“Para governar a França, é preciso mão de ferro”: As ideias feitas no romance de Flaubert

Abstract

In this article we sought to comment on some of the most important formal resources used in Gustave Flaubert’s Sentimental Education: the use of a negative hero, a weak plot, free indirect speech and, especially, the pre-conceived idea. One of the aims of this article is to discuss the distance that separates the Sentimental Education, which narrates a story of a young man in the French capital, from other novels written by his romantic predecessors.