Jumping From One To The Next

Just like every writer, Gustave Flaubert has a style that is different from anyone else's. He uses long sentences, broken apart by commas to divide his ideas. "Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts." (1) This sentence, in the beginning of the book shows just that. There are a total of four ideas in just one sentence. Although many may argue that it's wrong to put more than one idea per sentence, it is the style that distinguishes Gustave Flaubert from the rest of the writers. Even though many writers incorrectly use the style of more than one idea per sentence, Flaubert successfully manages to create a certain feeling in the viewer, that would not be there if it weren't for his sentence structure. Another example of this is when at the beginning of chapter two, Flaubert starts talking about how her father was killed by a scaffold."Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her father, who was a mason, was killed by falling from a scaffolding" (2).

Another very notable style that Flaubert has is that it goes from one sentence to the next, and doesn't have many extra sentences that don't really serve a purpose. This makes A Simple Soul, even though not too long, have a lot of information. A perfect example of a lot of information in just one sentence is ," One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon

loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore." (2) Many of the authors that I have read would have written those same ideas in many more sentences. This is a characteristic that Flaubert shows throughout the first three chapters, and sticks with it the whole time. In chapter three, we see another example, "After several minutes had elapsed, she heard footsteps, the door was half opened and a nun appeared." The feeling I get while reading is almost as if I were reading a list of things to do. Like if Flaubert had a list of all the things he wanted to say, and then simply wrote the book off of that list, and didn't really add any extra information.

Overall, I have enjoyed reading these first three chapters of A Simple Soul because it is another way to write. Lately, I have been experiencing many different styles of writers, and I keep learning from each one and take bits and pieces from each one. This one is particularly interesting because I am sure that if someone had this style in second grade while writing a story, the teacher would tell you to make it nicer and flow smoother. Flaubert uses a style that very much interests me, and I would love to be able to write in such a difficult way, while still making my points clear, and ultimately making my writing good.