Gig

Description

A gig is a light, two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse. It is more formal than a village cart or a meadowbrook cart. It was sometimes used for carriage racing. 

Quick Facts

• Capacity: 1-2 Persons
• Average Speed: 6 miles/hour
• Power: 1 Horses
• Cost: about $9,000

   

Literary Analysis of Its Significance

The gig was mentioned during Charles and Emma's wedding. Emma enjoyed taking part in and being a part of elegant events such as weddings and ballroom dances. While reading Madame Bovary, the reader can infer that Emma would want important people attending the wedding. The gig is a more formal vehicle that signifies some sort of importance. Madame Bovary states that many visitors arrived at the wedding in vehicles like the gig, charabanc, etc. One may infer that the person driving the gig would be of much importance because it only seats one person, and during this time it was one of the fastest and most prestigous type horse carriages.

Appearances in Madame Bovary

Part 1 Ch.4

The invited guests arrived early in a variety of vehicles-- one-horse shays, two-wheeled charabancs, old gigs without tops, vans with leather curtains; and the young men from the nearest villages came in farm-carts, standing one behind the other along the sides and grasping the rails to keep from being thrown, for the horses trotted briskly and the roads were rough. They came as far as twenty-five miles away, from Goderville, from Normanville, from Cany.

(p.30) (used by visitors that traveled to Charles and Emma wedding)

A gig pulled by one horse, and with at least two seats

Maitre Guillaumin was to drive Leon to

    Rouen in his carriage.... Ahead he saw his employer's gig in the road, and beside

    it a man in an apron holding the horse.  Homais and Maitre

    Guillaumin were talking together, waiting for him.

    The apothecary embraced him, tears in his eyes.  "Here's

    your overcoat, my boy.  Wrap up warm!  Look after yourself!

    Take it easy!"  

     "Come, Leon, jump in!" said the notary.

    Homais leaned over the mudguard, and in a voice broken

    by sobs gulped the sad...

--This shows that guillaumin owned a gig that could carry at least two people

Gigs were very fast vehicles
They were gathering in the west, in the direction of
    Rouen, twisting rapidly in black swirls.  Out from behind
    them shot great sun rays, like the golden arrows of a hanging
    trophy, and the rest of the sky was empty, white as porcelain.
    Then came a gust of wind, the poplars swayed, and suddenly the
    rain was pattering on the green leaves.  But soon the sun came
    out again, chickens cackled, sparrows fluttered their wings in
    the wet bushes, and rivulets flowing along the gravel carried
    away the pink flowers of an acacia. "Ah, by now he must be far away!" she thought.
--After a short rain that must have only taken a few minutes, she thinks he is far away.
This shows that they thought Gigs were pretty fast vehicles back then.
_____________________________________________________________

Part 2 Ch 11:
 It was quite an event in the village, that mid-thigh
    amputation by Doctor Canivet!  All the citizens rose early
    that morning, and the Grande-Rue, thronged though it was, had
    something sinister about it, as though it were execution day.
    At the grocer's, Hippolyte's case was discussed from every
    angle.  None of the stores did any business.  And Madame
    Tuvache, the mayor's wife, didn't budge form her window, so
    eager was she not to miss the surgeon's arrival. 
 
         He drove up in his gig, holding the reins himself.  Over
    the years the right-hand spring had given way under the weight
    of his corpulence, so that the carriage sagged a little to one
    side as it rolled along.  Beside him, on the higher half of
    the seat cushion, could be seen a huge red leather case, its
    three brass clasps gleaming magisterially.
 
         The doctor drew up in the hotel yard with a flourish and
    called loudly for someone to unharness his mare, and then went
    to the stable to see whether she was really being given oats
    as he had ordered.  His first concern, whenever he arrived at
    a patient's, was always for his mare and his gig.  "That
    Canivet, he's a character!" people said of him.  And they
    thought the more of him for his unshakable self-assurance. 
    The universe might have perished to the last man, and he
    wouldn't have altered his habits a jot.
 
References

http://colonialcarriage.com/item.cfm?id=363

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gig_(carriage)