Flaubert uses the letter from Rodolphe to Emma as a symbol for their relationship by recounting and clarifying the tendencies and actions of both characters, to show how these have led to the downfall of their relationship. Flaubert concentrates...

Gustave Flaubert, the author of Madame Bovary, creates a multitude of contrasts throughout his novel between beauty and foulness. By combining the two extremes so often, it results in a camouflage of the nefarious aspects of the novel by the...

In Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, the quest for the sublime and perfect expression seems to be trapped in the inability to successfully verbalize thoughts and interpret the words of others. The relationship between written words and how they...

As Gustave Flaubert wrote the novel Madame Bovary, he took special care to examine the relationship between literature and the effect on its readers. His heroine Emma absorbs poetry and novels as though they were instructions for her emotional...

The literary set piece of the Agricultural Fair is the stuff of cinema. The set piece is a linear pan-opticon of images and events, given unity through the magic of editing. Flaubert, as the cameraman, moves in and out of focus, craning in to...

In Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert attacks all sorts of vice and virtue; his targets include adultery, romance, religion, science, and politics. The characters are almost universally detestable; those who are not are merely pathetic. But the...

Berthe appears only a few times in Flaubert's Madame Bovary and is too young to contribute much to the novel by her speech or actions, but she is nevertheless extremely important to the story. Emma's lack of maternal aptitude and weakness of moral...

I.

Artist M.C. Escher, famous for his deceptive manipulations of vignettes, once asserted that "Reality cannot exist without illusion, and illusion not without reality." There is no telling why Escher or countless others are preoccupied with the...

The Spiritual Doldrums of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

The narrative of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary cannot be completely separated from the commentary on religion and spiritual deficiency in the novel. Segments of Flaubert’s masterpiece are clearly...

German philosopher Friedrich Engels once said “All history has been a history of class struggles between dominated classes at various stages of social development”. In all societies, each social class has unique characteristics and distinctions,...

Analysis of the Agricultural Fair Scene in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary

In writing Madame Bovary, Flaubert would often spend days in search of "le mot juste". As a result, not only his sentences but his scenes are beautifully crafted. One such example...

Victim of Greed

Flaubert, a novelist with a seething disdain for the Bourgeois lifestyle, uses his works to illustrate the flaws he sees in society, and more specifically the flaws he sees in this new, materialistic middle class. In his novel, ...

Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, published in 1857, expresses his dislike of the French bourgeoisie. He mocks anyone not upper class declaring that they have no firm morals and survive solely on Romanticism. Flaubert uses literary techniques such...

Published in 1856, the novel Madame Bovary is one of the first to explore the issue of women’s disempowerment in a pointedly modern fashion. As a woman, the protagonist Emma experiences a number of obstacles that prevent her from reaching what she...

A literary canon is a list of the most esteemed books in a country; books that have attained a high status and considered to be of high aesthetic quality. Canons are works that are approved by cultural and academic institutions. Overall, the books...

Many authors have identified the self-absorbed behavior of Emma Bovary as the key character quality that leads to her downfall, and modern analyses point to lack of social and educational opportunities as the root cause of the decline and death of...

One of the most fascinating characters in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is the grotesque, blind beggar, who first accosts Emma during her travel from Rouen to Yonville. The beggar reappears in the presence of Emma near the end of the novel: as Emma...

The epistolary novel structure, first produced by accident in The Persian Letters by Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, is a series of fictional letters or other forms of communication. The structure allows a writer to present different people’s...

Flaubert utilizes the character of the blind beggar to mirror Emma’s descent into corruption. Typical of Flaubert’s realist style, the beggar is described in detail as a needy, terrifyingly ugly man, which reflects Emma’s inner state. Emma has...

Across all cultures flowers are a deeply embedded and collectively recognized symbol for important occasions relating to life, death, love, and gender. Correspondingly, each culture assigns respective meanings to specific types of flowers, which...

Henry James wrote of A Sentimental Education,

{Flaubert} takes Frédéric Moreau on the threshold of life and conducts him to the extreme of maturity without apparently suspecting for a moment either our wonder or our protest - 'Why, why him?'...

Nineteenth century novelists used physical descriptions in their narratives to impose a thematic integrity onto their characters. Flaubert, it could be argued, likewise followed the traditions of realism and moderated Frédéric's inclinations...

Beginning from the title, “A Simple Heart”, the reader can already sense a tone of fondness emoting from the author. Despite his intellect and pride in his education which is a stark contrast from his main character, Gustave Flaubert depicts...