Flaubert: Prophet of Cannibalism or Provincial Marriage?
Let’s be honest: Gustave Flaubert’s peak was with Madame Bovary, his debut novel. Of course, he did great with Sentimental Education and A Simple Heart, Flaubert is a master of his craft, but none of his works could live up his debut novel.
For the unfamiliar, Madame Bovary is a novel about Emma Bovary, a married woman longing for a life full of wealth, when in reality she’s married to a simple and common doctor, Charles Bovary. She comitted adultery with two men, Rodolphe Boulanger and Léon Dupuis (both who moved on so easily from her). In the end, spoiler alert — she killed herself with arsenic, after getting tangled in piles of debt.
Madame Bovary will always be Flaubert’s masterpiece, a novel so realistic you could actually feel Emma Bovary’s longing for a life of grandeur.
Five years after Madame Bovary, Flaubert published Salammbo. The historical novel was his most financially successful novel (my best guess: people are very enthusiastic about Flaubert’s second novel after Madame Bovary), and at the same time, shocked the critics.
Salammbo showcases Flaubert’s brilliance. It furthermore underlines how good Flaubert is in realism, despite never being in Carthage—despite not being alive back in the Barbaric ages.
Salammbo resolves around the lives of four characters; Mâtho (Libyan leader of the Mercenaries, the protagonist of the novel), Spendius (a Greek, former Carthaginian slave turned leader of the Mercenaries), Hamilcar Barca (a Carthaginian general, father of Hannibal), and Salammbo (the eponymous heroine, a priestess of Tanit, also daughter of Hamilcar).
The four characters clashed against each other during the Mercenary Revolt (right after the First Punic War) in Carthage. The problem rooted in two things: 1) Carthage failed to pay the Mercenaries the sum they promised and 2) Mâtho and Spendius stole the zaïmph of Tanit, a sacred veil believed to bring Carthage good luck. Mâtho fell in love with the young priestess, who later on had sex with him in order to retrieve the sacred veil he stole.
The Mercenary Revolt ends up with Hamilcar Barca winning: he crucified Spendius, let the Carthaginians kill Mâtho publicly, and slandered the Mercenaries. It was a tragic end; Salammbo, who was present when the crowd tortured Mâtho, died of shock. The novel ended with ‘Thus died Hamilcar’s daughter, for touching Tanit’s veil.’
Now, let’s talk about the striking difference between Madame Bovary and Salammbo, both Flaubert’s most prominent works, although the latter is no longer a well-read book in the twenty-first century.
Madame Bovary is written in a heartfelt tone, a tone so tender. Readers could empathize with both Emma or Charles — one longs for a life full of adventure, one so clueless with his own wife’s whereabouts! The book is written in minuscule detail; although it is very long, Flaubert keeps readers on their toes. Through Madame Bovary, readers travel back to provincial France, to be exact, Yonville. Thanks to Flaubert’s delicate details, readers could see for themselves, Emma Bovary walking hand in hand with Léon Dupuis on the streets, slipping inside the hotel room. Readers could feel the aching of Emma’s heart as she went home after dancing at Marquis d’Andervilliers’ ball. Readers can hear Charles Bovary’s heartbreaking when he discovers correspondences between his late wife and her two lovers. That’s how great Madame Bovary is.
Next to Madame Bovary, Salammbo is the work of a savage. No matter how much you look at it, you won’t even guess that it is a work of Gustave Flaubert. The writing is so raw, so primitive, so different than his previous works, although still written in astonishing details. To further explain ‘primitive’, here are some of the most shiver-inducing scenes of the book:
- Only on page 34, Flaubert presents us with a parade of rotting crucified lions.
- Obscene nudity, body worship (the only time breasts are viewed sexually in Madame Bovary was when Léon commented on Emma’s white breast), and a sex scene.
- Various crucifixion scenes, in graphic detail.
- Children being burned alive for the god Moloch.
- Cannibalism: the Mercenaries resorts to eating the flesh of their prisoners and slaves after nineteen days without food and water (smarter ones ate leaves, though).
- Lots of torture scenes, starting from prisoners being used as javelin target practice, Barbarians getting stabbed by an elephant’s tusk, Mâtho having his chest split open and his heart pulled out, and many more!
Quite exotic compared to Madame Bovary, isn’t it? Flaubert did an amazing job researching, he even went to Tunisia (present-day Carthage) for three or four months just to research, although he based his novel around Polybius’ writings.
Salammbo talks about both violence and purity; the priestess Salammbo lived a life of spiritual and physical virginity, she knows none of sexuality—yet her naivety was what made her sensual. Her purity and her devotion to the divine Tanit is described with such excruciating detail that readers hold their breaths together with Mâtho when she first appeared in the balcony. Flaubert delivered his message crystal clear: Salammbo is beautiful. Salammbo is worth the war. Mâtho would charge head-on against the whole city of Carthage for her—we’d do so too.
No matter what kind of plot he’s delivering, Flaubert continually shoved it in our faces that he is that kind of writer. His greatest strength is his intricate details, how he can show instead of tell, a writing rule easy to say but difficult to do. Flaubert does not only lead us into imagining how the Bovary’s bedroom would look like, he convinces us that that’s exactly how their room looks like. Flaubert made us believe that Salammbo is indeed worth all the conflict! It is not an exaggeration to say that Gustave Flaubert is a genius, a god. A god of both, cannibalism and provincial marriage.
Your range, Flaubert.