An Analysis of Homais as an instrument of satire in Flauberts, Madame Bovary

An analysis of Homais as an instrument of satire

In Flaubert’s satiric novel, the story’s apothecary is used to convey Flaubert’s views of the bourgeois. As a vehicle for Flaubert’s satire, Homais is portrayed as opportunistic and self-serving, attributes that Flaubert associated with the middle class. Homais’ obsession with social mobility leads him to commit despicable acts. His character and values are also detestable. He is self-serving, hypocritical, opportunistic, egotistical, and crooked. All these negative characteristics are used by Flaubert to represent and satirize specific aspects of middle class society. More specific issues that are addressed include Homais’ superficial knowledge, religious hypocrisy, and pretentiousness. Furthermore, his status as a secondary character suggests his significance to the satire. If Emma is meant to portray the feminine aspect of the bourgeois then Homais is undoubtedly meant to represent the masculine aspect. Flaubert wanted to ridicule and criticize the bourgeois class. By including Homais, Flaubert is able to satirize all the negative aspects of middle class society within a single novel.

In adolescence and throughout much of his life, Gustave Flaubert regarded the bourgeois existence as an “immense, indistinct, unmitigated state of mindlessness” (Wall 29-31). He vented his contempt for the bourgeois in many of his works. In his Dictionary of Received Ideas he proclaims:

“Each bourgeois phrase, each bourgeois feeling, each bourgeois opinion is touched by the hilarious dismaying suspicion of fakery. Solemnly and energetically proclaiming their clichés to each other, perhaps the bourgeois are indeed simply machines. They are stuck, like busy automata, in their perpetual false consciousness” (Wall 29-31).

In Madam Bovary, Gustave Flaubert uses Homais as one of the central figures of his satire. Homais, Yonville’s apothecary and the Bovarys’ neighbor, is used as a vehicle to ridicule the values and principles of the French middle class. True to this, Homais is depicted as an overly ambitious, self-important fool. For example, Flaubert creatively stages arguments between Homais and the village priest in order to mock the bourgeois’s lack of spirituality. One encounter of note occurs on Emma’s deathbed soon after she has passed away. The Priest declares that there is nothing left but t...

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...ften those who are selfish and opportunistic that are rewarded rather than the humble and honest. Homais is essentially a compilation of all the negative aspects of the bourgeois class that Flaubert detested so much; he is a crafty hypocrite, a medical charlatan, a self-important know-it-all, and a quack. “He serves to expose the ideological decay of an erstwhile revolutionary class” (Wall 28). Certainly, Flaubert’s attack on 19th-century French middle class society is both complete and thorough, but at the same time subtle and smooth.

Primary Sources

Flaubert, Gustave. Intimate Notebook 1840 – 1841. Trans. Francis Steegmuller. New

York: Doubleday & Company, 167.

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Trans. Geoffrey Wall. London: Penguin, 1992.

Secondary Sources

Thody, Philip. Reference Guide to World Literature. 2nd ed. New York: St. James Press,

1995.

Wall, Geoffrey. Introduction. Madame Bovary. By Flaubert, Gustave. London: Penguin,

1992.

Bibliography

Brombert, Victor. The Novels of Flaubert: A study of themes and techniques. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1966.

Kenner, Hugh. The Stoic Comedians. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962