L'Affaire des deux taureaux (Flaubert)

Abstract: The bull that charges at Félicité in A Simple Heart is "transfictional" in the sense Richard Saint-Gelais gives to the term in Fictions transfuges (2011). It is the same bull the reader encounters during the agricultural show in Madame Bovary that reappears, resurrected, unleashed by Flaubert in all its fury. In Madame Bovary , there is both an animalization of humanity and a masculinization of the heroine, Emma. Therefore, the "return" of the bull in A Simple Heart is the return of Emma in taurine form. Emma Bovary dies and is resurrected. This article analyzes the significance of those events.