Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story 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 a perfectionist about his writing and claimed always to be searching for le mot juste ("the right word").
The novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors when it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between October 1, 1856 and December 15, 1856, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made the story notorious. After the acquittal on February 7, 1857, it became a bestseller when it was published as a book 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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 she re-encounters 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.
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 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 young daughter Berthe to live with distant relatives and eventually sent to work at a cotton mill.
Chapter-by-chapter
Part One
1. Charles Bovary's childhood, student days
2. First marriage, Charles meets Rouault and his daughter Emma; Charles's first wife dies
3. Charles proposes to Emma
4. The wedding
5. The new household at Tostes
6. An account of Emma's childhood and secret fantasy world
7. Emma becomes bored; invitation to a ball by the Marquis d'Andervilliers
8. The ball at the château La Vaubyessard
9. Emma follows fashions; her boredom concerns Charles, and they decide to move; they find out she is pregnant
Part Two
1. Description of Yonville-l'Abbaye: Homais, Lestiboudois, Binet, Bournisien, Lheureux
2. Emma meets Léon Dupuis, the lawyer's clerk
3. Emma gives birth to Berthe, visits her at the nurse's house with Léon
4. A card game; Emma's friendship with Léon grows
5. Trip to see flax mill; Lheureux's pitch; Emma is resigned to her life
6. Emma visits the priest Bournisien; Berthe is injured; Léon leaves for Paris
7. Charles's mother bans novels; the blood-letting of Rodolphe's farmhand; Rodolphe meets Emma
8. The comice agricole (agricultural show); Rodolphe woos Emma
9. Six weeks later Rodolphe returns and they go out riding; he seduces her and the affair begins
10. Emma crosses paths with Binet; Rodolphe gets nervous; a letter from her father makes Emma repent
11. Operation on Hippolyte's clubfoot; M. Canivet has to amputate; Emma returns to Rodolphe
12. Emma's extravagant presents; quarrel with mother-in-law; plans to elope
13. Rodolphe runs away; Emma falls gravely ill
14. Charles is beset by bills; Emma turns to religion; Homais and Bournisien argue
15. Emma meets Léon at performance of Lucie de Lammermoor
Part Three
1. Emma and Léon converse; tour of Rouen Cathedral; cab-ride synecdoche
2. Emma goes to Homais; the arsenic; Bovary senior's death; Lheureux's bill
3. She visits Léon in Rouen
4. She resumes "piano lessons" on Thursdays
5. Visits to Léon; the singing tramp; Emma starts to fiddle the accounts
6. Emma becomes noticeably anxious; debts spiral out of control
7. Emma begs for money from several people
8. Rodolphe cannot help; she swallows arsenic; her death
9. Emma lies in state
10. The funeral
11. Charles finds letter; his death
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 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", adulteresses, 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 excitement 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 not to 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. As Vladimir Nabokov observes, Emma "reads books emotionally, in a shallow juvenile manner, putting herself in this or that female character's place."
Emma feels entitled to seek out increasing pleasure and stimulation for herself. Her sense of entitlement grows over time, as does her belief that she has been somehow wronged by destiny or by the people around her. As a young girl, Emma was influenced by her improvident but pretentious father. She was also indulged as a teen and as a young adult, and nobody ever realized her expectations and attitudes about life were unreasonable or attempted to correct them. Emma's mother died too early, and her father let her be raised at a convent and educated like a young woman of independent means. Emma eventually comes to believe that all her wishes will come true, if she believes in them strongly enough and throws a big enough tantrum when she doesn't get her way. Although her father is aware of the problem, he never tries to address it and chooses to leave it to Charles instead.
Over the course of the book, Emma 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 socioeconomic 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 pretentiousness 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 de 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.
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.
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 devastated and dies soon after, but not before frittering away the very last of the assets remaining after his bankruptcy by living the way he believed Emma would have wanted him to live.
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.
Charles is no genius, but at the time he meets Emma he's doing well financially. He's married, he's got a thriving practice that has grown in response to his popularity with his patients, and he's got a good reputation in the community. After he moves to a new town, he never regains his former position, and Emma is part of the reason why. He knows he is in financial trouble, but continues to enable Emma's spendthrift ways. He takes on more than his share of his responsibility for the success of the marriage, and he tries to cover for Emma's lapses. Meanwhile, he gives up control over the financial aspects of his practice, which allows Emma to start embezzling. In fact, he borrows from a moneylender and does not tell Emma.
During Emma's first mysterious collapse, which is in response to her realization that she's not getting a second ball invitation, Charles abandons his patients and acts as her full-time nurse even though her life is not obviously in danger. The more he hovers, the worse Emma's "health problem" becomes. He gives up a thriving practice and moves to an area where he knows nobody. He nurses her through two more collapses, and allows her to talk him into attempting an operation he is not qualified to perform.
Monsieur Homais
Monsieur Homais is the town pharmacist. In one incident, he convinces Charles to perform corrective surgery on a young stable boy, afflicted with a club foot. During this era, correcting 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.
Despite having been convicted of practicing medicine without a license, 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 may have been 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 subsequent doctors and is left in sole control of the medical profession in Yonville.
He is also vehemently anti-clerical and an atheist. 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. He also directly enables her ultimate act of self-destruction by detailing in her presence the means by which his supply of arsenic might be accessed.
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 public schooling beyond occasional classes offered by the parish priest. Furthermore, in addition to her own four children Madame Homais cares for Justin, a teenage 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 naive 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, though he could perhaps not afford to lend her enough money to keep her creditors at bay even if he desired to.
Monsieur L'heureux
A manipulative and sly merchant who continually convinces Emma to buy goods on credit and borrow money from him. L'heureux plays Emma masterfully and eventually leads her so far into debt as to cause her financial ruin and subsequent suicide.
L'heureux'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 L'heureux had ruined at least one other person in town through his stratagems. Yet the only "friend" they trust, Homais, is fully aware of L'heureux's treachery but disinclined to warn Emma or Charles. So both Emma and Charles end up borrowing money from L'heureux 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 interpreted as social criticism.
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”.
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.
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 serialized, 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.
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").
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.
Literary significance and reception
Long established as one of the greatest novels ever written, the book has often been described as a "perfect" work of fiction. Henry James writes: "Madame Bovary has a perfection that not only stamps it, but that makes it stand almost alone; it holds itself with such a supreme unapproachable assurance as both excites and defies judgment."
Adaptations
Madame Bovary has been made into several films, beginning with Jean Renoir's 1932 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 adapted 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.
Claude Chabrol made his version starring Isabelle Huppert.
Madame Bovary has been adapted into a piece of musical theatre, entitled The Bovary Tale. Composer: Anne Freier. Librettist: Laura Steel. The first performance was at the Gatehouse Theatre in Highgate Village in September 2009.
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.
Indian director Ketan Mehta adapted the novel into a 1992 Hindi film Maya Memsaab.
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.
Academy Award nominated film Little Children features the novel as part of a book club discussion, and shares a few elements of the main idea.
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.
Vale Abraão (1993) (Abraham's Vale) by Manoel de Oliveira is a close interpretation set in Portugal, even referencing and discussing Flaubert's novel several times.
"Madame Ovary" is the name of a character in DC Comics' The Adventures of the Outsiders #33-35. Madame Ovary's name was really Dr. Ovarin, and she was created by Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis.
Novel. Flaubert for the French in 1856. Emma rural girls trained in the aristocratic convent education, fantasies, romantic novel, love life. After getting married, her husband Bovary by doctors dissatisfied with mediocre and the surrounding environment, has a relationship with two men. The final debt-laden, trying to escape.
Novel depicts a bourgeois woman not satisfied with a mediocre life because of the gradual process of degeneration. Emma order to pursue a romantic hero and elegant life stoop and adultery, and ultimately because of inability to repay debt and ruin, then commit suicide. Written here in a matter of life or in literature are common peach events, but of strokes are perceived to sensitive areas not yet covered by others. Emma's death is not just the tragedy of her own, is the tragedy of that era. A very delicate brush strokes of a character description of the process of emotional depravity, the author tried very hard to find the cause of the social causes of this tragedy.
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Novels
Charlie and his wife struggle with her husband often go on Bayer. Inevitably have to inquire about the patient's bottom line. When she knew that Miss Lu Ou has educated, know how to dance, geography, drawing, embroidery and piano, the jealous. Mass to her husband put his hand on her book to her vow, never go in the future Bayer struggles. Charlie obedient listening, did the same. But soon an unexpected thing happened, the property custodian of his wife ran away with her cash. Charlie's parents found a wife did not twelve hundred francs a year's income (she lied when engaged), then came with her racket. She angrily, spitting blood died. Luou father Charles sent to the consultation fee to, when he knows the unfortunate Charlie after they tried to comfort him, said he has experienced the pain of widowhood. He invited Charles to the Beyer fight to get some fresh air. Charlie went and fell in love with Emma. He Luou father s hand. Luou was not the ideal son Charlie, but they said he behaved, live frugally, nature will not be too care about the dowry, he agreed. When spring came, Charlie and Emma held by local custom wedding. Ottawa completed the trip to Sal, in Emma's life, a chisel holes, like the big cracks in the mountain, standing in the rain, overnight, became such a shape. She reluctantly, only want to open more. But her beautiful prom dress, satin shoes, she reverently placed chest of drawers. "Her heart, as they like and wealth have had contact, add a few things that can not afford to dawdle." Emma dismissed the maid, do not want to afford to live in the Redoubt. Her husband always dislike. She has become lazy, "twists and capricious." Emma Charles fears of illness. Redoubt moved from their permanent residence town. This is a road through the village, an ancient church and a street as long range bullets. Golden Lion inn street and compelling Mr. Hao Mai's pharmacies. Hao Mak is a pharmacist, wore a small gold fall Wool Cap, wearing a pair of green leather slippers, his smug face has a few small pockmarks, air hanging over his head like a wicker cage of goldfinches that. He always loved self-praise, advertised himself as an atheist, he was no doctor's license, but the doctor privately to farmers. Emma, the town that day to arrive by Hao, where wheat and a lawyer to do the exercises accompany students rely on expensive dinner. Ang Lai are intended to be a general youth with golden hair, Golden Lion Hotel Package eat the tenants. Emma first met him it was able to talk to. They have the same sense of fun, and all love to travel and music. Since then, they often talk together, discuss the time line of romantic fiction and drama, and "constant exchange of books and songs." Mr. Bovary rare jealousy, do not think it strange argument. Emma gave birth to a girl, named Walter White. Feeding women to the carpenter. Ang Lai sometimes go with her a daughter. They are increasingly closer together, Emma birthday, Lai Aung gave a precious gift, Emma also gave him a blanket. Le Le fashion business, is a sly business experts, puffiness of the face is not a beard, as if wiping a thin licorice; a pair of thieves bright black eyes, lined with white hair, become increasingly flexible. He every person Xiejianchanxiao, Kazakhstan has a waist, posture and bowed like, but also as an invitation. He could see that Emma is a love decorating the "elegance of the women", will automatically come touting, and credit to her, to satisfy her love all kinds of vanity. Emma fell in love with Ang Lai. Her to get rid of the mind, turn to domestic concerns, the White Stewart will then come home and to church on time. Her thin, pale, as cold as marble. Once, she even wanted to heart when the secret confession to the priest confided in, but she saw teaching Shibu Tierney Yin vulgar, and it did not do so. Because she felt uneasy, and his daughter pushed down, the misfortune to scratch her face. Lai Aung fell into the snare of love. In order to get rid of the depression he would finish on the Paris law curriculum. Parting, he and Emma parting. They feel infinite melancholy. Emma on_set_ for students to worry. The memory of Aung Lai became the center of her gloomy. Even passengers in the Russian lit the fire on the prairie the snow, it can never rely on expensive so bright in her memories. Time, the landlords special amnesty Xu Luo Road ears Fubu Lang Dr Bovary are looking for groom for their blood. This is a veteran in the pleasure quarters. Lasts thirty-year-old scene, wild temperament, thought Wu subtlety. He has two Shoda, recently also purchased a manor in each of the more than fifteen thousand francs of income. He saw Emma born too pretty, seduce her first meeting will lay a bad idea. Lo Wing Road in the town of Ear Foley held with the state agricultural fair chance to close to Emma for her as a guide to acquaint her with Zhongqu, he dressed himself up as a no friends, no one cares, depressed wretch extreme. He said that as long to get a Zhenxinxiangdai him, he will overcome all difficulties to achieve their goals. They spoke with the mainland vulgar, stuffy life, the destruction of the ideal ... ... Exhibition opening ceremony began, the state four-wheel-executive members of a coach Liu Man sitting late. This is a bald forehead, thick eyelids, face pale people. His speech released to the masses, the "status of the beautiful country" had some praises. He said France has "flourished everywhere in business, arts development, always beefing new roads, adding many new collective state of arteries to form new connections; our great industrial centers and active; religion to strengthen consolidation of law to shine the light, we pier full of goods ... ... "His voice and speech, cattle grazing near Bleater cry together into one, the people also to his tongue. After the award ceremony was held. Government has a value of twenty-five francs a silver medal awarded to a "service in a fifty four years of the Grange," the old woman. The old lady look of wrinkles, thin and exhausted. When she received a medal and said: "I take this long to give our church hall, give me the mass." Finally, they held off the fireworks. Emma and Frederick Law Road, ears do not care about the conduct of fair scenes of farce. They just like to take this opportunity to speak child, talk, until Charles visits back up. After the exhibition, Emma has forgotten the Law Road ears Eph. The ear Frederick Law Road after a six weeks before they intend to see her. His concern for Emma's health grounds, to lend her own horse to ride. Together, they relax into the wild. Emma can not withstand the temptation of Frederick Law Road, ears, made his mistress. Doctors often without the knowledge of Bovary their tryst together. At this time, Emma emotional development to a fever pitch, she asked Lo Road ears Eph took her away, and with him fled to. She and Charlie's mother quarreling. Emma returned to the town forever, the excuse to Rouen to learn the piano, in fact, she is to go and rely on expensive rendezvous. Emma once again to devote all his passion in Ang Lai, who indulge in the pleasure all hither. In order not to expenses, carrying her husband, businessman Le Le to the debt. However, Lai and Lo Ngong Road, the same ears deceived Front Emma's feelings. He gradually grew tired of Emma. Especially when he received a letter from his mother and all packages Cargills Jiequan lawyers, the decision and cut off from Emma. Because this ambiguous relationship, will affect his career. Soon, he was promoted to the first practice will birth. So he began to avoid her. Just then, Emma received a court summons. Le Le to force her business debt, the court limited to Emma in the twenty-four hours, all the eight thousand francs to pay off the borrowing, or the family property collateral. Emma Le Le Fate plead helplessness, a few days grace to him again, but he betray you, would not work. Emma whereabouts of Aung Lai for help, Lai Ang lie to her any money borrowed, ducked. She went home from the Cayman law to borrow money, but that old devil has the occasion to take possession of her Meiji her. She angrily away. Finally, she thought to look for Luo Tao Xu ear Amnesty Eph special help. Luo Tao said he openly ear Eph actually no money. Emma suffered abuse, feeling extremely heavy. Lo Road when she came out of the ear Eph family, feel the wall shaking, the ceiling down to pressure her. She went into a long avenue, stumbled in the wind scattered the leaves on the heap ... ... home, Emma swallowed the poison. She wanted so to "all fraudulent, despicable and tortured her many desires are irrelevant, and she was." Dr Bovary kneeling at her bedside, her hand on his hair inside, this sweet feeling, the more so the doctors feel sad. Emma also feel sorry for themselves husbands. She said to him: "You are good man." Finally, she saw a child, the pain to leave this world. In order to pay off debt, Bovary doctor sold all his possessions are done when light. He turned the drawer, found a wife and love letters between Aung Lai and Lo Road ears Eph portrait. He was very sad, not behind closed doors a long time. Once, he met in the market, Lo Road, Frederick ear, but he forgave his rival, that "wrong is life." He suffered a blow after all, is dead. Emma is survived by daughter, aunt, foster home, then into the mill. Dr Bovary death, there have been three doctors to the town forever open, but they can not stand the exclusion Hao hard wheat, no one holds water. So the opening of the pharmacists illegally transported large popularity, and received government awarded him the Cross.
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Novels
"What nonsense! The canvas canopy is really nonsense! Do they think that the governor, like a street artist, would sit under the tent for lunch? Stall traffic in these obstacles, can be said to be for the benefit of the village you! Had known this, worthwhile to Newcastle look to do a bad cook! Why look for people? for these cattle it! for the barefoot bum! ... ... " Pharmacists coming. He wore a black dress, a beige pants, a pair of raccoon hair shoes, especially unusual is wearing a little hat. "I'm sorry!" He said, "I was busy." Fat widow asked him to go. "Do you think it strange, is not it? I have been drilled in the laboratory, as La Fontaine fable written by drilling in the cheese in the same rat." "What cheese?" The owner asked. "Nothing! Nothing!" Omer added. "I just tell you, Mrs. Le Suva side, a man I used to stay at home. But today, the situation is different, I had to ... ..." "Ah! You go over there?" She said, showing a look down when the air. "Yes, to the other side," the pharmacist replied in surprise. "I'm not a member of the Advisory Committee do?" Le side Suva aunt looked at him a few minutes, and finally smiled and said: "That is a different story! Farming farming and what is your relationship? You know that one?" "Of course know, because I am a pharmacist, is a chemist it! And chemical purposes, Mrs. Le Suva side is to know the molecular nature of all interactions between objects, of course, include agriculture within the scope of the chemical ! The truth, synthetic fertilizers, alcohol fermentation, gas analysis, the impact of malaria, all in all, I want to ask you, not the letter of chemistry? " Boss speechless Interactions. Omer added: France boss's eyes did not leave the door cafe, pharmacists have continued: "Believe me, if our farmers are agriculturalists, or that they at least listen to the views of scientists, it is good! So, I recently wrote a very useful booklet, one has seventy-two The papers, entitled: "On the production of cider and its effectiveness; with new thinking." I went to the Agricultural Association of Rouen, and was honored to be accepted as members, sub-group of fruit trees in agriculture. hey, if My work can be made public ... ... " But pharmacists shut up, because it seems absent-minded aunt Le Suva side. "See them!" She said, "I do not know! Simply not a word!" She Shrug shoulders, the chest is also stretched mesh sweater opened. She held out her hands to, pointing to her rival to open a small restaurant, which came a voice. "You see, this long this?" She said of the sentence. "Less than a week, do not close when pigs fly!" Omer one, two steps back frightened. She walked down three steps, said in his ear: "How! Do not you know? Will this week seized. Is the harm to his co-Le. His votes have expired by." "That was really Huocongtianxiang!" Cried pharmacists, regardless of the circumstances encountered, he is never without saying. So I start it on the boss, she is a servant to listen to Mr. Theodor Jiyue Man talking. Although she hated the small restaurant owner Teli Ye, but refused to let go of Le combined. He is a liar, a reptile. "Ah! Wait a minute!" She said, "markets where that person is not the one? Madame Bovary he greeted it forward; lady wearing a green hat. She was also leaving for Mr. Bu Langrui arm." "Madame Bovary it?" Omer said. "I have to call about the past. Maybe she was in the yard, stopped in the colonnade to find a seat." Le side Suva aunt who called a pharmacist, but also to go on Lo winded winded, but he did not listen to her, quickly walked away, his mouth still smiling, legs extended straight, meet people hello, black dress fluttering hem at the back, accounting for a lot of places. Rodolfo far away to see him, but he quickened his pace, but Madame Bovary breath, he had no choice but slow pace, not too politely smiled and said to her: "I want to avoid the fat man: You know, I said a pharmacist." She stabbed him with his elbow it. "What does that mean?" He thought. He walked on the one hand, her eyes sideways. Her profile is very quiet, almost Jiaoren not guess. Her face was seen more clearly in the sun. She wore oval-shaped hat, light-colored hat with a reed like leaves. Her eyes looked at the curved front of the long lashes, while wide open. However, due to the blood under the skin fair and clear in the flow, it seems a little inhibited by the cheekbones. Rose revealing her nostrils like a red attack. She Touyi Wai, visible between the two lips, pearly white teeth. "Is she laughing at me?" Rodolfo thought. In fact, Emma stabbed him, but asked him to be careful; because Mr. Le co accompany them, to say the last one or two Mohuazhaohua: "What a nice day: Everyone out! Today is the wind blowing." Like Madame Bovary and Rodolfo are too lazy to answer, but as long as they are a bit of a move, he leans beside them and asked: "Any orders?" And make a gesture to take off their hats. They went to the blacksmith shop front, Rodolfo suddenly do not go from the road to the gate, took Madame Bovary to embark on a road, and shouted: "Goodbye, Mr. Le co: Happy Birthday!" "You will kill people!" She said with a smile. "Why," he replied, "let the others bother? Since today I ve been looking forward ... ..." Emma blushed, he did not finish his words. So he talked about good weather, talking about the fun to walk on the grass. Some daisies have grown out. "These gentle and considerate daisies," he said, "Enough is enough for local victims of Acacia girl praying to the hexagram." He also added: "If I pick one it! You say it really okay?" "Do not you also love?" She coughed said. "Hey! Hey! Then who knows?" Rodolfo replied. People multiply on the grass, the housewife with a big umbrella, large basket, with children rampage. You should always avoid a slip peasant woman, wearing blue stockings, flat shoes, wearing a silver ring of the maid, you go around they have to smell the milk taste. They held hands, walking along the grass, and since Yang row clapping to the banquet tent, full of people. Fortunately, the time to review, one by one farmer, walked into a circle with a rope tied to the stakes out of the air wherever he goes. Animals are inside, the nose directed at the rope, large and small ass disorderly manner swarmed in a row. A few pigs rooting Sishuifeishui in the mouth; some Mavericks lowing, bleating lamb cries; cow bent hind legs, belly close to the grass, chewing slowly, not stop to the heavy eyelids blinked, cattle flies buzzing around them fly. The cart driver to catch some light arms, pulled the halter stallions, male horses Liao kick from the son of the mare tear towards the voice screamed. Mare but honestly alone, elongation of the mane hair drooping neck, the small pony mare lying below the body, and sometimes stood up and suck a few mouthfuls of milk; these animals crowded together in a row, moving up as undulating waves, like wind, snow-white mane smoke here, where cattle and sheep exposed sharp corners, or moving back and forth save the head, about a hundred paces in the paddock outside, far away, there is a large black bull, wearing a mouth _set_s, wearing a hoop on the nostrils, motionless, like a bull. A ragged child with a rope holding it. Then, in the middle of two rows of animals, to Mr. several adults, their heavy footsteps walking, one for each check after the animals, talk quietly to each other. One of them is more important, he walked in a book on the record. He is the Chairman of the Jury: Bang Town, Mr. de Ze Lei. He recognized the Rodolfo, came to excitedly make delightful appearance, smiled, and said to him: "How, Bu Langrui President, no matter what you let go Everybody you?" Rodolfo keen on the idea that he must come. But the President, etc. go "To be honest," he said to Emma, said, "I'll never do. To accompany him as nothing compared with you fun!" Rodolfo Although it is not looked down on the show, but in order to facilitate action, but the blue to the police to produce their own invitation, sometimes in a "exhibits" stood in front of a pity Madame Bovary is not interested in the exhibits. He discovered, immediately change the subject, a woman, dressed in mock town Rong; followed, please forgive him dressed, and Emma. His dress seemed incongruous, not only ordinary, but also pay attention to, ordinary people used to seeing the clothes, ordinary people will see his life different. Beyond his feelings on track, the arts of his overbearing, and always mixed with some kind of looked down on the psychological social customs. This man not only attractive, but also provoking. Linen cuffs of his shirt wrinkles on his denim vest is gray, as long as with the wind, shirt collar where the drum will come out from the vest; his pants on the wide stripes, where exposed bone in the ankle Nanjing, paint a pair of cloth shoes. Patent leather shoes on the _set_ of very bright, even the grass shone out. He wore shoes that light in horse manure thief to walk on, a hand in jacket pocket, a straw hat awry on his head. "Besides," he then added, "A time to live in the countryside ... ..." "What are futile," Emma said. "You're right!" Rodolfo took it. "Just think, these rustic, no one knows the style of dress!" So they talked about the country's rustic, panting under the weight of life does not blow off steam, dashed hopes. "Therefore," Rodolfo said, "I sink in the abyss of depression in the ... ..." "You do!" She cried in amazement. "I thought you were happy then?" "Ah! Yes, apparently so, because in the crowd, I always laughing and joking in the face wearing a mask. But as long as the sight of the grave, in the moonlight, I am wondering how many back in their hearts: not to follow graves of people better ... ... " "Oh! That your friend?" She said, "Do not you want them!" "My friend? What is that person you? I have a friend? Who care about me?" Speaking of the last sentence, he unwittingly mouth blow the whistle sound. But they had to separate it because there is a lot of people who hold the chair came out from behind. Chairs piled so high, only to see the wood of his ten toes and fingers open. Is the man who dug the grave Terrace tiburon Dewar, who chairs the church to move out for everyone to sit. For as long as his interests, his imagination is rich, so we came up with this approach, the benefits from a little fishing show; his ideas well, because too many people to rent a chair, he did not know who to listen to good. Indeed, a hot country folk, to rushing to rent a chair, because the straw mattress smells incense smell, also dipped in thick melted back on the wax, so they respectfully sat up. Rodolfo Madame Bovary and then hanging on the arm. He said to himself up: "Yes ah! I'm always one! Missed many opportunities! Ah! If life has a purpose, if I get a real thing people, if I can find ... ... Oh! I wish I could run out of energy, overcome all difficulties and break all barriers! " "But, in my opinion," Emma said, "you do not anything to complain about it!" "Ah! You think so?" Rodolfo said. "Because, after all ... ..." she continued, "You are free." She hesitated a moment, said: "You have the money yet." "Do not make fun of me," he said. She vowed not joking. I heard the roar of cannons, we immediately rushed to the village crowded Side. Unexpectedly, this is the wrong signal, Mr. governor did not come, evaluation committee members felt very embarrassed, do not know should be a meeting, or the wait for a moment. In the end, the end of the square, there has been a rented four-wheel double-canopy coach and pull carts are two Shouma, a driver is wearing a white hat waving whip. Binet also had time to shout: "Take the gun!" United captain is not far behind. We ran to get mounted gun. We are scrambling. Some people also forget to wear collar. Fortunately, the governor seems to be driving them to understand their difficulties, two par Shouma, chewing his small chain bridle horse, swaying, went to the town hall of the small four cylinder before the National Guard and the fire just team time to gracefully team, beating drum running in place. "Stand firm!" Than the shouts. "Standing!" United captain shouted. "Line to the left!" Then a gun salute, gun hoop Cary karaoke sounds, like copper pots down the stairs normally, and guns are down. Ippolit inn little buddy came, took the reins of the hands of the coachman, although he is lame in one foot, or the horse to the Golden Lion inn's porch. There are a lot of country people crowded together to see the carriage. So cannon drums. One by one gentlemen took to the podium, got Ms. Du Washi lent thick red velvet armchair General Assembly. Mr. adults look similar. Loose skin on their faces, the sun tan a little bit dark, the color looks like a sweet cider, they reveal fluffy whiskers outside the collar, tied a white collar band, collar also end up with a rose flower They are velvet vest, has a round collar, they are linked to a strap end of the oval ruby seal; they are hands on thighs, legs carefully apart, the crotch of the material does not fade, brighter than worn leather boots. The ladies have a status sitting at the back, in the colonnade, in the middle sub-cylinder, while the ordinary people to stand opposite, or sitting in a chair. Indeed, the original move to Naples tiburon Dewar lawn chairs and have moved here, and he even went to the church around the clock to find the chair, as he did this back and forth trading, resulting in a flexible block , to come to the podium before a small ladder, but also very difficult. "I think," Mr. Le co hit back seat to the pharmacists to get in a word, said, "We should erect two flagpoles in Venice, put up a number of stately and imposing things, like new clothing items during the same That would look nice too! "(Part II section VIII) Flaubert in France of the nineteenth century literary realism, master, "Madame Bovary" and its fame as a masterpiece. 1856 "Madame Bovary" in the "Paris Journal" published, not only marked the history of nineteenth-century French novel, a turning point, and in the world of the literary genre of fiction in more than a century since the evolution and development process.
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"Madame Bovary" literary achievement
Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary, the focus is not to write her love story, and in writing to her fall from innocence, from the fall to the destruction of the causes and consequences, exposing mutilation of human nature of capitalist society, the corrosion of the human soul, and even devour people evil nature. Because the reasons for the destruction of Madame Bovary, is the education system under capitalism. Novels have a subtitle called "provincial customs." In addition to Madame Bovary's life experiences, it also provides people with what other provinces genre painting it? From this, we have seen, is a diverse group of provincial as_set_s ugly map. In this provincial town, has a head with a face full of some of the characters actually Yingyinggougou the generation! A town so, the bourgeoisie, the whole community, not imagine it? This is why "Madame Bovary" While writing the provincial towns, but with a vibration strength of the ruling class. Therefore these, coupled with biting satire of a powerful critique of the "Madame Bovary" become the "Red" and "human comedy", the 19th century critical realism and a masterpiece. "Madame Bovary" is not only a strong ideological content of the practical and critical effect, and artistic style of traditional realism, in succession, while the innovative results achieved, and even the world's literature in France, won universal praise and high evaluation.
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"Madame Bovary" as a dramatic negative
(1) anti-dramatic material: as environment, rural provinces, country wedding, unknown adultery, all the boring daily life, lament and so on. (2) the structure of the novel anti-dramatic: the use of Freund's picture or scene by a series of creative ways to move forward to replace the bar-style by Scott for the kind formed by the slow plot, climax and ending constitute the framework of the He is reminiscent of the passage of time, rather than the strong effects of condensation. Kundera novel combination of fragments and analysis of the relevant arguments. (3) anti-dramatic scenes: the stage of non-bar-style concentration, filtration, do not avoid the accident, but with the naturalism different. Emma and Romania to the novel in the county fair dating Road, Silver and with a church dating to a depend Ngong example. Flaubert type of intervention: the scene is processed and put together each other in order to achieve that is easy to understand the reality depicted in this, the interpretation of events from the events together created out of, not novelist direct intervention. Freund's show in the routine performance of poetry: people of the trance state. Several characters in the novel as an example.
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1991 version of the film
Chinese title: Madame Bovary Foreign Title: Madame Bovary Year: 1991 Country: France White: French Genre: Drama Length: 140 min Color: Color Level: Australia: PG Argentina: 13 USA: PG-13 Sweden: 11 UK: PG Spain: 13 Chile: 14 Germany: 12 Camera: Moviecam Cameras Directed by Director: Claude Chabrol Claude Chabrol Screenplay Writer: Claude Chabrol Claude Chabrol Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ..... novel Actor Actor: Isabelle Huppert Isabelle Huppert ..... Emma Bovary Jean - Francois Pakistan terme Jean-François Balmer ..... Charles Bovary Christophe Malavoy ..... Rodolphe Boulanger Let Yanan Jean Yanne ..... M. Homais Lucas Belvaux ..... Leon Dupuis Christiane Minazzoli ..... Widow Lefancois Jean-Louis Maury ..... Merchant Lheureux Florent Gibassier ..... Hippolyte Jean-Claude Bouillaud ..... Monsieur Rouault Sabeline Campo ..... Felicite Yves Verhoeven ..... Justin Marie Mergey ..... Charles Bovary's Mother François Maistre ..... Lieuvain Thomas Chabrol ..... Vicomte Phillippe Abitol Henry Ambert Jean-Marie Arnoux Henri Attal ..... Maltre Hareng Gilette Barbier ..... Natasie Dominique Clément ..... Madam Homais Olga Colin Claire Dalsace Catherine Deville Etienne Draber ..... Maitre Guillaumin Julien Dubois Pierre-François Dumeniaud ..... Hivert William Clément Michel Dupuy Marie Guyot Jean Joulin Jean-Jacques Lagarde Louis-Do de Lencquesaing .....( as Louis de Lancquesaing) René Marjac Pierre Martot Bernard Mazzinghi Mona Muche Christine Paolini ..... Mère Roler Claude Pascadel Christian Paumelle Valérie Soudant Tina Sportolaro André Thorent ..... Dr. Canivet Aleksandr Vatkovic Philippe Verquin Dominique Zardi ..... Blind Man Jacques Dynam ..... Abbe Bournisien François Périer .....Récitant / Narrator (voice) Pierre Vielhescaze Thierry Marcos ..... Serviteur Au Mariage (uncredited) Producer Produced by: Marin Karmitz ..... producer Producers and Distributors: Production Company: CED Productions [France] Club des Investissments Conseil General de L'Eure Conseil Régional de Haute Normandie [France] France 3 Cinéma [France] MK2 Productions [France] Distributor: MK2 Diffusion [France] ..... (2007) (France) (all media) Profilmar PC [Spain] ..... (Spain) Samuel Goldwyn Company [United States] ..... (USA) (subtitled) United Films [Brazil] ..... (199?) (Brazil) (VHS) Other companies: Bande rythmo ..... post-synchronisation DC Audiovisuel [France] ..... sound re-recording Eurocitel ..... titles Matériel Cinécam France ..... camera systems Studios de Billancourt [France] ..... auditorium Transpalux [France] ..... electrical equipment Release Date: France France April 3, 1991 Germany Germany October 3, 1991 Netherlands Netherlands October 11, 1991 United States USA December 25, 1991 Spain Spain June 26, 1992 Sweden Sweden January 15, 1993 Synopsis: Romantic French rural areas, wealthy peasant girl Emma loved by his father, had been sent to the monastery received a good education. Mr. Bovary is the local country doctor, and his cautious, beloved. Emma in the treatment of leg when his father fell in love with the handsome educated girl. When he hesitantly propose marriage to the father of the request Emma, Emma's father repeatedly endorsed and promised to ask her daughter's advice immediately. Yan dance in a song, Emma has become Madame Bovary. After marriage, Emma gradually to the level produced a lack of offensive life. One day, Dr Bovary received a lord's party invitation, in the noble men and women dressed dance, an elegant and aristocratic gentleman invited Emma to dance. That night she saw the life of high society that her life has been more clearly another, more intense longing for ... ... Behind the scenes: This film, directed by French New Wave master Charles Hornblower's quite faithful to the original 1991 edition, but the handling was very boring, the actress Huppert's performance is too cold, even the birth of a child does not show a trace of the scene are angry. 1934 version directed by Jean Renoir been cut at the launch of up to an hour, the film reveals the traces of the early works of Renoir, deep focus photography while showing the beautiful French countryside and monotonous, but the actress seems to the wrong actor. U.S. in 1949 directed by the text 森特明奈利, dance scene has become a classic.
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Movies 2000
Basic information: Chinese title: Madame Bovary Foreign Title: Madame Bovary Year: 2000 Country: United Kingdom Dialogue: English Type: Romance / Drama Length: Sweden: 153 min Color: Color Level: UK: 15 Australia: MA Singapore: M18 Directed by: Directed by Director: 蒂姆费威尔 Tim Fywell Screenplay Writer: Flaubert Gustave Flaubert .....( novel) Heidi Thomas .....( screenplay) Actor Actor: 弗兰西丝奥 O'Connor Frances O'Connor ..... Emma Bovary Hugh Boneiweili Hugh Bonneville ..... Charles Bovary Eileen Atkins Eileen Atkins ..... Marie Louise Desmond Barrit ..... Guillaumin (episode 3) Keith Barron ..... L'heureux (episodes 2, 3) Adam Cooper ..... Vicomte (episode 1) Hugh Dancy Hugh Dancy ..... Leon Marian Diamond ..... Sister Marie Paul (episode 1) Claire Hackett ..... Madame Homais (episodes 2, 3) Jenny Howe ..... Sister Evangeline (episode 1) Barbara Jefford ..... Marquise (episode 1) Stanley Lebor ..... Binet Mary MacLeod ..... Madame Lefrancois (as Mary Macleod) Roy Macready ..... Vincart (episode 3) Phillip Manikum ..... Lestiboudois Joe McGann ..... Paul Jessica Oyelowo ..... Felicite Trevor Peacock ..... Rouault Joe Roberts ..... Justin (episodes 2, 3) Willie Ross ..... Hurdy Gurdy Man (episodes 1, 3) David Troughton ..... Homais Thomas Wheatley ..... Dr. Canivet (episode 2) Geleihuaisi Greg Wise ..... Rodolphe (episodes 2, 3) Producer Produced by: Cahal Bannon ..... associate producer Rebecca Eaton ..... executive producer: WGBH Bernard Krichefski ..... producer Tony Redston ..... producer Hilary Salmon ..... executive producer David M. Thompson ..... executive producer Original Music Original Music: John Lunn Photography Cinematography: Chris Seager Clip Film Editing: Roy Sharman Casting Director Casting: Sarah Bird Art Director Production Designer: John Paul Kelly .....( as John-Paul Kelly) Art and Design Art Direction by: Niall Moroney Anne Seibel _Set_ decorators _Set_ Decoration by: Sara Wan .....( uncredited) Costume Design Costume Design by: Anushia Nieradzik Deputy Director / Assistant Director Assistant Director: Arnaud Boquier ..... second assistant director: French crew Connie Boylan ..... second assistant director Alexandra Cooper ..... third assistant director Sam Hill ..... first assistant director Producers and Distributors: Production Company: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) WGBH Boston [USA] ..... (co-production) Other companies: 2020 Casting Ltd. [United Kingdom] ..... extras casting JAM Location Services [United Kingdom] ..... location assistance Release Date: Sweden Sweden January 13, 2001
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English Expression
: Madame Bovary
Containing Phrases
Harvard (university) Lanxing Bilingualism Classic give guidance to reading Madame Bovary