It is merely another chronicle of an adulterous life, but with less drastic consequences. Sentimental Education is a fascinating artifact of its time, and an excellent example of Flaubert's Realism and his deeply ironic view of society, but in some ways it represents no advancement at all beyond Madame Bovary. As one of his friends said to him when looking back on their lives in retrospect, "I had too much logic, and you too much sentiment." This pretty much sums it up. Many of his friends who also showed some promise as young men, suffer a similar lack of success, but for different reasons. Frédéric is hopeless, and one wishes that he will stop sleepwalking through his own life and make some sort of breakthrough, but it never happens. We see the Revolution of 1848 from the point of view of young men who actually participated.įlaubert's descriptions - whether they concern street fights or dinner parties, masked balls or political harangues - are vivid and quite compelling, and it is the background that actually drives the novel. When he is presented with a real opportunity to advance himself, he passes up an appointment with an influential aristocrat because he finds it more important to follow Madame Arnaux into the countryside.Īll of Frédéric 's various intrigues take place against a backdrop of the political, social and cultural realities of the time. The entire novel concerns itself with Frédéric 's mediocre self, his mediocre friends, and his intrigues with various women over a ten-year period and on whom he squanders three-quarters of his fortune.
Frédéric 's assumption that it was okay for him to be an interloper into another man's marriage was a commonplace. Adultery was something that men seemed to take for granted and married women in general had as ever a very dim view of it. Frédéric 's obsession eventually interferes with his ability to concentrate on his studies, and it soon becomes apparent that his ambitions exceed his abilities. He has become obsessed with Madame Arnaux while at the same time cultivating a friendship with the husband. Well born and with bright prospects ahead of him, he is sent off to Paris to attend law school. As fate would have it, he encounters on board a married couple, Monsieur and Madame Arnaux, who will play a significant role in his eventual Parisian sojourn - and not for the better as it turns out. Frédéric 's family home is in Nogent-sur-Seine, where he is now headed. The novel opens as a paddlewheel steamboat is about to depart from Paris, continuing its voyage up the Seine from Le Havre where Frédéric had gone to visit his uncle. In 1840 Frédéric Moreau, the protagonist of Sentimental Education, was eighteen years old.
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