Adventures in MFA Land

Welcome back guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student. In this second of two parts, Carol continues her exploration of hats in Flaubert's Madame Bovary . *** Flaubert’s motif of ‘hats’ in Madame Bovary contributes to a nonjudgmental theme resonating throughout the novel that “Each of us is different.” As a symbol of this truth, Flaubert describes a variety of ‘hats.’ He also describes a variety of individuals who populate his novel, each symbolized by the ‘hat’ each wears, i.e., an adulterous woman in veils, a group of nuns in hoods, an ethical husband in a leather hat, two men who seduce a married woman, one man in a jaunty straw hat and another bareheaded, a druggist in a skullcap, a young daughter in a bonnet. The image of each ‘hat’ con...

Welcome guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student. In this first of two parts, Carol explores hats as a motif in Flaubert's Madame Bovary. A “hat,” i.e., cap, hat, hood, or veil, is a recurrent image in Madame Bovary There are ninety-seven descriptions of ‘hats’ and over a hundred mentions of ‘hats’ in the 247 page novel. Examples include: “We were in the habit of throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands more free” (1); “It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton nightcap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face.” (1, 2); “He trampled on horses’ dung with them, one han...