How do Madame Bovary, Notes from the Underground, and Middlemarch explore the nature of freedom?

Abstract

Freedom, as a philosophical, political and literary concept, was put under increasing pressure during the 19th century. In a society stormed by capitalist interests and utilitarian values, literature became a medium of choice to express the struggle to define, promote, or delineate freedom. Literature’s aim was no longer to communicate moral values; the act of writing had become increasingly private and psychological; the reader was left with the immense task of decoding written and dramatic works. In such a context, all literary actors – authors, readers and characters themselves – were faced with the issue of freedom and its potentially dangerous and endless ramifications. This essay, focusing on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and Eliot’s Middlemarch, aims to highlight the shortcomings of freedom under various conceptual lenses, then to draw up a definition of freedom compatible with the time period and workings of the human mind. To this effect, it first focuses on Flaubert and Dostoevsky, questioning both freedom’s conceptual and concrete implications; then, turning to Eliot’s Middlemarch, it looks for a compromise, for a type of freedom with actual liberating virtues which, as shall be shown, was no longer self-evident.