Discover Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece of compassion and tragedy in ‘A Simple Soul’ and read the complete story online for free.
Published in 1877 as part of his Three Tales, Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Soul (Un coeur simple) is a profound and moving departure from the satirical complexity of Madame Bovary. This novella tells the story of Félicité, an uneducated, poor, and devoted servant woman whose entire life is defined by loss and quiet, unwavering love. From her youth in the countryside to her decades of service in the provincial household of Madame Aubain, Félicité’s existence seems small and insignificant. Yet, Flaubert invests her simple, often tragic life with immense dignity and pathos, exploring the capacity of an “uncultivated” heart for profound feeling and, ultimately, for a unique kind of transcendence.
Félicité loves with a totality that is almost shocking. She pours her affection into Madame Aubain’s children, Paul and Virginie, then into her nephew Victor, and finally into a stuffed parrot named Loulou. Each object of her love is taken from her by distance or death. Flaubert narrates these losses with his famous stylistic impassibilité—a clinical, precise detachment—that makes Félicité’s unspoken grief all the more powerful. The story’s climax is one of the most remarkable in literature: in her dying moments, the illiterate Félicité confuses the taxidermied parrot with the Holy Spirit, and in a vision, sees the heavens opening as “an enormous parrot hovered overhead.”
A Simple Soul is a triumph of empathy and artistic control. Flaubert demonstrates that epic tragedy can reside in the most humble of lives. The story is a meditation on love, suffering, and the human need for something—anything—to worship. It dismantles class assumptions about whose life is worth narrating and proves that the most “simple” soul can contain a universe of feeling.
On this page, you can experience this flawless work of short fiction. We offer the complete story in a respected English translation for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | A Simple Soul (Un coeur simple) |
| Author | Gustave Flaubert |
| Year of Publication | 1877 |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Novella, Realism |
| Language | English (Translation from French) |
| Legal Status | Public Domain |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read A Simple Soul Online
Meet Félicité, a woman of boundless heart. Begin this deeply moving story by exploring its opening pages interactively below.
This preview introduces the humble world of Félicité, but the full, heartbreaking arc of her life and its astonishing final vision are available in the complete text for our subscribers.
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About A Simple Soul
The story’s power derives from the stark contrast between the eventless exterior of Félicité’s life and the tumultuous interior landscape of her loves and losses, rendered with Flaubert’s pitiless, perfect prose.
Félicité: The Saint of the Everyday
Félicité is one of literature’s great innocents. She is not intelligent in a conventional sense, but she possesses an emotional and moral intelligence that is absolute. Her loyalty, her capacity for work, and her need to love are her defining traits. She accepts hardship without complaint, transforming her suffering into a kind of secular sainthood. Flaubert treats her not with sentimentality, but with the reverence due to a force of nature.
The Parrot as Symbol
Loulou, the parrot, is the story’s central symbolic object. To Félicité, he becomes a child, a companion, and a listener. In her isolation, she teaches him phrases and invests him with personality. In her death, he becomes confused with religious iconography, symbolizing how the divine can manifest in the most mundane, personal objects for a believer. The parrot bridges her earthly affections and her spiritual yearning.
Flaubert’s Style: The Perfection of Detail
Flaubert’s mot juste (the perfect word) is everywhere. He describes Félicité’s routines, the provincial house, the illnesses, and the deaths with surgical precision. This objective style avoids melodrama, forcing the reader to feel the emotion that the narrator refuses to state. The accumulation of small, precise details builds an overwhelming sense of a life lived and a soul enduring.
Themes of Love and Loss
The story is a catalogue of attachments severed. Each loss—of Victor at sea, of Virginie to illness, of Loulou to taxidermy—hollows Félicité out a little more, yet she continues to love what remains. Her life asks: What is love if not the repeated act of opening one’s heart to that which will inevitably be lost? Her endurance is her heroism.
Why Read A Simple Soul Today?
In a culture obsessed with fame, success, and dramatic narratives, A Simple Soul is a necessary corrective. It affirms the value and profundity of an unnoticed life. It is a story about caregiver fatigue, loneliness, and the search for meaning that resonates deeply in our modern world.
It is also, simply, one of the most perfectly crafted stories ever written. To read A Simple Soul is to witness a master at the height of his powers, using language not to dazzle, but to illuminate the beautiful, tragic dignity of a human being most would overlook.
FAQ
Can I read A Simple Soul for free?
Yes, you can read the beginning for free via our interactive preview. The complete novella is available with a subscription.
Is this story sad?
It is poignant and deals with relentless loss, but it is not depressing. Félicité’s resilience and the story’s transcendent ending provide a sense of beauty and peace that outweighs the sadness. It is tragically beautiful.
What is the significance of the ending with the parrot?
As Félicité dies, she believes the stuffed parrot is the Holy Spirit. This fusion of the sacred and the absurd is quintessential Flaubert. It suggests that her simple, loving faith has transformed her mundane reality, granting her a vision of heaven tailored to her own heart’s affections.
Is it based on a real person?
Flaubert was inspired by a faithful servant in his own family, but Félicité is a fully realized artistic creation, not a biography.
Can I read it on my phone?
Absolutely. It is a short, focused work ideal for a single, immersive reading session on any device.