Flaubert: Writing the Masculine (review)

Orr, Mary. Flaubert Writing the Masculine. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Pp. 239. ISBN 0-19-815969-2

Mary Orr examines representations of the masculine in Flaubert's novels and short stories through close readings that are guided by a dual optic: the socio-historical and cultural world of the author's times, on the one hand, and contemporary criticism informed by gender theory, on the other. In her introduction, she reveals the significance of the Code Napoléon for the divide of nineteenth century French society into public and private spheres as the preserve of men and women respectively. Flaubert's fiction reflects this dichotomization, and Orr sets out to investigate its implications for the valorization of certain qualities as masculine. Central to her inquiry is the process of individualization illustrated by non-conformists, and their complexity as markers of the social dynamic underlying manhood during the latter half of the century.

In her first chapter, Orr focuses on Madame Bovary as a critique of marriage, rather than a novel about adultery. Charles forges an impossible democratic union between the romantic conception of marriage and its legalized version, because he does not fulfill his allotted role in either model (33). Orr's interpretation of Charles's non-conformist masculinity, combined with intertextual readings of Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet, lead into her reassessment of the gender-debate surrounding Emma. She argues for the character's femininity, ascribing the donning of male attire, the adoption of masculine modes (and its trappings), to Emma's desire for distinction from the female herd (42). Finally, she frames her analysis of the protagonists' sex and gender identities within a Jungian reading, and shows how the concept of coniunctio, by which opposites transform each other, suggests the potential for alternative relationships.

The second chapter examines polarities of male position in Salammbô as similarities, as points on the same continuum (52). Subscribing to Anne Green's findings on politico-social parallels between ancient and contemporary society, Orr identifies power structures characterizing Carthage's patriarchy as well France's Republic. The principle of hierarchy generates hyper-virile constructions of masculinity (Moloch, Hamilcar, Spendius), permeating all levels of society, and figures who function as intermediaries, such as Schahabarim and Narr'Havas. Hannon represents the negative, corrupted side of the patriarchy, and the Barbarians, mirroring the collective warrior masculinity of their adversary, also function as a threat to the hierarchical power structure. While the authority of the above is accompanied by their silencing or manipulation of the female, Mâtho's masculinity does not exclude the feminine. His refusal to subscribe to hyper-masculinity and its elevation of power over relationship casts him in a nonconformist role similar to Charles (83). Domestic in nature in Madame Bovary, The Jungian coniunctio of the couple takes on cosmological dimensions.

The third chapter posits L'Education sentimentale as a diptych novel to Salammbô, extending the study of configurations of patriarchy in middle-class guise. The individualization process of Frédéric - how to make a name for himself - is the focus of a first segment. Mary Orr traces the consequences of "liberté and égalité" in the seemingly democratic society of post-revolutionary France, where hierarchical power is maintained by wealth (91). The Code Napoléon constitutes a significant legal intertext for Frédéric's initial condition as independent bachelor; his superficial male-male relationships suggest deeper homosexual layers. In a second segment, Orr takes a closer look at the homosocial mileus of clubs and salons in order to investigate the public and private faces of the politics of "fraternité," and she signals the similarity between Republican fraternity/fratricide and the cruelty exposed in ancient Carthage. Set in the context of 1848 as an epoch of derivation, the novel's genre is defined as a formal miscegenation of male genres embedded in the legacy of the Enlightenment (117).

The chapter on La Tentation de saint Antoine, poses two central questions: 1) what is the...