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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

A Sentimental Education

by Gustave Flaubert

1869

Novel

Historical, Coming-of-Age

When a young man's passion for an older woman is thwarted, he turns to the more practical matter of furthering his career; in the process he loses his innocence and becomes a disillusioned cynic.

A young man from the provinces, Frederic Moreau comes to Paris and dabbles in law, literature, and painting, supported by a private income and then an inheritance. His one real passion is for Madame Arnoux, who looks to him like a woman out of romantic novels. He pursues her with devotion, but when her son falls ill, she fails to appear at the decisive tryst where he had hoped to seduce her. Frederic consoles himself by going off with Rosanette, the mistress of Madame Arnoux's husband. Thus, he both loses the reward of his romantic passion and, on the same day, misses the heroic uprising that begins the overthrow of the monarchy.

Out of sync with history, Frederic enters a period of cynical disillusionment. His illegitimate child dies in infancy. He neglects Rosanette in order to further his career by courting the wife of the wealthy capitalist Dambreuse. Dambreuse dies, and his widow proposes to Frederic. He is ready to marry her, but then it is discovered that her husband has left his money elsewhere. Frederic declines the proposal.

The novel's one hero is Dussardier, who is shocked into joining the Revolution by the cruelty of government reprisals against the people of Paris. Dussardier is contrasted to Senecal, a dogmatic revolutionary who becomes a factory manager and then a police agent. In the coup d'etat of 1851, Senecal murders Dussardier while the latter is crying “Vive la republique!” The revolution is crushed, and Frederic's fellow townsman Deslauriers marries the heiress Louise, to whom Frederic had been engaged before his passion for Madame Arnoux. A new regime of soulless, unprincipled opportunism has arrived.

Frederic and Madame Arnoux finally meet again and confess their passion, but for him it is now defunct. Her hair has gone white, and as she leaves she kisses him on the forehead like a mother.

The last words of the novel are even more ironic. Frederic and Deslauriers look back nostalgically to their visit, as boys, to the local brothel. Unconsummated and humiliating, this episode now seems to represent all the innocence Frederic has lost.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Flaubert, Gustave. "A Sentimental Education." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0492.
APA 7th
Flaubert, G. (2015). A Sentimental Education. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Flaubert, Gustave. "A Sentimental Education." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.