Bovary

You consider this novel to be a threat to the state. Is that why it's immoral, Monsieur Pinard? Is that why you want to ban it? But the laws of the State are not the laws of art. We can't throw people in jail who have committed crimes. If art only shows what is good, there is no distinction between good and evil. Art that only shows what is good is truly immoral. It's not even art. Mr. Pinard, you understand that on the one hand there are the laws that would apply to you and me if we committed a crime, and on the other, fiction. If we were to ban all literature that showed the evil of the world, the libraries would be emptied. Bovary is a free adaptation of the case brought against Gustave Flaubert in 1857. The play makes reference to the indictment and closing arguments, as well as to the novel Madame Bovary and the author's correspondence with Elisa Schlesinger.