Madame+Bovary

=Madame Bovary=

Madame Bovary, written in 1865, is the debut novel of Gustave Flaubert, a notable French writer. The novel is set around the French countryside, where the main character Emma Bovary is the wife of a fairly well-to-do doctor. This setting is drawn from Flaubert's own past, as he was born and brought up in Rouen. Rouen is a relatively small town in France, and is the basis for Yonville, the fictional setting (actually said to be close to Rouen in the novel). When Madame Bovary was first serialized in La Revue de Paris, it came under a lot of fire for dealing with the topic of extramarital affairs (which comprises a fair amount of the subject matter). This resulted in an 1857 trial, which gave the book itself a notorious reputation in the French society of the time. However, this increased sales, and it quickly became a bestseller when it was released as a single volume in April 1857. ==This novel begins with the character of Charles Bovary, an awkward teenager in boarding school who is constantly ridiculed by his fellow students. He struggles through school, but eventually ends up with a mediocre medical degree at the request of his parents. He continues to do his parent's bidding by marrying the wife his mother had picked out for him, who is supposedly rich but never contributes money to their house. One day, Charles travels to fix the leg of a local farmer when he encounters the beautiful, young, adventurous Emma Rouault, the farmer's daughter. He falls in love with Emma, and makes frequent visits to the Rouault household in order to see her. His wife finds out about these visits, and thereby forbids him to make any more visits there. However, she soon dies, and Charles and Emma marry.==

From here, the novel shifts its attention to Emma's character, where Charles is clumsy but means well. Everything seems just fine, until Charles brings Emma to an elegant ball. After the ball is over, Emma realizes the monotony of her married life and begins to find everything very dull and boring. Charles then moves to Yonville, where Emma meets an intelligent young law student named Leon, but does not act upon her intentions to maintain her image as a wife and mother. Leon then moves to Paris, leaving Emma with Charles until a wealthy man named Rodolphe moves into town. Emma and Rodolphe then begin an affair spanning four years, at the end of which they make plans to run away together, but Rodolphe ends the relationship right before the plan was to be executed. This leaves Emma in a depression, and she turns to religion to keep her occupied in her grief. However, Emma's newfound contentment is abandoned when she takes a trip to an opera in nearby Rouen, where she encounters Leon again. The two begin an affair, but they quickly bore of one another. In order to entertain herself in her dull marriage, Emma develops a taste for expensive items and begins accumulating debt. Eventually, the debt needs to be paid, so she approaches every acquaintance she has to no avail. In a desperate panic, she swallows arsenic and effectively commits suicide.

Madame Bovary, being an old French novel, provides a lot of insight into the way France was in the 1850s. It provides a fairly accurate account of the culture in regards to marriage, as it is considered one of the first realist texts. In fact, Madame Bovary's realistic narration was one of the first of its kind, and set the baseline for the narration most commonly seen today. Within the novel are valuable looks into the literary canon, art and entertainment, medical/scientific practices, and architecture of Rouen and the neighboring country as it was when the novel was written, which allows us to better understand the history and past of the Rouen we will see. It also helps us understand the cultural views of the time, not only through the eyes of Emma Bovary, but also through the reception that its subject matter received in the public eye. Overall, Madame Bovary helps us as travelers better understand the history and cultural context of France as a result of not only the setting, but also the plot.