How did Gustave Flaubert use the word bourgeois?

For Gustave Flaubert, the term "bourgeois" was not merely a socioeconomic classification but a pejorative label used to describe a specific mindset. He famously defined the "bourgeois" as anyone who "has a low way of thinking".12

Flaubert’s disdain for this mentality was central to his literary work and personal philosophy. He particularly loathed the reliance on idées reçues (accepted ideas)—clichés, platitudes, and unexamined opinions—which he viewed as the hallmark of the bourgeois spirit. In his writing, he sought to expose the banality and emptiness of these mentalities, often portraying characters who were either trapped by or content to confine their desires within the limits of bourgeois values and conventions.123

His masterpiece, Madame Bovary, serves as a profound examination of these provincial bourgeois mentalities. Through his precise, ironic style, Flaubert depicted the lives of characters who struggled against, or were destroyed by, the dullness and mediocrity of their environment.43