"Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal"

Gustave Flaubert’s observation challenges traditional romanticized notions of femininity, exposing a dichotomy between reality and idealization. The phrase “vulgar animal” starkly strips woman of any conventional sentimentality, presenting her as a being fundamentally shaped by primal urges and natural instincts, much like any other creature. Flaubert’s diction is intentionally provocative and jarring, confronting the reader with the raw, corporeal nature that underlies all of humanity, regardless of gender. By choosing such harsh terminology, he underscores the extent to which authentic, embodied womanhood differs from the lofty pedestal on which women have historically been placed.

Through the latter part, man’s creation of “an excessively beautiful ideal”, Flaubert highlights the role of male imagination in constructing femininity as something ethereal, pure, and unattainable. This process abstracts and distances “woman” from her lived reality, substituting flesh and complexity with aesthetic fantasy. The “excessive” nature of this ideal is crucial: it points to excessiveness not only in beauty but also in the act of idealization itself. By striving for an impossible perfection, men deny women their authentic existence and complexity, reducing them to symbols or muses for male creativity. The ideal becomes a cultural artifact, alien to the realities of real women, and perpetuated through literature, art, and social conventions.

Flaubert’s statement functions as a critique of both the reductionism inherent in sexist thought and the capacity for cultural myth-making in the human mind. He exposes how women, like men, possess desires, flaws, and mundane qualities, but society, through the lens of male longing and imagination, transforms them into metaphysical ideals. This construction, paradoxically, simultaneously venerates and oppresses, elevating woman beyond reproach while denying her agency and reality. The quote ultimately serves as a reflection on the dangers of substituting idealized abstractions for the richer, often messier truths of human nature.