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Are you surprised by any of the events that occur in these two chapters?
Well, it seems Frederick's "education" is not going well. At the end of last week's reading, he seemed to have it all, four women on a string and prospects for a place in high society, and he was feeling pretty good about himself. In this week's reading, he ends up despising Rosanette and Madame Dambreuse, the child he had with Rosanette dies, he losses his 'backup' girl, Louise, to his lifetime but now alienated friend, DesLauriers, he has more financial worries, and his obsession, Madame Arnoux, is still out of reach.This spoiler makes a comparison to Madame Bovary (view spoiler)
Mod
Gary, can you put a spoiler alert in your comment in case any of our members have not read Madame Bovary yet.
Thanks.
You can just state that your comment has spoilers for those who haven't read that book.
Mod
Here's something I found more than a little interesting:Madame Arnoux is 7 to 9 years older than Frederic
Madame Dambreuse is 10 years older then Frederic
Rosanette is 11 years older than Frederic
Louise is 9 years younger than Frederic
What does this suggest about Frederic?
This information is implicit in the text though it's not expressly stated. Instead of teasing this out myself, I turned to Google AI.
Mod
We have not discussed humour and satire in A Sentimental Education, but I could not but be amused at some aspects of M. Dambreuse’s funeral. The notes in Michael Wetherill’s edition (Paris: Garnier, 1984, my translations) are intriguing.“He went next to the Hôtel de Ville to purchase a piece of ground. A grant of a piece which was two metres in length and one in breadth cost five hundred francs. Did he want a grant for fifty years or forever? “Oh, forever!” said Frederick.” (“It is surprising that Dambreuse, in light of his antecedents, did not possess a family tomb” (p. 500, n. 745).
Dambreuse was probably too mean to pay for a family plot.
“The escutcheon of M. Dambreuse, which covered a square piece of velvet, was repeated there three times. It was: Sable, with an arm sinister or and a clenched hand with a glove argent; with the coronet of a count, and this device: By every path.” (“Like the motto the shield itself says a lot about the person who sports it. Yves Levy . . . affirms that ‘it is the coat of arms of an exploiter’” (ibid, n. 746).
Again, I have no idea how the July Monarchy went about managing the award of arms, but it appears someone in the herald’s office was having a huge joke on the grasping parvenu Dambreuse. That he would owe his fortune to coal mines makes sense. Basically his coat of arms declares, “I’ll do anything for money.”
“With the exception of a few, the religious ignorance of all was so profound that the master of the ceremonies had, from time to time, to make signs to them to rise, to kneel, or to resume their seats. The organ and the two double-basses could be heard alternately with the voices. In the intervals of silence, the only sounds that reached the ear were the mumblings of the priest at the altar; then the music and the chanting went on again’” (“The religious ignorance, with the omnipresence of religious sentiment, often recurs in the oeuvre of Flaubert. See for example the burial of Emma Bovary” (ibid, n. 747).
None of the male characters (except possibly the reactionary Cisy) seem to have any religious feelings at all. Dambreuse receives absolution but it is unclear whether he actually believes in anything..
Gary wrote: "Here's something I found more than a little interesting:Madame Arnoux is 7 to 9 years older than Frederic
Madame Dambreuse is 10 years older then Frederic
Rosanette is 11 years older than Frederi..."
Given the mores of the time, that is exactly what one would expect for a young upper middle class romantic like Frederic. For a mistress he could pursue either a discreet married woman in her 30s or an indiscreet experienced demimondaine. For a spouse he would look for an ingenue in her teens.
Bill wrote: "We have not discussed humour and satire in A Sentimental Education, but I could not but be amused at some aspects of M. Dambreuse’s funeral ..."I read the parts you've highlighted as irony rather than humor. But irony can also be satirical and amusing, and so it is here. Thank you, Bill, for drawing our attention to this.
Mod
I have to title this section ‘Births, Marriages and Deaths’But before I mention anything else, was I the only one who laughed when Madame Dambreuse told Moreau she had inherited everything? It was obvious to me that her wily husband would not have left her the whole estate, in fact I was surprised that he left her the house and an allowance. Her undignified scramblings amongst Dambreuse’s piles of papers to find a non existent will was one of a number of particularly poignant scenes in this section.
The events in this section ranged from the terrible to the exquisite.
Moreau losing all his women was bound to happen because of the total lack of regard he had for any of them. Even the one he professed to love the most, Madame Arnoux, could have been saved by him if he had thought of her needs before his own. But no. His me, me, me attitude destroyed everything and not just for him.
The appalling scenes with the dead child illustrated Moreau’s thoughtless and selfish nature.
’ Nearly every quarter of an hour Rosanette drew aside the curtains in orderto take a look at her child. She saw him in imagination, a few months hence,beginning to walk; then at college, in the middle of the recreation-ground,playing a game of base; then at twenty years a full-grown young man; and all
these pictures conjured up by her brain created for her, as it were, the son she would have lost, had he only lived, the excess of her grief intensifying in her the maternal instinct.
Frederick, sitting motionless in another armchair, was thinking of Madame Arnoux.’
Deceit and duplicity seems to be a themes that Flaubert liked to explore in his novels and this one is no exception.
However, it was pleasing to me that Deslauriers finally seemed to have established himself and, even better, had gained the trust and hopefully love of Louise. A far better man than Moreau. What a slap in the face that marriage carriage was to Moreau after all the slap downs he had given his so called friend.
My favourite scene in this week’s section was at the auction of the Arnoux’s furniture and other goods, when Madame Dambreuse had Moreau squirming like a worm on a fish hook as Madame Arnoux’s belongings were sold before his eyes. Rosanette’s appearance completed the scene, witnessing the deserved ‘execution’ of Moreau.
’ The bedroom furniture was now exhibited. Maître Berthelmot named a price. The crier immediately repeated it in a louder voice, and the three auctioneer's assistants quietly waited for the stroke of the hammer, and then carried off the article sold to an adjoining apartment. In this way disappeared, one after the other, the large blue carpet spangled with camellias, which her dainty feet used to touch so lightly as she advanced to meet him, the little upholstered easy-chair, in which he used to sit facing her when they were alone together, the two screens belonging to the mantelpiece, the ivory of which had been rendered smoother by the touch of her hands, and a velvet pincushion, which was still bristling with pins. It was as if portions of his heart had been carried away with these things; and the monotony of the same voices and the same gestures benumbed him with fatigue, and caused within him a mournful torpor, a sensation like that of death itself.‘
Moreau’s was a living death, a suicide of wrong decisions fuelled by selfish greed.
With his money almost gone, his women almost gone and even his mother disgusted with him is there any hope left at all for Moreau?
Mod
Frederic and Mme Dambreuse are having an affair. She becomes a widow and wants to marry him.
Rosanette and Frederic spend a few days together before the baby comes and she wants to marry him. The baby is very sick and dies.
Frederic's career in politics is non-existent since he withdrew because he has no chance of winning
Arnoux is still in lots of financial trouble and seems to owe everyone money. His new business, selling religious objects fails so he and his family flee from their creditors.
Frederic tries to help him, but he's too late, they've already left.
Frederic is fed up with Mme Dambreuse, Rosanette and Paris so he goes home to Nogent just in time to see the newly married Louise and Dussardiers.