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Madame Bovary Full Book Summary. Madame Bovary begins when Charles Bovary is a young boy, unable to fit in at his new school and ridiculed by his new classmates. As a child, and later when he grows into a young man, Charles is mediocre and dull. He fails his first medical exam and only barely manages to become a second-rate country doctor.
- Part Three, Chapters Iv–Xi
A summary of Part Three, Chapters IV–XI in Gustave...
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Emma Bovary. The novel’s protagonist, the Madame Bovary of...
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Full Title Madame Bovary Author Gustave Flaubert. Type of...
- Madame Bovary: Study Guide
Madame Bovary is considered a seminal work of literary...
- Part Three, Chapters Iv–Xi
- Overview
- Summary
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Madame Bovary, novel by Gustave Flaubert, serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856 and then published in two volumes the following year. Flaubert transformed a commonplace story of adultery into an enduring work of profound humanity. Madame Bovary is considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, and, according to some, it ushered in a new age of realism in li...
Madame Bovary tells the bleak story of a marriage that ends in tragedy. Charles Bovary, a good-hearted but dull and unambitious doctor with a meagre practice, marries Emma, a beautiful farm girl raised in a convent. Although she anticipates marriage as a life of adventure, she soon finds that her only excitement derives from the flights of fancy she takes while reading sentimental romantic novels. She grows increasingly bored and unhappy with her middle-class existence, and even the birth of their daughter, Berthe, brings Emma little joy.
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Grasping for idealized intimacy, Emma begins to act out her romantic fantasies and embarks on an ultimately disastrous love affair with Rodolphe, a local landowner. She makes enthusiastic plans for them to run away together, but Rodolphe has grown tired of her and ends the relationship. A shocked Emma develops brain fever and is bedridden for more than a month. She later takes up with Léon, a former acquaintance, and her life becomes increasingly chaotic. She embraces abstractions—passion, happiness—and ignores material reality itself, as symbolized by money. She is utterly incapable of distinguishing between her romantic ideals and the harsh realities of her life even as her interest in Léon wanes. Her debts having spun out of control, she begs for money, but all turn her down, including Léon and Rodolphe. With seemingly nowhere to turn and on the verge of financial ruin and public disclosure of her private life, Emma swallows arsenic and dies a painful death.
Madame Bovary: moeurs de province (“Madame Bovary: Provincial Customs”) first appeared from October 1 to December 15, 1856, in installments in the Revue de Paris. Upon its release, the French government accused Flaubert of obscenity. The ensuing trial and his acquittal only heightened interest in the work upon its release in book form in 1857.
In its portrayal of bourgeois mentalities, especially its examination of every psychological nuance of its title character, Madame Bovary came to be seen as both the principal masterpiece of realism and the work that established the realist movement on the European scene. The novel was also notable for the brilliance of its style, its carefully cadenced prose drawing comparisons to poetry. Flaubert placed great importance on style, and he spent some five years on Madame Bovary, constantly rewriting it.
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Book Summary. Charles Bovary, the only son of a middle-class family, became a doctor and set up his practice in a rural village. He made a marriage of convenience with a woman older than himself. Upon his wife's death, Bovary married an attractive young woman named Emma Roualt, the daughter of one of his patients.
Overview. Madame Bovary is a foundational realist novel. Authored by the esteemed French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), Madame Bovary was first released through serialization in 1856, and then formally published as Flaubert’s debut novel in 1857. Madame Bovary is one of the earliest examples of realism in literature and is credited with ...
Madame Bovary Summary. Madame Bovary opens during Charles Bovary 's childhood. An outcast in his new school, Charles does not fit in, and he suffers ridicule. As he grows older, we learn that he is fairly dull and lacks talent in his chosen profession, medicine. Charles becomes a poor doctor who does not earn much respect from his peers.
Madame Bovary, Sentimental Education, the Three Stories and the unfinished Bouvard and Pécuchet describe the lives of his contemporaries, especially the petit bourgeoisie, but in the historical novel Salammbô, published just after Madame Bovary, he returns to the lurid style of his earlier work. Flaubert wrote slowly and painstakingly, and ...
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