SOURCE: Murphy, Ann L. “The Order of Speech in Flaubert's Trois Contes.” The French Review 65, no. 3 (February 1992): 402-14.

In the following essay, Murphy identifies speech as a unifying element of the stories in Trois contes.

In his study of Trois Contes Michael Issacharoff argues that unlike the novelist who requires from his reader at least an initial linear reading of his work, the author of a collection of short stories implicitly grants to his reader the freedom to read the stories in any order he chooses (40). Accordingly, as Issacharoff reasons, the reordering to which Flaubert submitted his three tales prior to their definitive compilation in a single volume—“La Légende de Saint Julien L'Hospitalier,” written first, appears second after “Un Cœur simple”—constitutes an explicit invitation to undertake such a non-linear reading (42). The “problem of non-linearity” mentioned in Issacharoff's title is linked to that of discerning...