Narration and focalization are two separate activities then and just as one can speak of a novel having a narrator, one can also speak of it having a focaliser or focalisers. A focaliser is the character through whose subjectivity, viewpoint, conceptualization of world events in the novel are presented. The focaliser provides the key perspective or angle of vision of the narrative. Let's take a quick look at the opening passage of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
Events in this scene are clearly presented via the subjectivity of a very small child. The sensory impressions and the simplicity of cognitive connections made all suggest this. However, a very small child does not have the linguistic sophistication to verbalise these impressions. The focaliser of the above passage then, is a young child but the narrator is someone else.- Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo ... .
- His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.
... - When you wet the bed, first it is warm then it gets cold.
This is an important point to make when discussing Madame Bovary since around 70% of the novel is presented via the subjectivities of its characters. Since the novel is called Madame Bovary, it is no surprise that most of the characters and events are perceived through Emma's perspective, although Charles, Léon and Rodolphe also become focalisers at various points in the novel. What this allows Flaubert to do is to integrate description with characterization. We, as readers, see events and individuals as they are seen by the characters of the novel. We are only presented with circumstances as they are perceived by the characters, as they impinge upon their subjectivity and, as such, we enter their world more fully. R.J. Sherrington claims that:
The subjectivity of the witnessing character is of prime importance: the description constitutes a significant part of what Flaubert is telling us about his characters. We should be interested less in the thing described than in the way it is seen. Description is a means of conveying a state of mind or a trait of character. (R.J. Sherrington: 1970 p.85)Let's take just one example of this. The following two extracts are descriptions of Emma's garden in Tostes at different points in the early days of her marriage:
Le jardin, plus long que large, allait, entre deux murs de bauge couverts d'abricots en espalier, jusqu'à une haie d'épines qui le séparait des champs. Il y avait au milieu un cadran solitaire en ardoise, sur un piédestal de maçonnerie; quatre plates-bandes garnies d'églantiers maigres entourait symétriquement le carré plus utile des végétations sérieuses. Tout au fond, sous les sapinettes, un curé de plâtre lisait son bréviaire. (Folio p.60)In the first extract, when Emma is indifferent to her new status as a married woman she has no particular opinion of her new surroundings - expressed by the relative neutrality of the description. However, in the second extract, when Emma is bitterly regretting her marriage to Charles, the garden becomes a place of decay, dereliction and disease. Because the two descriptions of the garden are focalized through Emma's perception they may be interpreted as indicative of her psychological development. The garden has not really changed but Emma has and so has her way of looking at the world.Les jours qu'il faisait beau, elle descendait dans le jardin. La rosée avait laissé sur les choux des guipures d'argent avec de longs fils clairs qui s'étendaient de l'un à l'autre. On n'entendait pas d'oiseaux, tout semblait dormir, l'espalier couvert de paille et la vigne comme un grand serpent malade sous le chaperon du mur, où l'on voyait, en s'approchant, se trainer dans les cloportes à pattes nombreuses. Dans les sapinettes, près de la haie, le curé en tricorne qui lisait son bréviaire avait perdu le pied droit et même le plâtre, s'écaillant à la gelée avait fait des gales blanches sur sa figure. (Folio p.99)
People too, appear not as they really are but how other characters see them or want them to be. Take for example this description of Charles and Léon seen by Emma:
... elle tourna la tête: Charles était là. Il avait sa casquette enfoncée sur les sourcils, et ses deux grosses lèvres tremblotaient, ce qui ajoutait à son visage quelque chose de stupide; son dos même, son dos tranquille était irritant à voir, et elle y trouvait étalée sur la redingote toute la platitude du personnage.What is striking about this description is its fragmentary nature; only those details which impinge upon Emma's consciousness are described. We have no `objective' account of the respective appearances of Charles and Léon, only Emma's subjective and emotive perception. Is Charles really so repulsive and Léon really so attractive or is it Emma's imagination that makes them appear so? Towards the end of the novel Léon is seen as being as repellent as Charles by Emma and at the end of the novel Charles is described - by an omniscient narrator-focaliser - in more flattering terms. Characters can even see themselves differently. After Emma's adultery with Rodolphe in the forest she returns home and looks at herself in the mirror, marvelling at the transformation she has undergone:
- Pendant qu'elle le considérait, goûtant ainsi dans son irritation une sorte de volupté dépravée, Léon s'avança d'un pas. Le froid qui le pâlissait semblait déposer sur sa figure une langueur plus douce; entre sa cravate et son cou, le col de la chemise, un peu lâche, laissait voir la peau; un bout d'oreille dépassait sous une mèche de cheveux, et son grand oeil bleu, levé vers les nuages, parut à Emma plus limpide et plus beau que ces lacs de montagne où le ciel se mire. (Folio p.146)
Mais, en s'apercevant dans la glace, elle s'étonna de son visage. Jamais elle n'avait eu les yeux si grands, si noirs, ni d'une telle profondeur. Quelque chose de subtil épandu sur sa personne la transfigurait. Elle se répétait: `J'ai un amant' un amant'. Se délectant à cette idée comme celle d'une autre puberté qui lui serait survenue. Elle allait donc posséder enfin ces joies de l'amour, cette fièvre du bonheur dont elle avait désespéré. (Folio pp.218-219)One detail in the novel which has attracted much critical discussion is the colour of Emma's eyes. Sometimes her eyes are black - as in the description above - but on other occasions they are blue and on one occasion they are brown. These differences can be explained when one considers the question of focalisation. Different men see Emma differently at different points in her life and their highly subjective perceptions of her change in time. But exactly what colour were Emma's eyes? This is an impossible question to answer as there is no authoritative source of knowledge to which one might turn, no onmiscient narrator to provide the definitive answer just a number of focalisers with different ways of seeing.
One important consequence of this mode of presentation is to suggest what R.J. Sherrington calls `the subjective and non-permanent nature of what is being described' (R.J. Sherrington: 1970 p.89). Flaubert appears to be suggesting that there are no stable truths, just different ways of looking at the world. This is one of Flaubert's innovations in the novel and one of the ways in which he both challenged the niaive mimetic pretensions of Realists like Duranty and Champfleury.
Further Reading