Clavis Libri

Literary device

Free Indirect Discourse

The narrator speaks in the third person, but with the words, tone and way of thinking of a character, without quotation marks or "he thought": the voice of the narrator and that of the character blend together.

In Madame Bovary

she wanted to get some personal profit from things [...] being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions, not landscapes

In the middle of the sentence the reader cannot tell whether he hears the narrator's verdict or Emma's thought: "she wanted to get some personal profit from things" is Emma's desire said in the voice of the one narrating, without quotation marks or a warning that someone is thinking.

Part I, Chapter 6, the narrator

Ah!, if, in the freshness of her beauty, before the defilement of marriage and the disillusion of adultery, she could have surrendered her life to some great and solid heart, then, with virtue, tenderness, sensual delights and duty blending into one, she would never have fallen from so lofty a happiness.
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Part II, Chapter 15, the narrator

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