A Simple Heart, is the narrative account of one woman’s painfully unrewarding life as a humble and blindly dedicated servant, Felicite. Throughout the story chronicling her life, she suffers a series of heartbreaking losses, but continues to love unconditionally nonetheless. A Simple Heart brings up themes of death and loss, and unquestioning duty and responsibility. It also calls into question conventional religious belief, through, among other things, Felicite’s warship of the parrot, Lou Lou.
Felicite represents each of these themes partly in her own ignorance and simplicity and, as a result, it is seemingly difficult to validate the authenticity of her religious experience and views. However, it is this piety that, in the end, affords her contentment with her own life. And in this sense, everyone’s personal religious experiences are expressly unique and genuine, thus proving their legitimacy. Orphaned at a young age, Felicite grows up working on farms until a young man named Theodore courts her. After his initial violent attempt to seduce her fails, which he later blames on alcohol, he is successful in garnering her affection.
However, instead of marrying her as promised, he chooses a rich old woman who can save him from conscription. Heartbroken, she travels to Pont l’Eveque, where Madame Aubaine hires her as a servant. Here, she will spend the rest of her days, caring for Aubain’s children and keeping house. At the same time, she will suffer tremendous loss while maintaining a caring and innocent heart regardless. A main theme woven into A Simple Heart is that of loss. Manyh of Felicite’s losses throughout the story are directly connected with death, and therefore death act as the primary vehicle of loss in Felicite’s life.
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She is orphaned at a very young age by the death of her parents, loses Virginie to illness, her nephew Victor to the sea, Madame Aubaine to Pneumonia, and her parrot, Lou Lou. In addition, while not as a result of death, she loses her first love, Theodore, to abandonment, Paul to society, and is even threatened with the loss of her home upon the death of her master. She has no control over the losses she endures; loss is inevitable. This idea of loss plays into another theme within A Simple Heart- that of unquestioning duty and responsibility.
It is Felicite’s simplicity and, at times, her ignorance that allows her to so be so blindly devoted and caring. She works faithfully for little pay, and remains incredibly loyal to Aubain’s family. For example, when she saves Aubaine and her children from a raging bull, she puts her own life in peril without a second thought. She takes no pride in this act, and has not the “barest suspicion that she had done anything heroic” (1023).
She also displays this when she fails to see Virginie before she dies because she feels so strongly about making sure the house is locked and secure before she leaves to see her.
Despite her pure heart, it seems that Felicite is never rewarded. This challenges the value of such blind and unshakable devotion in such an unrewarding and oftentimes cruel world. However, Flaubert’s most significant idea presented in this story, one that is intertwined with death and devotion, is his questioning of mystical belief. Felicite’s religious devotion seems arbitrary and indirect. Despite this, it also appears to be quite deep and meaningful to her. The irony lies in the fact that she gains most, if not all, of her religious experience vicariously through Virginie’s own encounters.
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This first appears when Felicite brings the young girl to her first communion ceremony. When Virginie’s turn came, Felicite leaned forward to see her; and with the imaginativeness of deep and tender feeling it seemed to her that she actually was the child; Virginie’s face became hers, she was dressed in her clothes, it was her heart beating in her breast. As the moment came to open her mouth she closed her eyes and nearly fainted. (1025) When Felicite went early the next morning to receive the communion, “she took it with devotion, but it did not give her the same exquisite delight” (1026).
In this example, is such religious devotion hers, or is it only the young girls? However, who is to decide the legitimacy of Felicite’s own piety? Could she not have simply been less overwhelmed in this instance than during her first real connection with God; many feelings lose their power as one continues to experience them. If she feels piety genuinely in her heart, regardless of the cause of the emotion, is it not inherently hers? It is. Flaubert also shows his skepticism of religious devotion in Felicite’s simple mind.
Perhaps she, an uneducated woman, lacks the logical knowledge to question these feelings and beliefs. For instance, when Felicite visits the dead body of Virginie, “she kissed them [her eyes] and would not have been immensely surprised if Virginie had opened them again; to minds like hers the supernatural is quite simple” (1030).
She also show’s her ignorance when she studies the map with M. Bourais, trying to figure out how far her nephew is out at sea. She asks him to show him the house in which Victor lives, and he throws “up his arms, sneezed, and laughed immensely: a simplicity like hers was a positive joy.
And Felicite did not understand the reason; how could she when she expected, very likely, to see the actual image of her nephew” (1028).
Is it simply too convenient for a simple mind, like Felicite’s, to blindly accept such mysticisms. If so, then how can anyone, including those with immense logical knowledge, explain mystical belief? They cannot. Mystical belief is not something that one can explain; it is a sensation that can only be felt deep in a person’s soul and summons an inner consciousness of the supernatural.
The question remains: Are Felicite’s moments of grace legitimate, or are they simply a product of her ignorance and forced religious beliefs? Perhaps her most questionable moment is her vision of Lou Lou as Christ. Throughout Flaubert’s writings, it is clear that Felicite worships the parrot. She goes as far as to hang a stained glass portrait of Christ’s Crucifixion directly next to the stuffed birth. She prays to Lou Lou as she would Christ, and even upon her death, she sees the clouds open and a vision of him appears.
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While it may seem easy to argue that her ignorance and perhaps stupidity allow her to worship this bird, why is it so unbelievable that she does so? Mystical feeling and experience can and should not be so limited. If the feeling is powerful and genuine to Felicite, it is wrong for anyone to challenge her personal moment of spiritual awareness. Furthermore, any religious sentiment or oneness with a higher being should not be challenged, as such experiences are innately unique to every individual. That is the beauty of the unknown; it is up for any interpretation.
