NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary is a novel by Gustave Flaubert that was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialised in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made it notorious. After the acquittal on 7 February, it became a bestseller in book form in April 1857, and now stands virtually unchallenged not only as a seminal work of Realism, but as one of the most influential novels ever written. Madame Bovary has been made into several films, the earliest dating from 1933. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 â€“ May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... For other uses, see Country (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... Revue de Paris was a French literary magazine founded in 1829 by Louis DesirÃ© Veron. ... Hardcover books A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) is a book bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth, heavy paper, or sometimes leather). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... ISBN redirects here. ... For other uses, see Novel (disambiguation). ... Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 â€“ May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. ... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... is the 38th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and booktrade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. ... For other uses, see Realism (disambiguation). ...

The novel focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Though the basic plot is rather simple, even archetypal, the novel's true art lies in its details and hidden patterns. Flaubert was notoriously perfectionistic about his writing and claimed to always be searching for le mot juste (the right word). This article is about the act of adultery. ...

A 2007 poll of contemporary authors, published in a book entitled The Top Ten, cited Madame Bovary as one of the two greatest novels ever written, second only to Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.^[1] Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy(Lyof, Lyoff) (September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 â€“ November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910) (Russian: , IPA: ), commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer â€“ novelist, essayist, dramatist and philosopher â€“ as well as pacifist Christian anarchist and educational reformer. ... This article refers to the novel by Tolstoy. ...

Plot summary

Madame Bovary takes place in provincial northern France, near the town of Rouen in Normandy. The story begins and ends with Charles Bovary, a stolid, kindhearted man without much ability or ambition. As the novel opens, Charles is a shy, oddly-dressed teenager arriving at a new school amidst the ridicule of his new classmates. Later, Charles struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree and becomes an officier de santé in the Public Health Service. His mother chooses a wife for him, an unpleasant but supposedly rich widow, and Charles sets out to build a practice in the village of Tostes (now Tôtes). , Rouen (pronounced in French) is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) rÃ©gion. ... For other uses, see Normandy (disambiguation). ... TÃ´tes is a commune of the Seine-Maritime dÃ©partement, in northwestern France. ...

One day, Charles visits a local farm to set the owner's broken leg, and meets his client's daughter, Emma Rouault. Emma is a beautiful, daintily-dressed young woman who has received a "good education" in a convent and who has a latent but powerful yearning for luxury and romance imbibed from the popular novels she has read. Charles is immediately attracted to her, and begins checking on his patient far more often than necessary until his wife's jealousy puts a stop to the visits. When his wife dies, Charles waits a decent interval, then begins courting Emma in earnest. Her father gives his consent, and Emma and Charles are married.

At this point, the novel begins to focus on Emma. Charles means well, but is boring and clumsy, and after he and Emma attend a ball given by the Marquis d'Andervilliers, Emma grows disillusioned with married life and becomes dull and listless. Charles consequently decides that his wife needs a change of scenery, and moves from the village of Tostes into a larger, but equally stultifying market town, Yonville (traditionally based on the town of Ry). Here, Emma gives birth to a daughter, Berthe; however, motherhood, too, proves to be a disappointment to Emma. She then becomes infatuated with one of the first intelligent young men she meets in Yonville, a young law student, Léon Dupuis, who seems to share her appreciation for "the finer things in life", and who returns her admiration. Out of fear and shame, however, Emma hides her love for Léon and her contempt for Charles, and plays the role of the devoted wife and mother, all the while consoling herself with thoughts and self-congratulations of her own virtue. Finally, in despair of ever gaining Emma's affection, Léon departs to study in Paris. Marquis has many different meanings: The French spelling of the title known in English as Marquess and Margrave. ... This article is about the capital of France. ...

One day, a rich and rakish landowner, Rodolphe Boulanger, brings a servant to the doctor's office to be bled. He casts his eye over Emma and decides she is ripe for seduction. To this end, he invites Emma to go riding with him for the sake of her health; solicitous only for Emma's health, Charles embraces the plan, suspecting nothing. A three-year affair follows. Swept away by romantic fantasy, Emma risks compromising herself with indiscreet letters and visits to her lover, and finally insists on making a plan to run away with him. Rodolphe, however, has no intention of carrying Emma off, and ends the relationship on the eve of the great elopement with an apologetic, self-excusing letter delivered at the bottom of a basket of apricots. The shock is so great that Emma falls deathly ill, and briefly turns to religion. // In sociology, seduction is the process of deliberately enticing a person into an act. ...

When Emma is nearly fully recovered, she and Charles attend the opera, on Charles' insistence, in nearby Rouen. The opera reawakens Emma's passions and, unfortunately, she reencounters Léon who, now educated and working in Rouen, is also attending the opera. They begin an affair. While Charles believes that she is taking piano lessons, Emma travels to the city each week to meet Léon, always in the same room of the same hotel, which the two come to view as their "home." The love affair is, at first, ecstatic; then, by degrees, Léon grows bored with Emma's emotional excesses, and Emma grows ambivalent about Léon, who becoming himself more like the mistress in the relationship, compares poorly, at least implicitly, to the rakish and domineering Rodolphe. Meanwhile, Emma, given over to vanity, purchases increasing amounts of luxury items on credit from the crafty merchant, Lheureux, who arranges for her to obtain power of attorney over Charles’ estate, and crushing levels of debts mount quickly. For other uses, see Opera (disambiguation). ... , Rouen (pronounced in French) is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) rÃ©gion. ... A power of attorney or letter of attorney in common law systems or mandate in civil law systems is an authorization to act on someone elses behalf in a legal or business matter. ...

When Lheureux calls in Bovary's debt, Emma pleads for money from several people, including Léon and Rodolphe, only to be turned down. In despair, she swallows arsenic and dies an agonizing death; even the romance of suicide fails her. Charles, heartbroken, abandons himself to grief, preserves Emma's room as if it is a shrine, and in an attempt to keep her memory alive, adopts several of her attitudes and tastes. In his last months, he stops working and lives off of the sale of his possessions. When he accidentally comes across Rodolphe's love letters one day, he still tries to understand and forgive. Soon after, he becomes reclusive; what has not already been sold of his possessions is seized to pay off Lheureux, and he dies, leaving his daughter Berthe to live with distant relatives. General Name, Symbol, Number arsenic, As, 33 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 15, 4, p Appearance metallic gray Standard atomic weight 74. ...

Chapter-by-chapter

Part One

Part Two

For other uses, see Flax (disambiguation). ... Talipes equinovarus, otherwise known as clubfoot, is a congenital disorder where the foot is turned inward (inversion) and in plantar flexion. ... Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. ...

Part Three

Rouen Cathedral (French: CathÃ©drale Notre-Dame de Rouen) is a Gothic cathedral in Rouen, in northwestern France. ... Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which: a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, or a term denoting a thing (a whole) is used to refer to part of it, or a term denoting a specific class of thing (a species... General Name, Symbol, Number arsenic, As, 33 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 15, 4, p Appearance metallic gray Standard atomic weight 74. ... , Rouen (pronounced in French) is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) rÃ©gion. ...

Characters

Emma Bovary

Emma is the novel's protagonist and is the main source of the novel's title (although Charles's mother and his former wife are also referred to as Madame Bovary). She has a highly romanticized view of the world and craves beauty, wealth, passion and high society. It is the disparity between these romantic ideals and the realities of her country life that drive most of the novel, most notably leading her into two extramarital love affairs as well as causing her to accrue an insurmountable amount of debt that eventually leads to her suicide.

Emma is quite intelligent, but she never has a chance to develop her mind. As an adult, Emma's capacity for imagination is far greater than her capacity for analysis. She is observant about surface details, such as how people are dressed, but she never looks below the surface. As a result, she is easily taken in by people who are pretending to be something more than they really are (which most people in the book do for one reason or another). Emma not only believes in the false fronts other people present to her, but she despises the very few people (Charles's mother, Madame Homais, and Monsieur Binet) who are exactly as they appear to be.

Convinced that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, Emma does not realize that extreme joy, even for the wealthy and powerful, comes rarely. Not only country or bourgeois life is dull. For instance, Emma is surprised to see that aristocrats do not serve fancy food and drink at their everyday breakfasts: she'd prefer to believe that for the nobility, life is really an excitement-filled drama. Later, she fails to see that Rodolphe's wealth hasn't made him happy, despite obvious evidence of this fact.

Since Emma lives chiefly in her own fantasy world, other people's opinions or perceptions of her aren't important except to the extent that they serve some aspect of whatever drama she's trying to act out. At the ball, she's convinced that her aristocratic hosts have fully accepted her as one of their own, so much so that she expects an invitation the following year. In reality, the hosts condescended to invite Charles and Emma to the ball as reward for a favor, intending for it to be a once-in-a-lifetime treat. Indeed, Emma makes several missteps that would be embarrassing to anyone steeped in upper-class culture of the period. She waltzes so badly that she tangles her dress up with her dance partner, and she uses the gaffe as an excuse to rest her head on his chest. She's so overcome with heat and exhaustion that she complains she's about to faint, at which point a servant breaks two panes of glass to let cool air in for her. She never thinks to simply retire from the festivities, and is one of the few people left at the party when the hosts finally go to bed. She does not attempt to establish new social contacts at the party, nor does she write a thank-you note afterwards. She does not attempt to return the cigar-case she and Charles find later, which might have been a reasonable pretext to resume correspondence with their host. So she is far from a gracious guest, and she fails to do the things that could, under the right circumstances, lead to real social connections in high places.

Emma seldom makes an effort to cultivate friendships with other people, unless doing so serves the image she has of herself. She wants desperately to be an aristocrat, particularly after the d'Andervilliers ball, but although she's very good at aping the superficial behaviors (such as clothing and figures of speech), she lacks the manners and savoir-faire to actually operate in their culture. No matter what social group she decides she belongs to (aristocrats, the people of Yonville, people with "noble souls", adulturesses, religious martyrs, dramatic heroines, etc.), every time her role requires interaction with someone who actually is in that group Emma messes up. She doesn't go out of her way to ingratiate herself with new people, because she genuinely doesn't care what they think of her. The same indifference causes her to be rejected by most people in Tostes and Yonville, and to be very careless of her reputation once she starts having extramarital affairs. Binet, Homais, Charles's mother, and Lheureux all catch her in compromising situations, and she truly doesn't care. At some level, she wants not only the excitment of taking the risk, but possibly the drama that would result from being caught.

Emma seeks out the extremes in life, both positive and negative. That she seeks out positive experiences is obvious, because unless she's experiencing the peak of ecstasy, she's convinced she's miserable. She also re-writes her own history and memory, telling herself that she has "never" been happy every time it appears to her that, by indulging some whim, she can achieve the emotional experiences to which she feels entitled. Her appetite for stimulation grows to the point where she becomes jaded enough to not appreciate the small pleasures in life, simply because they are small pleasures. The more she experiences, the less she is satisfied with more normal activities. Consider, for example, her taste in literature. She starts out with romances and bourgeois women's magazines targeted to her real social and economic position. From there she graduates to high-fashion women's magazines that advocate conspicuous consumption. The next step is overwrought romantic poetry, followed by tragic opera, and culminating in the violent pornography which she reads between assignations with Léon.

Emma feels entitled to seek out increasing pleasure and stimulation for herself. She finds different ways to rationalize her feeling of entitlement at different times of her life. Before her marriage, she craves excitement because she is bored. In Tostes, particularly after the ball, she believes she was unjustly born into the wrong socio-economic class and that everything would be better if only she were rich. Later, after being introduced to poetry, she believes she suffers because she has a noble soul. Ultimately she casts herself as a tragic heroine.

Emma's attraction to the negative extremes of the human experience is less obvious, but the signs are there. As a teenager, she's rewarded for an overblown, somewhat fake display of grief after her mother's death. Her father caters to her whims, as does Charles, who responds to Emma's ennui and psychosomatic illnesses by ignoring his patients and concentrating solely on his wife. Emma's fleeting but intense fascination with religion is much the same: people reward her pious conduct with extra attention and treat her as though she's superior, which reinforces her feelings of entitlement.

It is Emma's sense of superiority and entitlement that make her vulnerable to people who seek to use and manipulate her. Anyone who plays along with Emma's pretentions is assured of her good graces. Lheureux, the predatory money-lender who fleeces Emma and Charles, is obsequious to Emma in order to get her to spend more money on unnecessary purchases. He takes advantage of her sense of entitlement by treating her like a grand lady and by indicating that she deserves all the impractical luxuries he persuades her to buy. By giving Emma credit for business sense and experience she doesn't actually possess, Lheureux takes advantage of Emma's financial inexperience. He skims ridiculous sums off the top of every promissory note he has Emma sign, and bluffs her into believing that large commissions are somehow customary in business. Unwilling to admit her ignorance, Emma lets herself be conned instead.

Throughout her life, Emma selects dramatic, exaggerated depictions of human existence and adopts them as a romantic or personal ideal; moreover, she convinces herself that her ideal is somehow the norm, and that the reality she experiences is the exception to the rule. As a teenager, she seeks to emulate the romantic novels she read while at the convent. After the ball, she seeks to emulate the nobility and the wealthy and creates a new romantic ideal based on a man she met at the ball. After being introduced to poetry, she adopts a romantic martyr-like facade. After being exposed to the melodramatic opera "Lucia Di Lammermoor", Emma adopts the insane fictional character Lucy Ashton as her role model and becomes convinced that the correct way to respond to adversity is to lose her mind and commit suicide, which she eventually does. Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. ...

Each individual decision of Emma's seems plausible and reasonable in isolation, but her actions and decisions on the whole make her a very difficult character to like. She is too self-absorbed to consider the consequences of her actions as they affect other people. Her recklessness with money leads to financial ruin not just for herself but for her husband and child.

Charles Bovary

Emma's husband, Charles Bovary, is a very simple and common man. He is a country doctor by profession, but is, as in everything else, not very good at it. He is in fact not qualified enough to be termed a doctor, but is instead an officier de santé, or "health officer". When he is persuaded by Homais, the local pharmacist, to attempt a difficult operation on a patient's clubfoot, the effort is an enormous failure, and his patient's leg must be amputated by a better doctor. Talipes equinovarus, otherwise known as clubfoot, is a congenital disorder where the foot is turned inward (inversion) and in plantar flexion. ...

Charles adores his wife and finds her faultless, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. He never suspects her affairs and gives her complete control over his finances, thereby securing his own ruin. Despite Charles's complete devotion to Emma, she despises him as he is the epitome of all that is dull and common. When Charles discovers Emma's deceptions after her death he is completely devastated and dies soon after.

Charles is presented from the start as a likeable and well-meaning fool who happens to have a good memory and a way with people. Although it annoys Emma that Charles doesn't deduce her attitude toward him based on her very subtle hints and cues, she would need a far more blunt approach to get her message across. Charles's lack of insight regarding Emma is not unique. He fails to realize that Homais is not his friend but his enemy and lets the pharmacist isolate him from the other people in town. He fails to realize that Rodolphe has designs on Emma. He trusts Léon implicitly even though he's aware Emma is emotionally attached to the young clerk. He fails to realize that Emma's expenditures have put the household in debt, and he doesn't realize that Lheureux is a financial predator. He also ignores potential allies in the town who might have pointed out what everybody else thought was obvious.

Although Charles starts out as a likeable character, his blindness and stupidity make him hard for the reader to keep liking, particularly after the amputation scene. His ongoing refusal to stand up to Emma, and his willingness to drop everything and rush to her bedside every time she has a self-induced collapse, eventually cost him his livelihood.

Monsieur Homais

Monsieur Homais is the town pharmacist. He is materialistic and self-centered. Though a common man, he thinks highly of himself and seeks personal attention and recognition, often by publishing pompous and banal commentaries on town events in the local newspaper. In one incident, he convinces Charles to perform corrective surgery on a young stable boy, afflicted with a club foot. During this era, remediating or eliminating a disability was a daring option and he may have considered this an opportunity to garner personal attention and praise. The operation is a disaster, and the stable boy is left with his leg amputated at the thigh. The mortar and pestle is an international symbol of pharmacists and pharmacies. ...

Despite having been convicted of practicing medicine without a license, Monsieur Homais craves recognition as a medical expert. So he continues to give "consultations" in his pharmacy. This means that the presence of a licensed health officer in town is a threat to him. Not only are he and Charles in competition for patients, but if Charles were to report Homais for practicing medicine without a license, the courts would deal strictly with Homais given that it would be a second conviction. So, to keep the clueless Charles from turning him in to the authorities should Charles ever find out about the "consultations", Homais becomes Charles's best friend, at least on the surface. Meanwhile he undermines Charles at every opportunity. Convincing him to attempt the risky club foot operation was part of an ongoing strategy to discredit Charles so as to run him out of town. At the end of the book, after Charles's death, Homais uses similar strategies to get rid of another doctor and is left in sole control of the medical profession in Yonville.

Homais's hypocrisy is obvious to everybody but Emma and Charles. Charles is too dense to realize that Homais is toxic, and Emma actually likes him because, like Lheureux, Homais caters to Emma's pretensions. He is the one who insists that Emma should go riding with Rodolphe, that Charles take her to see the opera in Rouen, and that she be allowed to take expensive music lessons in Rouen. No idiot, and with his ear to the ground for gossip, Homais appears to be completely unaware of Emma's adultery but subtly goes out of his way to make it easier for her. It is possible to convincingly argue that Homais knows of Emma's affairs from the very beginning and encourages them in order to help destroy Charles and run him out of town.

Madame Homais

The wife of Monsieur Homais, Madame Homais is a simple woman whose life revolves around her husband and children, of which she has four. Caring for four children is no trivial task, especially without electricity, hot running water, or any form of publich schooling beyond occasional classes offered by the parish priest. Furthermore, in addition to her own four children Madame Homais cares for Justin, a teenaged relative who lives with the Homais family and who helps Monsieur Homais out in the pharmacy. She also takes care of a boarder: a young male student by the name of Léon Dupuis. With that many people in the household, Madame Homais can be excused for having a live-in maid to help with at least some of the cooking, cleaning, and mending. Even with the maid's help, Madame Homais works very hard. Since the pharmacy is quite successful, she could perhaps get away with having her own horse or dressing in the latest fashions, but she does not. Instead, she takes in a boarder to earn extra money.

Madame Homais serves chiefly as a foil for Emma. Whereas Madame Homais, or even Charles's infirm first wife, has a legitimate reason for wanting a maid, Emma is able-bodied aside from her drama-induced fainting fits and collapses. She simply chooses to do no housework, and to refrain from any of the activities bourgeois women generally did in order to earn money on the side. She does not sub-let an upstairs bedroom to a tenant the way Madame Homais rents to Léon, She leaves all the housekeeping to the maid, and does no work herself unless it suits whatever religious or social fantasy she has about herself at the time. Madame Homais does not dress fashionably or even well, whereas Emma is always dressed in the latest expensive fashions that are more lavish than what anyone else in Yonville seems able to afford. Madame Homais dotes on her children, while Emma ignores and despises her daughter unless she's acting out a maternal fantasy.

Emma despises Madame Homais for her simplicity, unless she's in the mood to pretend to idealize good mothers. Madame Homais, however, seems unaware that Emma dislikes her. Even when other people gossip about Emma, Madame Homais defends her. That naïve loyalty is rewarded with nothing but contempt most of the time.

Léon Dupuis

First befriending Emma when she moves to Yonville, Léon seems a perfect match for her. He shares her romantic ideals as well as her disdain for common life. He worships Emma from afar before leaving to study law in Paris. A chance encounter brings the two together several years later and this time they begin an affair. Though the relationship is passionate at first, after a time the mystique wears off.

Financially, Léon cannot afford to carry on the affair, so Emma pays more and more of the bills. Eventually she assumes the whole financial burden. She also takes the lead in planning meetings and setting up communication, which is a reversal of the role she had with Rodolphe. Léon does not seem to find Emma's financial aggression disturbing or inappropriate, although when Emma asks him to pawn some spoons she'd received as a wedding gift from her father, Léon does become uncomfortable. He objects to the heavy spending, but does not press too hard when Emma overrules him. He's content to be the recipient of Emma's largesse, and to not think too much about where the money is coming from. He also does not feel particularly obligated to reciprocate later, when Emma asks him for help in her hour of financial need.

Over time, Léon becomes disenchanted with Emma, particularly after her attentions start to affect his work. The first time she arrives at his office, he's charmed and leaves work quickly. After a while, the interruptions have an effect on his work and his attitude to the other clerks. Eventually someone sends word to Léon's mother that her son is "ruining himself with a married woman", and Léon's mother and employer insist that he break off the affair. Léon does, briefly, but cannot stay away from Emma. His reluctance is tempered with relief because Emma's pursuit of him has become increasingly disturbing. When Emma's debts finally come due, she attempts to seduce Léon into stealing the money to cover her debts from his employer. At this point, he becomes genuinely afraid. He fobs her off with an excuse and disappears from her life.

Rodolphe Boulanger

Rodolphe is a wealthy local man who seduces Emma as one more addition to a long string of mistresses. Though occasionally charmed by Emma, Rodolphe feels little true emotion towards her. As Emma becomes more and more desperate, Rodolphe loses interest and worries about her lack of caution. He eventually ends their relationship, but not before going through a collection of letters and tokens from previous mistresses, all of whom ended up wanting either love or money.

Rodolphe's deteriorating feelings for Emma do not keep him from accepting the valuable gifts she showers on him throughout their relationship, even though he realizes at some level that she can't afford to be so generous. The gifts she gives him are of the same value and quality as she imagines an aristocrat such as the Vicount might receive from a similarly aristocratic mistress. Rodolphe's gifts to Emma are nowhere near as valuable even though he is by far the wealthier of the two. He does not feel particularly obligated by having accepted the gifts, even though they create a large part of Emma's debt to Lheureux.

When Emma asks Rodolphe for help at the peak of her financial crisis, after refusing the sex-for-money exchange offered by the wealthy Monsieur Guillaumin, she essentially attempts to initiate a sex-for-money exchange with Rodolphe. She pretends at first to have returned out of love, then when the timing feels right she asks him for money, using an obvious lie about why she needs a loan. She therefore comes across as among the most mercenary of Rodolphe's past mistresses. Rodolphe therefore sees no need to help her, even though he could well afford to lend her enough money to keep her creditors at bay.

Monsieur Lheureux

A manipulative and sly merchant who continually convinces Emma to buy goods on credit and borrow money from him. Lheureux plays Emma masterfully and eventually leads her so far into debt as to cause her financial ruin and subsequent suicide.

Lheureux's reputation as an aggressive money lender is well known in Yonville. Had Emma or Charles had the wit to make inquiries about him or even to listen to the gossip, they would have realized that Lheureux had ruined at least one other person in town through his stratagems. Yet the only "friend" they trust, Homais, is fully aware of Lheureux's treachery but disinclined to warn Emma or Charles. So both Emma and Charles end up borrowing money from Lheureux without each other's knowledge.

Setting

The setting of Madame Bovary is crucial to the novel for several reasons. First, it is important as it applies to Flaubert's realist style and social commentary. Secondly, the setting is important in how it relates to the protagonist Emma.

It has been calculated that the novel begins in October 1827 and ends in August 1846 (Francis Steegmuller). This is around the era known as the “July Monarchy”, or the rule of King Louis-Philippe. This was a period in which there was a great up-surge in the power of the bourgeois middle class. Flaubert detested the bourgeoisie. Much of the time and effort, therefore, that he spends detailing the customs of the rural French people can be interepreted as social criticism. Francis Steegmuller (1906 - 1994) was an American biographer, translator and fiction writer, who was known chiefly as a Flaubert scholar. ... Kingdom of France Capital Paris Language(s) French Government Monarchy King of the French - 1830-1848 Louis-Phillipe Legislature Parliament - Upper house Chamber of Peers - Lower house Chamber of Deputies History - July Revolution 1830 - Revolution of 1848 1848 Currency French Franc The July Monarchy (1830-1848) was a period of... Louis-Philippe, King of the French (October 6, 1773 â€“ August 26, 1850) reigned as the OrlÃ©anist king of the French from 1830 to 1848. ...

Flaubert put much effort into making sure his depictions of common life were accurate. This was aided by the fact that he chose a subject that was very familiar to him. He chose to set the story in and around the city of Rouen in Normandy, the setting of his own birth and childhood. This care and detail that Flaubert gives to his setting is important in looking at the style of the novel. It is this faithfulness to the mundane elements of country life that has garnered the book its reputation as the beginning of the literary movement known as “literary realism”. , Rouen (pronounced in French) is the historical capital city of Normandy, in northwestern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) rÃ©gion. ... For other uses, see Normandy (disambiguation). ... // Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society as they were. In the spirit of general realism, Realist authors opted for...

Flaubert also deliberately used his setting to contrast with his protagonist. Emma's romantic fantasies are strikingly foiled by the practicalities of the common life around her. Flaubert uses this juxtaposition to reflect on both subjects. Emma becomes more capricious and ludicrous in the harsh light of everyday reality. By the same token, however, the self-important banality of the local people is magnified in comparison to Emma, who, though impractical, still reflects an appreciation of beauty and greatness that seems entirely absent in the bourgeois class. Bourgeois at the end of the thirteenth century. ...

Style

The book, loosely based on the life story of a schoolfriend who had become a doctor, was written at the urging of friends, who were trying (unsuccessfully) to "cure" Flaubert of his deep-dyed Romanticism by assigning him the dreariest subject they could think of, and challenging him to make it interesting without allowing anything out-of-the-way to occur. Although Flaubert had little liking for the styles of Balzac or Zola, the novel is now seen as a prime example of Realism, a fact which contributed to the trial for obscenity (which was a politically-motivated attack by the government on the liberal newspaper in which it was being serialised, La Revue de Paris). Flaubert, as the author of the story, does not comment directly on the moral character of Emma Bovary and abstains from explicitly condemning her adultery. This decision caused some to accuse Flaubert of glorifying adultery and creating a scandal. Romantics redirects here. ... Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist. ... Ã‰mile Zola (2 April 1840 â€“ 29 September 1902) was an influential French writer, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. ... For other uses, see Realism (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Author (disambiguation). ... This article is about the act of adultery. ...

The Realist movement used verisimilitude through a focus on character development. Realism was a reaction against Romanticism. Emma may be said to be the embodiment of a romantic; in her mental and emotional process, she has no relation to the realities of her world. She inevitably becomes dissatisfied since her larger-than-life fantasies are impossible to realize. Flaubert declared that much of what is in the novel is in his own life by saying, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" ("Madame Bovary is me"). For other uses, see Verisimilitude (disambiguation). ... Romantics redirects here. ...

Madame Bovary, on the whole, is a commentary on the entire self-satisfied, deluded, bourgeois culture of Flaubert's time period. His contempt for the bourgeoisie is expressed through his characters: Emma and Charles Bovary lost in romantic delusions; absurd and harmful scientific characters, a self-serving money lender, lovers seeking excitement finding only the banality of marriage in their adulterous affairs. All are seeking escape in empty church rituals, unrealistic romantic novels, or delusions of one sort or another.

Adaptations

Madame Bovary has been made into several films, beginning with Jean Renoir's 1933 version. It has also been the subject of multiple television miniseries and made-for-TV movies. The most notable of these adaptations was the 1949 film produced by MGM. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, it starred Jennifer Jones in the title role, co-starring James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, and Gene Lockhart. It was adapated by Giles Cooper for the BBC in 1964, with the same script being used for a new production in 1975. A new BBC version adapted by Heidi Thomas was made in 2000, starring Frances O'Connor and Hugh Bonneville. Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (September 15, 1894 â€“ February 12, 1979), born in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, France was a film director. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Madame Bovary is a 1949 film adaptation of the classic novel by Gustave Flaubert. ... MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ... Vincente Minnelli (February 28, 1903 â€“ July 25, 1986) was a famous Hollywood director and accomplished stage director, often considered by critics to be the father of the modern musical. ... Jennifer Jones (born as Phylis Lee Isley on March 2, 1919) is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American actress. ... James Neville Mason (May 15, 1909 â€“ July 27, 1984) was a three-time Academy Award nominated English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. ... Van Heflin (December 13, 1910 â€“ July 23, 1971) was an Academy Award-winning American film and theater actor. ... Louis Jourdan (born June 19, 1919, 1920, or 1921[1]) is a French film actor. ... Gene (Eugene) Lockhart (July 18, 1891 â€“ March 31, 1957) was a Canadian Academy Award-nominated character actor, singer, playwright and popular composer. ... Giles Stannus Cooper was born near Dublin, Ireland, in 1918, and brought up in London. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... Heidi Thomas is an English screenwriter and playwright from Garston, Merseyside. ... Frances OConnor (born on 12 July 1967 in Wantage, Oxfordshire) is an Australian actress who attended Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts as well as earned a BA in literature from the Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. ... Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams, known professionally as Hugh Bonneville, (born 10 November 1963 in London, England) is an acclaimed English stage, film and television actor. ...

Claude Chabrol made his version starring Isabelle Huppert. Claude Chabrol (French IPA: ) (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French film director and has become well-known since his first film, Le Beau Serge (1958) for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher (1970). ... Isabelle Anne Huppert (born March 16, 1953) is a French actress. ...

David Lean's film Ryan's Daughter (1970) was a loose adaptation of the story, relocating it to Ireland during the time of the Easter Rebellion. The script had begun life as a straight adaptation of Bovary, but Lean convinced writer Robert Bolt to re-work it into another setting. Sir David Lean KBE (March 25, 1908 â€“ April 16, 1991) was an Academy Award-winning English film director and producer, best remembered for big-screen epics such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India. ... Ryans Daughter is David Leans 1970 film which tells the story of an Irish girl who has an affair with a British soldier during World War I, despite opposition from her nationalist neighbours. ... The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Casca) was a militarily unsuccessful rebellion staged in Ireland against British rule on Easter Monday in April 1916. ... Robert Oxton Bolt (August 15, 1924 â€“ February 12, 1995) was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter. ...

Indian director Ketan Mehta adapted the novel into a 1992 Hindi film Maya Memsaab. Ketan Mehta - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Hindi (DevanÄgarÄ«: or , IAST: , IPA: ), an Indo-European language spoken all over India in varying degrees and extensively in northern and central India, is one of the 22 official languages of India and is used, along with English, for central government administrative purposes. ... Maya Memsaab (aka Maya and Maya: The Enchanting Illusion in English) is a 1992 Hindi film directed by Ketan Mehta. ...

Madame Blueberry is an 1998 film in the Veggietales animated series. It is a loose parody of Madame Bovary, in which Madame Blueberry, an anthropomorphic blueberry, gathers material possessions in a vain attempt to find happiness. Madame Blueberry is the tenth episode in the VeggieTales animated series. ... VeggieTales is a series of childrens computer animated films featuring humorous, anthropomorphic vegetables and conveying moral themes compatible with and often based on Christianity and Judaism. ... 7th millennium BC anthropomorphized rocks, with slits for eyes, found in modern-day Israel. ... For other uses, see Blueberry (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Happiness (disambiguation). ...

Academy Award winning film Little Children features the novel as part of a book club discussion, and shares a few elements of the main idea. Todd Fields Little Children is a 2006 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-nominated film written and directed by Todd Field, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. ...

Naomi Ragen loosely based her 2007 novel The Saturday Wife on Madame Bovary.

Posy Simmonds graphic novel Gemma Bovery reworked the story into a satirical tale of English expatriates in France. The cover to Gemma Bovery Rosemary Elizabeth Posy Simmonds (born 9 August 1945) is a British newspaper cartoonist and writer and illustrator of childrens books. ...

Trivia

Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Barnes as Francophile and Francophone in Bernard Pivots Double je (France 2, March 2005) Julian Patrick Barnes (born January 19, 1946 in Leicester) is a contemporary English writer whose novels and short stories have been seen as examples of postmodernism in literature. ... Flauberts Parrot is a novel by Julian Barnes that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984. ... Genera Chauliognathus Silis Cantharis Podabrus Malthodes and more The soldier beetles, or Cantharidae are relatively soft-bodied, straight sided beetles, closely related to the Lampyridae or firefly family. ... Binomial name Lytta vesicatoria Linnaeus, 1758 The Spanish fly is an emerald-green beetle Lytta vesicatoria, (from Greek lytta = rage and Latin vesica = blister) in the family Meloidae. ... For other uses, see Beetle (disambiguation). ... This article is about agents which increase sexual desire. ... Genera Chauliognathus Silis Cantharis Podabrus Malthodes and more The soldier beetles, or Cantharidae are relatively soft-bodied, straight sided beetles, closely related to the Lampyridae or firefly family. ...

References

Contents

Plot summary

Chapter-by-chapter

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Characters

Emma Bovary

Charles Bovary

Monsieur Homais

Madame Homais

Léon Dupuis

Rodolphe Boulanger

Monsieur Lheureux

Setting

Style

Adaptations

Trivia

References

See also

External links

Contents

Plot summary var ACE_AR = {Site: '756743', Size: '300250'};

Chapter-by-chapter

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Characters

Emma Bovary

Charles Bovary

Monsieur Homais

Madame Homais

Léon Dupuis

Rodolphe Boulanger

Monsieur Lheureux

Setting

Style

Adaptations

Trivia

References

See also

External links

Plot summary