Point of View

Critic Victor Brombert has said that Flaubert's great accomplishment in "A Simple Heart" was that he presented a protagonist, or central character, who is completely inarticulate and uneducated, and yet he made the reader view things as she does. The author allowed the reader to view Félicité's character from both the outside and the inside: from the outside, through the omniscient narrator's impassive and factual account of events and of the attitudes of other characters towards her; from the inside, through the narrator's reports of her thoughts, actions, and motives. The contrasts that are introduced between Félicité's generous acts and thoughts and the generally self-centered and callous reactions of the more sophisticated characters around her create sympathy for the main character and an implied critique of her supposed superiors. Since the narrative voice never offers a direct opinion...