In “A Simple Heart,” Flaubert brings to the reader attention to the French middle class since the very first sentence, and the whole novel revolves around the conflict between social classes, to the final resolution: the death. Although Flaubert 's principal character belongs to a low class whereas the central figure in Tolstoy 's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" is a member of the Russian aristocracy, they share the same social context, yet a different point of view due to the unique personality of the authors. Nevertheless, the quest for the meaning of life and death, and the transience of the human being appertaining to the bourgeois context of the times are themes shared in both works. Flaubert, introverted, melancholy, full of himself, and verbose,
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He takes a publicly active position against the persecution of religious minorities, and criticizes the abuses of power by accusing the corrupt bourgeois morality. Indeed, Tolstoy 's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" provides a realistic insight into the life of a man who follows all the rules imposed by his social status, and who is so absorbed by appearing whom he is supposed to be rather than discover who is truly is—outer versus inner …show more content…
‘Death is finished,’ he said to himself. ‘It is no more.’
He breathed in, stopped halfway, stretched himself and died (Puchner 1479).
Conversely, in “A Simple Heart” Flaubert represents the death as a natural passage that lives unaltered the pure nature of the character, Felicite. Finally, after being widowed, having suffered the loss of her mistress 's daughter, her nephew and her beloved parrot—pain that isolates her even more— Felicite cannot withstand the sudden death of her mistress and dies. However, even in these last moments of her life, Flaubert makes her able to emanate candor and purity:
She opened her nostrils wide and breathed it in with a mystical, sensuous fervour. Then she closed her eyes. Her lips smiled. Her heart-beats grew slower and slower, each a little fainter and gentler, like a fountain running dry, an echo fading away. And as she breathed her last, she thought she could see, in the opening heavens, a gigantic parrot hovering above her head” (Puchner
He takes a publicly active position against the persecution of religious minorities, and criticizes the abuses of power by accusing the corrupt bourgeois morality. Indeed, Tolstoy 's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" provides a realistic insight into the life of a man who follows all the rules imposed by his social status, and who is so absorbed by appearing whom he is supposed to be rather than discover who is truly is—outer versus inner …show more content…
‘Death is finished,’ he said to himself. ‘It is no more.’
He breathed in, stopped halfway, stretched himself and died (Puchner 1479).
Conversely, in “A Simple Heart” Flaubert represents the death as a natural passage that lives unaltered the pure nature of the character, Felicite. Finally, after being widowed, having suffered the loss of her mistress 's daughter, her nephew and her beloved parrot—pain that isolates her even more— Felicite cannot withstand the sudden death of her mistress and dies. However, even in these last moments of her life, Flaubert makes her able to emanate candor and purity:
She opened her nostrils wide and breathed it in with a mystical, sensuous fervour. Then she closed her eyes. Her lips smiled. Her heart-beats grew slower and slower, each a little fainter and gentler, like a fountain running dry, an echo fading away. And as she breathed her last, she thought she could see, in the opening heavens, a gigantic parrot hovering above her head” (Puchner