Unique+Literary+Devices

Flaubert unique style of narration occasionally employs **simultaneous dialogs in one scene**. Two people may be having a conversation that is interjected by excerpts of another conversation occurring nearby. The effect is similar to that of a "trailer-rush" in movie previews. The camera flashes between two scenes to capture the setting and the passing of time. Sometimes the continuation of the dialog adds ironic commentary and elements of realism. For example, on page 124 Madame Bovary and Rodolphe Boulanger engage in a philosophical discussion over fantasies, happiness, and the duties one has in life. Meanwhile, a city councilor delivers a speech to an audience of farmers at the agricultural exposition...

"But do we ever find happiness?" she asked. "Yes, sooner or later it comes our way," he answered. "And that is exactly what you have realized," the councilor was saying... "One day, just as we're about to give up hope, it suddenly appears. Then new horizons open up...At last the treasure you sought so long is here in front of you, gleaming and sparkling. Yet you still have doubts, you're afraid to believe in it, you're dazzled, as though you'd suddenly come from darkness into light." (Rodolphe) ...The councilor was still reading: "Who could doubt this, gentlemen? Only someone so blind, so deeply sunk in the prejudices of another age that he still misunderstands the spirit of our farming population... "Intelligence is the fruit of respect for law and performance of duty." "Again!" said Rodolphe. "Duty, always duty! I'm sick of the word!"

Flaubert's beautiful narration is also sprinkled with ** enlivened imagery, carried by similes and extended metaphors. **The figurative language hangs with sentiment and materializes Emma's deepest emotions. She contemplates her feelings for Leon on page 87:

 "Love, she felt, ought to come all at once, with great thunderclaps and flashes of lightning; it was like a  storm   bursting upon life from the sky, uprooting it, overwhelming the will and sweeping the heart into the abyss. It did not occur to her that rain forms puddles on a flat roof when the drainpipes are clogged, and she would have   continued   to feel secure if she had not suddenly discovered a crack in the wall."